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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
MerryMarigold · 13/02/2014 12:17

When you are bullied, you will become a bully.

They are all to blame.

I think 4.5 years at his age is plenty so YABU in that respect.

Despite the article being written with more sympathy for the girls (let's face it, he didn't stab them for calling him Harry Potter), I did feel more sympathy for him. I think those girls parents never taught them and even now probably accept no responsibility for it. There is a chronic lack of kindness in our society and when we see the extreme effects of it, we want to leap on the most obvious person to blame.

I blame the girls' parents and I blame the parents of the other bullies who likely bullied this boy for years. I blame the school for not dealing with it properly. I blame a society which thinks it's acceptable to call names/ make someone feel small/ swear at people/ degrade etc. unless it's actually physical. If the boy had called the police because of what those girls did, he would be ridiculed. Even one night in a cell would be seen as too awful for these bullies. Can you see why he took it into his own hands?

SaucyJack · 13/02/2014 12:17

The girls were sitting on the stairs outside his flat- which suggests to me they were next-door neighbours so they would not have needed to be in the same school year for them to have been able to have made his life a misery.

wetaugust · 13/02/2014 12:18

A 4.5 minute sentence would be too long.

They harrassed him to the point where he snapped.

I can see why he did it - obviously provoked beyond his ability to cope

WhoNickedMyName · 13/02/2014 12:20

I'm really struggling to muster up any sympathy for the girls tbh.

MeepMeepVrooooom · 13/02/2014 12:21

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

Being bullied and having been subject to the odd bit of name calling is hugely different. Being bullied has a massive affect on your mental well being.

You underestimate what a build up of hurt and anger can do to someone. Were his actions justified? No. Were those girls actions justified? No.

He will be punished and so have those girls been. I feel sorry for the girls for what has happened but I also feel sorry for a young lad who has been bullied to the point of snapping to this extent.

Gonnabmummy · 13/02/2014 12:23

I doubt the girls were the ones who bullied him for years at school..
There's quite a large age gap school wise they won't have been at the same secondary school til he was half way through. Id guess boys bullied him them when the girls teased him he snapped.
He said himself it was monstrous so he knows he did wrong, not saying the girls should have called him names but at 19 he should of just ignored their childish behaviour

Original poster
Topaz25 · 13/02/2014 12:24

MerryMarigold

"When you are bullied, you will become a bully."
Not necessarily. I didn't. These girls have been attacked, are they now justified in being violent towards others because someone hurt them? When does it end?

"I think 4.5 years at his age is plenty so YABU in that respect."
For attempted murder? He wasn't charged with attempted murder, which is why he got away with 4.5 years but I think stabbing someone in the face while shouting "die, die!" indicates intent to kill and should have been charged accordingly. He'll probably be back out in 4.5 years, ready to stab the next person who insults him.

I do agree people should be kinder to each other and society should deal with bullying more strongly but that doesn't give people an exuse to take it into their own hands.

OP posts:
Original poster
Topaz25 · 13/02/2014 12:25

*in less than 4.5 years

OP posts:
cory · 13/02/2014 12:27

"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?"

by spitting in his face???

a teenager who thinks this is a way to socialise would need to be lacking in rather more than the best social skills

LessMissAbs · 13/02/2014 12:27

Theres nothing in that article to suggest he was bullied to the point of breaking point by those girls, for any other reason than his own reaction. It refers to "verbal abuse" and "goading" but does not say how long it carried on or how severe it was. tbh that's something a lot of us go through as a rite of passage, on the milder scale at least. Young people with too much time on their hands.

The fact he was able to throw a pint of water over them and then lead them to the park where he attacked them indicates to me he is not a total innocent in the matter.

Lilicat1013 · 13/02/2014 12:29

I strongly suspect he saw those girls day after day, and every time he saw them they would have another nasty remark or comment. The article said they were sitting on the stairs he had to use to get to where he lived. I assume they also living in the building or close by and he couldn't leave his house without potentially running in to them.

The fact that they followed him to the park and he knew that they would do this shows they have probably done it before. I wonder if they followed him a lot, shouting comments at him as he walked down the street.

His response was massively, massively out of proportion and wrong but I find it incredibly hard to feel any sympathy for them. I suspect they targeted him every time they saw him and it was their little game, winding him up, yelling comments and grabbing his stuff. That was his breaking point.

I wish it hadn't have come to that but as people have said, they wont be doing it again.

BackOnlyBriefly · 13/02/2014 12:30

Attacking someone with a knife isn't exact 'right' but may be understandable.

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?

Should we say that about rapists too? "He was just trying to be friendly"?

Original poster
Topaz25 · 13/02/2014 12:31

Did you just compare rape to calling someone Harry Potter and grabbing their bag? Did you really just do that?

