Rubbish punishment for luring Olly Stephens to his death.

[Mariell]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10025453/Schoolgirl-14-lured-13-year-old-boy-park-stabbed-death-locked-up.html

All three should receive the same punishment.

Three years is disgusting as she was the one that lured him knowing that he would be attacked.

Hard labour for twenty years in Siberia would be a more fitting punishment for the three of them.

[quote HowToMurderYourLife]@itsgettingwierd I disagree. There is plenty of social media evidence that they wanted to fight and humiliate him, but there isn’t evidence on SM that they set out to stab him. If there was it would have been key evidence. A lot of the social media posts floating around online saying otherwise were proven not to come from their phones.

If you read the judges comments during sentencing they accept the girl didn’t know a knife would be brought. I think the boys liked carrying knives and thought it made them the big man and they could terrify and humiliate Olly, but again no evidence on social media they they set out with the intention of killing him. The boy didn’t pull out the knife until it was clear Olly was getting the upper hand.

All our kids need to know that knives are not clever and this is the way any fight can turn out if one is present and that all their futures could be fucked. Not just the kids you consider bad.[/quote]
They took a knife with them.

A knife.

I have very little doubt it was to cut sandwiches and share a picnic with him.

They took a knife. That was intended to be used.

My son was a victim of knife crime where luckily he wasn't stabbed and 6 years later he still has panic attacks if he sees the school it happened at or the adults there who failed to protect him from the bully who escalated to this point.

It was known what was going on. I'm lucky my autistic son is still here to tell his tale.

Unfortunately Olly is not.

They took a knife - it wasn't an accident.

@Winecurestiredness

What about the parents of those evil girls and boys. The girls and boys are just children. But a responsible adult is behind despicable behaviour like that. You would think that teenagers like that (the perpetraitors) have had at least 1 social worker involved in their lives at some point. One of the parents could be charged with neglect potentially, and they deserve as harsh a sentence as their kids.

I don’t think you can just jump to that conclusion immediately

@itsgettingwierd, you’re wrong, that’s why the presence of the knife was not enough on its own to convict. Plenty of people are arrested after fights and found to have knives which were not used.

Unfortunately knives are being glamorised in many circles and on social media. Teenagers think it makes them look tough and cool and not to be messed with. Most of them will never be pulled on another person. That’s what we need to tackle along with the toxicity of social media, just writing off the children involved as evil cold blooded killers won’t do a thing to stop another child being murdered.

The boy didn’t pull out the knife until it was clear Olly was getting the upper hand.
Was that part of their defence?
Well if only he'd passively took the beating we wouldn't have had to stab him, so it's his fault really??

@MichelleScarn it shows that the initial intent wasn’t to go and stab him. That’s the big part of the problem with knives being carried. The kids don’t intend to use it but in the heat of the moment out it comes and someone is seriously injured or worse. It is why saying they only carried the knife because they intended to kill someone doesn’t help. Because most teenagers would say they wouldn’t do that, they just want to scare them and then kids end up dead.

[quote HowToMurderYourLife]@itsgettingwierd, you’re wrong, that’s why the presence of the knife was not enough on its own to convict. Plenty of people are arrested after fights and found to have knives which were not used.

Unfortunately knives are being glamorised in many circles and on social media. Teenagers think it makes them look tough and cool and not to be messed with. Most of them will never be pulled on another person. That’s what we need to tackle along with the toxicity of social media, just writing off the children involved as evil cold blooded killers won’t do a thing to stop another child being murdered.[/quote]
The knife alone wasn't enough to convict.

But carrying a knife is a crime in itself.

But I'm not wrong that they took it knowing they were planning on doing something to Olly.

They didn't take it to cut sandwiches.

The problem is no one is harsh enough or quick enough to deal with bullying when it starts. This gives bullies power.

The police wouldn't even get involved when my son was a victim - said it was schools responsibility to deal with.

The school refused to even accept my ds was anxious after the incident (he was already under camhs for anxiety).

These children know what they are doing and it's better to know at a young age there are consequences than keep having the repeat offences because the system is weak.

Maybe it's just America but normally the person who planned it gets more. It is ridiculous I mean tbh 13 years is ridiculous. Murder sentences need to change in this country it's a joke. The girl who planned it is a disgrace.

The punishment for carrying knives should be harsh, hard and real.

Stop all this namby pamby "well they didn't intend to use it" after they've murdered someone and make it something no one wants to carry (if you believe the bollocks they don't intend to use it - ever).

It's too late once they've used it. They've already ruined countless lives

Rehabilitation is all very good for minor crimes but murder and extreme violence etc deserve at least a minimum of ten years behind bars.

