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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think being bullied doesn't justify stabbing someone in the face?

328 replies

Topaz25 · 13/02/2014 11:34

So this article popped up in my newsfeed today. Teenager stabs girl in the face and beats another black and blue because they called him HARRY POTTER
www.facebook.com/dailymirror/posts/552566581523132

I was shocked at the amount of comments defending him! I was bullied as a child so I do understand it is devastating but that doesn't justify stabbing someone in the face! He didn't just lash out in the moment, he went home to get a knife to cause maximum damage, he lead the girls to the park, he thought this through. He is a danger to the public. I am also surprised at the sentence, I think stabbing someone in the face while shouting "die, die!" indicates intent to kill and should have been charged accordingly. I do wonder if his supporters would want to live next to him when he gets out or have him round to dinner since he is so misunderstood? I don't agree with bullying but when he attacked two younger girls I feel he effectively became the bully, it was a massive overreaction to the situation and he had other options. AIBU?

OP posts:

SaucyJack · 13/02/2014 11:58

The cold, hard fact is it would not have happened if they'd been sat at home with their gobs shut.

Does that apply to all victims of violent crime?

Don't be thick. You simply cannot pretend that they had no more of a hand in what happened to them than an elderly mugging victim or a teenage girl getting raped on the way home from her college.

TheWitTank · 13/02/2014 11:59

Here's betting that the Harry Potter comment was the very mild end of the crap they gave this lad. You can only push people so far and they will snap. No he absolutely shouldn't have attacked them, but do I feel sorry for them? Hell no.

Farrowandbawl · 13/02/2014 12:01

It doesn't justify it no but I can understand why he did it.

I hit my bully with a chair so hard the chair leg broke. Yes I was punished for it but at that point I stopped giving a shit.

That was after 6 years of constant bullying. Like other posters, I feel more sorry for him than the girls.

AnswersThroughHaiku · 13/02/2014 12:02

This reminds me of
The abused woman who set
Her husband on fire.

OwlCapone · 13/02/2014 12:03

Don't be thick. You simply cannot pretend that they had no more of a hand in what happened to them than an elderly mugging victim or a teenage girl getting raped on the way home from her college.

I think you can apply your first sentence to yourself. He went home specifically to get a nice and stabbed a girl in the face so hard it broke the blade and you think it's their fault. You sound delightful.

Original poster

Topaz25 · 13/02/2014 12:04

She was trapped in abusive marriage though whereas this man had the option to walk away. TBH this case reminds me of abusive husbands justifying attacking their wives because they spoke out of turn and the people who blame the victims.

OP posts:

OwlCapone · 13/02/2014 12:04

If he had lashed out with something that was to hand that would be different. He didn't though.

Original poster

Topaz25 · 13/02/2014 12:06

That's a good point OwlCapone, I think fetching the knife shows premeditation and that he had choices.

OP posts:

brooncoo · 13/02/2014 12:06

My husband was getting picked on at school by a group of boys as he was small and smart. Took it then one day punched one of them on his ear, bursting his ear drum or such - tough, they left him alone after that.

Don't know the whole details to this case but some folk deserve to be punched or whatever.

NaggingNellie · 13/02/2014 12:06

the phrase...

'people who go looking for trouble should always find it'

i don't think could be anymore apt in this situation, i do feel for the girls I think most teens have their fair of un- shining moments of behaviour to look back and cringe hard at, but these girls will be looking in the mirror everyday and be horrified for the rest of their lives.

I think he finally snapped, but should still be punished you cannot go round stabbing people in the face.

Oblomov · 13/02/2014 12:06

Was it those girls who bullied him relentlessly?
I'm not condoning a knife attack, but someone has to be held responsible for the fact that he snapped after years of bullying.

cory · 13/02/2014 12:08

I haven't seen any comments like this: the local paper just had the parents of the attacked girls saying how he should have a much longer punishment. Nobody criticised the bullying.

One of the mums said "what's he going to do next time someone calls him names?" as if following somebody down the road calling them names and spitting them in the face was perfectly normal behaviour.

They went on about what lovely girls they were and didn't seem to see any contradiction at all.

Yes, he needs to be punished. Yes, it is a terrible thing.

But if one of my children had behaved like those girls did, I would be shamed and I would say so. The fact that these mothers didn't seem to see anything odd about their behaviour speaks volumes.

CaptainGrinch · 13/02/2014 12:08

I think you can apply your first sentence to yourself. He went home specifically to get a nice and stabbed a girl in the face so hard it broke the blade and you think it's their fault. You sound delightful

Which may give you some idea of how much the bullying affected him.

I don't think his actions were right, but I don't have any sympathy for the girls either.

Bullies are scum, I don't care what happens to them.

