internet troll jailed - a bit ott?

[netherlee]

Troll jailed

OK this man is depraved and he deserved to be punished, but AIBU to think prison is a bit far? Then again, MN trolls take note. There are consequences if you cross the line.

[chill1243]

He needs help But it needed sorting

[kelly2000]

Aspergers does not mean you are nasty, stupid or cruel. I know several people with aspergers, they are all kind, and each one has a phd. They are just rather socially inept. We should not assume that he is some incapable idiot not aware of consequences simply because he has aspergers. I know engineers with aspergers, and they are well aware of consequences, they could not do their job otherwise. People here seem to be assuming that as he has aspergers the courts obviously messed up, but I think the courts, and especially his defense, made an assesment of his condition to guage its severity. His defense only used the fact he had aspergers to try to lighten his sentance, and did not go for an insanity plea (insanity does not mean crazy in a legal setting, it means not responsible for his actions), so they obviously realise dhis conditin was not that severe.

He went out of his way to target the family, upset them and target them on specific days, how could he not know what he was doing especially when the family asked him to stop and he replied nastily. he had a really good understanding of how people reacted to his behaviour. He was doing it to be cruel, and he was certainly made aware before he was arrested that he was being cruel and told to stop. It seems the only consequences of his actions he did not understand would be the consequences to himself, but that is the same for most criminals. He fully understood he was hurting people.
Someone on here mentioned that he might have thought the law stupid and should not be applied to himself. That is not an excuse. Most serious criminals think they are above the law, we cannot just excuse them for it. If someone raped a woman should he get off because he thought it was wrong that he could not have sex with who he wanted when he wanted? Where do we set the limits?

[Kladdkaka]

Absolutely there is cognitive impairment

Really? It's a cognitive difference, not a cognitive impairment. I can do complex maths calculations instantly in my head. Can you? I can read a non-fiction book and remember every single thing in it for the rest of my life. Can you? My hearing is so finely tuned that I have perfect pitch and can hear things that others can't. Can you? My focus and attention to detail is above and beyond anything that an NT can image, so much so that I get paid juge sums to proof read international scientific papers. Could you do that? So who has the cognitive impairment?

[Thumbwitch]

sausages - people are taking issue with you apparently calling Asperger's Syndrome a "so-called condition" - and asking you to clarify if you don't believe in it as a real condition, or whether you meant that you didn't necessarily believe this man has it - could you clarify please?

[StarlightMcKenzie]

What is the difference between what this boy did and all the Princess Di jokes/image alteration etc etc.?

video so acceptable it carries adverts

jokes


Were these people jailed? Nope. Why is what they did any different? It is different, but can you even explain why?

Can you expect a child with difficulties in social behaviour to understand the difference?

[AitchTwoOh]

interesting point, lenin. what kind of sentence did the people who bullied the young girl into killing herself get? i mean, of course it's bad to troll a grieving family, but to bully someone to the point of suicide is worse, i'd have thought.

[Kladdkaka]

huge, not juge. Doh!

[festi]

I agree kelly2000, I think the question of his jail term should really only apply to any possible vulnerability in jail.

[AitchTwoOh]

loving kladd's attitude.

[sausagesandmarmelade]

Yours wasn't an opinion sausages - you stated that you knew his behaviour was contrived, and you questioned whether he had AS.

Of course it was an opinion...and WRONG I said that I was sure his behaviour was contrived...
Also wrong re saying that I questioned whether he had aspergers.
I didn't. Please do not put words into my mouth....for your own reasons!

I don't have all day to sit on a forum answering your comments....so this will be my last response to you.

kelly an excellent post......completely agree with you

[MarginallyNarkyPuffin]

Agree Kelly2000 that people who have Aspergers do not necessarily behave the way this man has done. This is an extreme that probably has a lot to do with his personality and alcohol consumption (mentioned in the article and obviously likely to disinhibit and impair judgement) as well as the fact that he has Aspergers.

I also think that you can only help an adult who accepts help. All the social skills/awareness classes in the world won't help if he refuses to attend/co-operate. He probably hasn't been offered much in the way of tailored support, but setting aside the other issues he is a heavy drinking 25 year old man. No-one can make him listen.

[PeneloPeePitstop]

Kladdaka I can answer yes to quite a bit of that.
Again I'll reiterate the spectrum is so large that what is true for you may not be true for others.

Sausages you questioned AS as a diagnosis in itself in your post. Whether or not you actually intended to do that I do not know, but you were called on it on that basis and it was quite correct.

[Kladdkaka]

Kladdaka I can answer yes to quite a bit of that.
Again I'll reiterate the spectrum is so large that what is true for you may not be true for others.

Like any broad group of people they will have different strengths and weaknesses. The point was that saying 'absolutely there is cognitive impairment' about AS is ignorant and offensive.

[TakeThisOneHereForAStart]

Prison was the right thing.