Such a dreadfully sad case. The girl involved was in DD's year. It's had such an impact in our community. So many lives wasted.

I agree @itsgettingwierd, that’s what I have been saying. These kids things it’s a game and it makes them look tough, some carry as they think they need it to defend themselves. Sentencing for carrying needs to be far tougher and kids need to be fully aware that just because they don’t mean to use it doesn’t mean that they won’t or that their own knife won’t end up being used on them. It’s not glamorous, it’s not clever, knives ruin lives and blight communities.

@Mariell - Three years is appalling but no surprise because females always get off lightly.

What evidence do you have for this?

Actually, women are consistently punished more severely for murder, eg if a partner, than men are. See www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2019/jan/12/intimate-partner-violence-gender-gap-cyntoia-brown and www.thetimes.co.uk/article/women-get-tougher-sentences-than-men-cjpdx65q7

Lots of reasons for this, from a prejudiced (old white middle class male) judiciary to institutional sexism.

This case is horrible. Poor Olly.

Such a dreadful case heartbreakingly sad. His poor poor parents. I have two boys (asd) and it has made me feel sick, there is such a vulnerability social media is a minefield for NT let alone autistic children trying to navigate a teenage world and all the social media nonsense and can be so easily misunderstood.

@Cinderss

Honeytrappers should get a big sentence, to deter it from happening. 3 years is ridiculous when she’s part of the reason hes dead. At 14 she would’ve been vulnerable to the ‘cool guy’ asking her to do them a favour and lure poor olly to the site. The fact she got only 3 years is not a big deterrent for the other thousands of girls put in her position each year to say no. I grew up in a rough area and whenever boys wanted a fight, they would almost always use girls to lure them to where they wanted them. It’s ended so tragically with a life being lost this time.

Out of interest, how much attention did you pay to sentencing guidelines as a fourteen year old?

Out of interest, how much attention did you pay to sentencing guidelines as a fourteen year old?

You don't need to know sentencing guidelines to know what they did is horrific regardless of age.

Sentences don’t deter offences from happening, those young people who are so entrenched into gang life / county lines don’t think about the sentence they will get - it’s just a way of life for them

It’s is an awful awful case. My heart goes out to Olly and his family.

There are a lot of boys lost to knife crime who we never see on the news and in the papers and whose parents we don’t hear from. If people speculating about what the aggressors’ homes and parents were like have a point it’s that there are sections of our communities where children have far fewer chances to escape cycles of violence. Individually though knives are confiscated from some very lovely, very scared and very ordinary children. Post in Mumsnet about a teen having a door slam about about something innocuous and people rush to remind you about their incomplete brain development. In this though some people want punishments in excess of those given out to adults.

I would like to see much more work done with teens to make them understand the reality of sentencing, what an assault is, what carrying a knife can lead to because the reluctance of police to get involved in school fights and assaults devalues their significance. We have got a lot to fight back against when so many young people have such poor understanding of consequence.

I would like to see much more work done with teens to make them understand the reality of sentencing, what an assault is, what carrying a knife can lead to because the reluctance of police to get involved in school fights and assaults devalues their significance. We have got a lot to fight back against when so many young people have such poor understanding of consequence.

Agree with this wholeheartedly. Also, information about the lifelong consequences of having a serious criminal conviction.

I would like to see much more work done with teens to make them understand the reality of sentencing, what an assault is, what carrying a knife can lead to because the reluctance of police to get involved in school fights and assaults devalues their significance. We have got a lot to fight back against when so many young people have such poor understanding of consequence.

Also agree. And one of the complications is that teens are not adults. Their brains are not yet fully formed, they are at a stage in their lives when pushing boundaries of what's acceptable is part of how they grow, and they have poor impulse control and a very poor grasp of consequences.

None of this excuses what these kids did - not at all. Most teenagers manage to not horrifically murder anyone. But if we want to stop other kids being knifed, we can't just attribute it to "evil", and realise that but for the grace of god, there go our own teenagers, either as murderer or as victim.

I also wonder, how many teens are feeling utterly hopeless, and helpless, in the current world and country environment, and think there's no point to anything, so why not do what you want to do, damn the torpedoes? And how rage-filled, as a result?

NOT excusing what these teens did. Nothing could ever excuse or justify what they did. But I am wondering about the increase in violence that seems to be the current situation. Not just teens, truth be told.

@ChiefInspectorParker

She’s only 14, she pleaded guilty and the plea to manslaughter was accepted which I assume means the prosecution must have accepted she only believed the killers intended some harm, not serious harm.

I agree that it does not feel like an adequate sentence for this appalling killing and must be extremely difficult for his family and friends to take in.

I agree with this.