Original poster

Topaz25 · 13/02/2014 12:09

I haven't seen anything that said it was those girls, just that he was bullied at school. It was unlikely to be them because they were years younger than him. I think he was probably bullied by stronger boys his own age and couldn't retaliate against them so took out his anger on weaker, younger targets. Like a bully.

OP posts:

Original poster

Topaz25 · 13/02/2014 12:10

Sorry that was in reply to oblomov

OP posts:

SaucyJack · 13/02/2014 12:11

Of course it was their fault Owl

Which part of "they followed him to the park" do you not get?

If you're gonna be a cunt to someone for no good reason, then you have absolutely no grounds to complain when they turn out to be an even bigger and madder cunt than you if you're asking me.

LessMissAbs · 13/02/2014 12:12

Moomin LesMiss grabbing someone's shopping bag and calling them 'Harry Potter' is a bit of a weird way of 'socialising' with someone... as is then getting up and following them to the park when they've made it clear (by throwing water over you) that they don't want you to follow

I have no idea. They are very young girls and perhaps don't have the best social skills. Wouldn't it be a shame though if they were trying in their own clumsy way to socialise with him? Perhaps just as fanciful as suggesting they deserved to be attacked.

The court will almost certainly have ordered pre-sentencing MH reports, and the fact that he still got a long sentence for a first time offender (if he is one) indicates that there was no great amelioration of guilt to be found within them.

Bear in mind that many criminals have some type of MH condition, often on the sociopathy scale.

Gonnabmummy · 13/02/2014 12:12

No it definitely doesn't justify what he did...

Stabbing someone so hard in. The face the knife broke!!
Screaming die die while battering the other (have you seen her face)

I think most people have been called a name before.. I wouldn't say I've been bullied but have had the odd name hurled my way usually to do with size for no reason.

If it is how it's portrayed at that age as young girls they were probably miffed someone threw water all over their hair and make up and followed him because of that

Even if he had been bullied by others for a long time this wasn't lashing out it was premeditated he had time to think about what he would do and still did it.

MoominIsGoingToBeAMumEEEEK · 13/02/2014 12:13

Topaz - that, or their 'weakness'/age didn't matter a jot, he took his anger out on the people who were picking on him on that day.

I just can't see how anyone can say these girls are without blame/have any sympathy for them.

Dahlen · 13/02/2014 12:14

Bullying is a weird thing. When people fight back against it, it is surprisingly common for the response to be completely out of proportion - partly because a long period of anger and resentment is fuelling it, so that the response is motivated by pure rage, rather than assertiveness. When people are that angry, they often lose control.

There is a moral to this story, which is if you bully someone relentlessly, at some point you may come off worse.

All that said, while my sympathy for the girls may be slightly limited, I do have sympathy for them because their crime is in no way proportionate to the punishment they've received, and it's right that the bullying victims' experiences at the hands of these girls was only allowed to mitigate his sentencing to a finite extent.

The sad fact is that society would go to hell in a hand cart very quickly if being ill treated became justification for murder and extreme violence. Far better to use the available laws to stop the mistreatment before things reach that point.

That in itself of course raises wider concerns - why don't we take bullying in schools and the workplace more seriously? Why don't we do more to deal with relationship bullying?

Fakebook · 13/02/2014 12:15

I was told about this last night by my brother, and just read the story which is a coincidence.

Whilst I think a knife attack was a few hundred steps too far, those girls had something coming. I think they'd been bullying him for a few years. I hope everyday when they look in the mirror, they remember not to pick on someone.

MoominIsGoingToBeAMumEEEEK · 13/02/2014 12:15

The thought of these 15/16 year old girls being helpless little dumplings, trying 'in their own little way' to socialise with him by calling him Harry Potter makes me laugh

Farrowandbawl · 13/02/2014 12:15

Bollocks.

Girls are bitches. End of. Some of them think they nothing can happen to them and rely on others not reacting back in spite of anything they do or say. Except one day, usually, someone does react and will react badly, but of course, it's never their fault is it? It's the person who reacted who is at fault.

DanceParty · 13/02/2014 12:16

Topaz said - Would you feel the same if your daughter was scarred for life for calling someone a name?

I'd have told my daughter that she shouldn't be a bully and that is the lesson she has now learned the hard way.

And I truly honestly doubt that they just 'called him a name' the once. It was sustained bullying over a period of time.

Silly little girls have now learned consequences. No good running to the papers playing 'poor me'.

jennifleurs · 13/02/2014 12:17

I loathe bullying and it made my life hell when I was at school. Girls only backed off in year 11 when I changed my appearance and snapped back at them.

But he is 19, he needs to fucking grow up a bit. The pictures of those girls are horrifying.

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