To think justice served on the Mum of Disabled Child in Revenge Attack

[Mitmoo]

Thanks to milkmilk for posting this on a different thread but it has got lost.

The mother of a disabled child who plotted a revenge attack on a poster who launched attacks on a disabled child via the internet found not guilty.

DM but that doesn't matter - it's an important article.

A mother who joined a revenge attack on a man responsible for a vile campaign of internet abuse against her disabled daughter has been spared prison.

Sylvia Hooper, 52, was described as a ?decent and law-abiding? woman who dedicated her life to her seriously ill daughter Kim Arnold. But she snapped after looking on helplessly as a cowardly bully sent her a series of appalling comments via Facebook.

One labelled her a cripple and said the wheelchair user should be left to ?roll down a hill.?

Another message read: ?Your mother should have had an abortion. She only had you because she felt sorry for you.?

Mr Hooper, 19, punched the bully after his mother said ?hit him? and Berwick was then taken back to the family home by car. He was forced to crawl inside and make a ?grovelling apology? to his victim while on all fours. At one point he was hit on the chin with a rolled up newspaper.

All three admitted assault but denied false imprisonment and the judge ruled that not guilty verdicts should be entered.

He said: ?I sentence you on the basis that Mr Berwick sent messages that were wholly disgraceful and shameful but then tried to put the blame on his girlfriend.?

Mrs Hooper was given a conditional discharge. The two men were given community orders which included voluntary work.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2028961/Judge-spares-mother-jail-plotted-attack-internet-troll-posted-horrific-comments-disabled-daughter.html#ixzz1Vpq1S3To

Precised down full article on the above link.

Good for the judge, the right decision was made.

There should have been legislation, as there is with racist actions, to prevent the bully from doing this in the first place.

Yes, so you block them, I have people on block and no they can't message me and I can't message them..... but if they set up another account they could (and did)

Even the random people though will have their settings set to 'anyone can message me'....which I believe is the default setting?

Either way, I have mine set to 'only friends can message me'....and someone who was trying to find me on there, had to message my sister and ask her to pass it on to me.

So I should isolate myself further so that those who want to send abuse can't do so?

Several people I knew from school have managed to find me recently. If I went on total shutdown that couldn't happen.

GlitterKnickaz will you please do me a favour and read your security settings options?

If they set up another account they can NOT message you if you have your settings to 'only friends can message me'

Really at the risk of repeating myself...it IS that simple.

maybe disabled people should have their own fb, so that they can't mix with the nt world at all. then this poor man would never have been hurt.......

and people wouldn't have to see all those horrible people, eh

So I should isolate myself further so that those who want to send abuse can't do so?

When did it become about you?

I'm saying that at the first sign of this sicko bullying the girl, her security settings should have been changed so that it didn't escalate the way it did.

I'm leaving this thread now....honestly if I was talking instead of typing, I'd have a sore throat at this point

Shuffles off for a cuppa

The only reason you are able to send messages to ten and more random people Glitter is that they have not set their FB security so that 'friends only can send me a message'.

As worra has said repeatedly, it really is that simple and there is NO NEED for any FB user to expose themselves to the possibility of receiving messages from anyone they do not know.

It is no different to setting an email account to block spam mail.

It's not really just about me though, are you suggesting anyone who encounters any form of internet abuse isolate themselves completely?

I'm a teacher with a FB account, so it's on total lockdown for everything.
I understand what you are saying worra, my children have selected what they regard as appropriate for their settings, DD is very savvy and helped DS. Many of their friends have completely open accounts, wall, photos, the lot.
It still doesn't change my belief that the original attack should have been addressed by the police, the man's account deleted, his IP address blocked by FB and a caution issued for hate speak.

LeninGrad.. but it's about taking responsibility for your childrens' welfare - and your own., If you want to use social networking then yes, you've got to take some steps to safeguard yourself and them.

Why would anybody publish their address, phone number/mobile number or even real name to anybody on a social networking site? I'm not talking about RL friends one might have on FB, whom you would want to share those details, but the random friends one often has. Those random friends might become real friends in the future but until they do, they don't need the minutiae of your identifiable life.

The police and the courts can and will act but there's no need for the ongoing involvement and 'chatter' with a perpetrator. To do that is to give them what they want, which is a reaction. It isn't easy to ignore, I get that, but for your own children you often do what isn't easy if it's in their best interests.

There are some people who shouldn't be given access to a pocket calculator, let alone a social networking site.

worra is right - set fb setting correctly, and you cannot even be found on there (believe me, I was unsearchable for a good long while, and may still be can't remember )

if you can't be found in a random search, you cannot be messaged either.

but even if you want to be searchable, you can restrict who is able to see your wall/photos/message you/contact you. you used to be able to control who saw your friends list too, but think this is no longer possible (haven't checked in a while, shoudl do so)

the man was completely and utterly wrong for what he did.

but taking sensible steps to prevent abuse, in whatever form, is jsut that - sensible. it does not lessen the crime, and it does not "blame" the victim.

Worra is right in that the FB controls applied correctly could have prevented this. My FB is set to maximum privacy. Unless I search and invite you...you wouldn't know I exist on there. It does work, I tested it by removing OH from my friends list and getting him to log on and search for me. I did not appear in his friends lists, he could not see my wall posts...the only thing he could see were my posts on his wall. When he clicked on my name he just got my profile picture and a message saying I only share infomation with friends. No option to message me, no option to friend request, no nothing.

Please note, I am not condoning this mans actions at all.

Why would you want people to 'find you' Glitter? Surely you know who your friends were, and are, and are capable of making contact with them other than through mediums such as FB?

IMO the problem is that some people see having masses of FB friends as a mark of their personal popularity, but there are no prizes for those who have the most 'friends' and it is meaningless in RL.

The higher profile you have in the real world, the more likely you are to attract the type of sicko who gets their rocks off or finds something amusing about sending hate mail to people they do not know.

Why would anyone want to set themselves up as a target for anonymous mail on the 'net?

I agree with 2shoes. This can't have been solely Facebook abuse. How did they find the man/know where he lived? This sounds like abuse that also used Facebook ie the man was known to them.

If these things had been said to the daughter's face with witnesses would it not count as hate speech? And if it doesn't it should. Why should typing it on the the internet be any different. The disgrace is that the family didn't get the support they needed and the indiviual concerned wasn't stopped and punished for his appaling behaviour. I don't know if that is due to the police/courts or if the legislation is lacking.

The family's actions cannot be excused, but I think they are understandable in the context of the abuse and lack of official help in dealing with this repugnant individual. They were not just allowed to walk away. The mother has been given a conditional discharge and the men involved who presumably did the physical aspect of the kidnapping/assault have been given community service - many criminals are given similar sentences.

Meh, not going to lose any sleep over a nasty creep getting his comeuppance.

But unlike most of MN I think that sometimes violence is the answer.

They tried the legal route, it didn't help, so they sorted it out. If people are going to get upset about that then they should be looking at making it easier to get 'satisfaction' legally.

I would probably consider the same sort of thing if it were one of my kids on the receiving end. That's the way it goes, be careful who you fuck with.

I haven't bothered to get into the arguement about whether the victim in this, Mrs Hoopers DC, should be worried everytime she switched on her computer, which for many disabled people is a lifeline into the world, accept to link to Mencaps campaign.

But what i will say is that it isn't unusual for a judge to spare the criminal a prison sentence if their health needs cannot be met whilst in there. So in this case Mrs Hooper hasn't been given any special treatment. Mitigating circumstances are always taken into account.

The law is there, somewhat, to protect the disabled from hate crime, it needs to be strenghtened and used.