OP posts:
CrystalJelly · 13/02/2014 12:31

Through my job I work often have to work with teenagers. Recently I've heard of a situation where a bullied boy at a local school snapped and stabbed the bully in the cheek with a compass.

Now yes that's violent, but how much abuse had that kid taken over a period of time before finally just losing it? I don't think people understand what it does to you.

I used to know a woman who was bullied at school because her mum had died, she took it and took it until one day she smashed her bully's head against one of the sinks in the toilets, smashing her teeth out in the process. She got suspended from school, but funnily enough the bullying stopped after that.

Bullies are cowards, there's a reason why years ago people used to teach their kids to smack someone who was being unpleasant to them.

Original poster
Topaz25 · 13/02/2014 12:31

There's a difference between smacking and stabbing though!

OP posts:
Callani · 13/02/2014 12:31

If you're incessently bullied, it's understandable that you may snap and hit the person with whatever is closest to hand - that is the result of bullying.

Going home, getting a knife and then seeking out the other people to "pay them back" is not an instinctive response to bullying, it's calculated and scary, a lot like the mass shootings in schools in the US.

The bullying may make you understand why he did something, but it doesn't justify it, not one slightest bit.

TheDoctorsNewKidneys · 13/02/2014 12:32

I'm torn. What he did is disgusting but they were vile too.

Why the fuck would you harrass someone to the point where they chuck water over you? It's disgusting and if they were my children I would be ashamed of their behaviour.

No, he shouldn't have stabbed them, but he wouldn't have done anything if they hadn't insisted on name calling and following him home. If people didn't tease and bully others, maybe people wouldn't snap and fight back occasionally.

Original poster
Topaz25 · 13/02/2014 12:32

Callani That's how I feel, getting the knife took it to another level.

OP posts:
Nataleejah · 13/02/2014 12:32

Don't go out harassing people. I don't feel sorry for those little cows at all.

cory · 13/02/2014 12:34

LessMiss, the local paper also states that they followed him to the park and spat in his face. Doesn't sound like a mild rite of passage to me.

I am not excusing him: I think he should have a prison sentence. Nobody should snap, violence is never excusable.

But I just can't get my head round these parents who speak as if following people round and calling them names and spitting at them was a perfectly normal thing for a happy and "outgoing" teen to do.

DanceParty · 13/02/2014 12:38

I lived in dread of my DS (Aspergers) 'snapping' after sustained bullying by a girl up the road. Every day he went out I would dread what would happen.

She would have deserved him turning on her - but he never did. He just came home and cried for hours on end because of what she did. He was 16.

She was a first class bitch and I hope her life is miserable. If ever I see her again.........

AgaPanthers · 13/02/2014 12:43

At 19 he isn't necessarily more mature than they were.

Legally speaking at 19 you aren't treated as an adult, you would be sent to a young offenders institute, not an adult prison.

So the law does recognise a difference at this age.

Four years is actually quite a substantial sentence.

ifyourehoppyandyouknowit · 13/02/2014 12:45

It goes without saying that you shouldn't stab people in the face. And he's been convicted and punished for what he did.

Those girls... no they did not deserve to be hurt. I wouldn't wish ill on them at all. BUT my sympathy is limited. I think they have learnt a lesson about bullying, unfortunately it was dealt very very harshly. They followed him to the park. They followed him because they wanted to torment him. They weren't being friendly. They spat in his face. They sound like horrid bitches, quite frankly. Does that mean they deserve to get stabbed in the face? No, of course not. They don't deserve to get hurt. They deserved to be punished properly for what they were doing, by the authorities and their parents. Judging from the quote from the mum, the parents were either unaware or didn't give a shit.

So no, of course it doesn't justify stabbing them in the face. But then I don't think they were justified in calling him names and spitting in his face either, but no one seems bothered by that.

AwfulMaureen · 13/02/2014 12:47

I saw a girl snap in secondary school back in the 80s. She was terribly bullied for five years and then one day, a girl pushed her hard in the back...the bullied girl turned round, calmly took her shoe off (stiletto) and beat the bully about the head with it.

It was terrible to see...she wouldn't stop and because it was so unexpected, nobody did anything for a while....the bullied girl, looking back more than likely would be diagnosed with Aspergers now....back then there was no help and she was like a kitten in a sea of sharks. I still feel sad for her now...more than 20 years later. I hope she is ok.

CrystalJelly · 13/02/2014 12:47

I was bullied, not by someone at school but by an older girl who lived on my street. Don't know why, Id never even so much as spoken to her but for some reason she decided to target me.

It got so bad that I was scared to leave the house, I used to fantasise about pushing dog shit through her letter box or smashing her car up. I even wrote her a nasty, anonymous letter to her which I didn't send. I just wanted her to feel as scared and intimidated as I did.

She moved in the end and I've not seen her since. But I can understand why someone would snap, for sure.