I hope he also gets the help he needs, but what he did to those families at the most traumatic times of their lives is beyond cruel, and for their sakes he has to serve a prison term. He has caused harm and the families of his victims will need to see that his actions have been taken seriously.

There are thousands of trolls out there, we get them on here, and I've seen them on facebook and on SANDS. There's one woman who has made up dozens of miscarriages, stillbirths and neo-natal deaths under several different fake identities and caused a lot of hurt and upset to genuinely bereaved parents. And others again on facebook who set up pages to tell jokes about dead babies and children. One group managed to get hold of a photograph of someone's stillborn son, someone I know from SANDS, and photoshop a clown costume onto him to use it as the groups profile page. She is devastated by that.

Not all of those trolls will have special needs, some of them will just be vicious bastards. This man has been given an 18 week prison sentence and that seems quite lenient when you consider the extremes he went to, stealing and defacing photographs, abusing a woman on mothers day, making vile you tube videos, etc.

To choose mothers day, of all days, to abuse a grieving mother shows that there was calculation in what he was doing, if not genuine understanding.

It's people like him that have stopped me from ever sharing my photographs of my daughter with my friends on the internet. I would be destroyed if they fell into the wrong hands and a man like him was able to abuse her through them.

I think his sentence is lenient because of his AS, but his AS should not give him a get out of jail free card when the damage he has caused has been so great and so terrible.

He needs help and yes, he needs compassion, but he also needs to be in prison, as does anyone else who commits this sort of vicious abuse on grieving families. There are still trolls who are commenting on poor Natasha MacBryde and calling her Tasha the Tank Engine. That's happening because of what he did, and hopefully his sentence is a message to them that they will be the next to face the courts if they do not stop and that there are no excuses or reasons good enough to stop a prison sentence for something so cruel that causes so much pain.

[kelly2000]

starlight,
I think the difference was that he targeted the families. I am sure if someone sent hate mail to Prince william about his mother they would get jailtime too, and this is what this man did, accept he used social networking.
I think there is a problem in the UK with sentancing disparity however. For instance charlie gilmore got 18 months for swinging on a flag on the cenotaph for thirty seconds, whilst a man who through a brick through a car window injuring a toddler got 12 months, rapists can get off with cautions, and some ring leaders of a childpornography network got 12 months!

[chill1243]

yes, Kelly yours is a very thoughtful post.

The sentence I suppose is a deliberate deterrent sentence; partly because government are worried about freedom on message sites.

Lets face it there are excesses. I gather the young man had been warned previously. If treatment will help, I hope he gets it now. ( we must not forget that someof the families targetted will have been devastated)

It will be an influencial case, partly due to the massive publicity it has
received.

[MarginallyNarkyPuffin]

That's what made me rethink Starlight. Social networking sites and the internet generally are full of nasty, sick 'jokes' and pure bile directed at victims of atrocities, natural disasters etc. And attacks on celebs that have died tragically. If he had posted the stuff he did about famous people or not posted on the memorial pages then he wouldn't be going to prison. Even vile/sick personal attacks on the pages of living people are unlikely to get you into any trouble. For someone who has trouble gauging what is socially acceptable behaviour that's a minefield.

I don't know how else the police, CPS and courts can deal with someone who won't stop offending though. A tailored educational programme might be the best solution but I'd imagine that such things aren't routinely available/funded and the person concerned has to want the help.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Many people with ASDs DO have mental health issues, but mental health issues are not a part of the condition.

It is more that people with ASDs are treated inapproprately, and their world is confusing and often hostile.

If this boy had no mental health problems (although it sounds like he probably did due to the drinking) then he's sure gonna get them now.

Did you know that around 15% of under 25s with High Funciton Autism/AS have succeeded or attempted suicide? This is probably caused by those same type of people that caused the poor girl to kill herself.

Additionally, jailing a person for doing something simply because he didn't have the right support throughout his life is bullying behaviour.

We need to get our priorities right.

[fit2drop]

starlight but if we say things are acceptable because it was not dealt with in a previous situation we will never move forward.

If this is used as a bench mark for future harrassment/bullying etc on the internet then that can only be a good thing.

He appears more of a sociapath to me but thats just my opinion .

Kladdkaka. A brilliant and positive message from you re AS. Thank you for that.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

But he didn't send mail did he. He posted them on a public site.

[Kladdkaka]

My belief is that he knew exactly what he was doing and he didn't care. He did it because he's a cruel person and it has nothing to do with his AS.

I spend more time on a large international forum for people with AS than I do on here. I've been a member for many many years. In all that time I have not seen any of the meaness and bullying type behaviours common to other forums. It is the friendliest, most tolerant understanding forum I've come across. We know what it's like to be on the receiving end be it in real life or online probably better than most.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

fit, I don't think anyone is saying it was acceptable, or that it should not be dealt with.

What I am saying, is that the boy shouldn't have been bullied for his ASD.

There are other appropriate ways of 'dealing' with him. There is nothing to suggest he wouldn't agree to 'help'. Certainly if he was given a choice of prison OR 'help'.