Feminism: chat
15 yo boy convicted of sting of stabbings and sexual assaults on random school girls
NiceGerbil · 17/07/2021 21:32
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/boy-guilty-attacks-school-girls-croydon-b1830649.html
Saw this on local news.
Local. So afaik not more widely reported.
15yo. All girls as victims. Stabbings. Sexual assaults.
I mean that's obviously related to hating and wanting to hurt female adolescents.
The reporting on this stuff never or very very rarely says anything about
What he said his motivation was. If he said.
Any commentary at all about the fact it was all girls attacked by a boy.
Any other group targeted in this way it would be flagged. Noted. Drawn attention to.
With crimes that are blatently about male people targeting female people it's unsaid.
I suspect it's because it's so obvious and common it's not worth mentioning.
And because there is no recognition in law of hatred of female people as a large motivator of massive amounts of crime.
Women and girls being subject to sex offences, violence, murder etc is just a background noise really. Some cases get attention widely and there's handwringing but nothing changes.
This sort of thing to me lays bare the appalling misogyny that is common in our society if you scratch the surface.
NiceGerbil · 17/07/2021 23:16
How do you know they weren't black girls?
I haven't seen that info.
Yes racism is a huge issue and for women it multiplies.
I do think this conviction is worth talking about on its own terms though.
When it comes to misogyny no women or girls are immune.
NiceGerbil · 17/07/2021 23:20
@thinkingaboutLangCleg
Fuck knows.
So much in the news all the time with things from grooming on the internet, to girls being attacked in schools all over the place and it being brushed under the carpet, to recent murders, to the appalling situation with rape stats, and on and on. So many. All the time.
I am pessimistic. I wish I wasn't. But I'm nearly 50 and while more is out in the open rather than being kept quiet about. What good is that if it still doesn't mean anything.
NumberTheory · 18/07/2021 04:34
The Sun is reporting on it - links it to a "porn obsession"
www.thesun.co.uk/news/15612796/boy-who-stabbed-2-schoolgirls-and-sexually-assaulted-4-others-after-porn-obsession-is-locked-up/
Unfortunately, it's still only done in a somewhat salacious way, no real analysis or suggestion that it's somehow a wide ranging cultural problem. (But it would be hard for the Sun to have any credibility with an editorial line like that).
BrandineDelRoy · 18/07/2021 05:16
@NumberTheory
www.thesun.co.uk/news/15612796/boy-who-stabbed-2-schoolgirls-and-sexually-assaulted-4-others-after-porn-obsession-is-locked-up/
Unfortunately, it's still only done in a somewhat salacious way, no real analysis or suggestion that it's somehow a wide ranging cultural problem. (But it would be hard for the Sun to have any credibility with an editorial line like that).
That's a good observation about The Sun. 🙂
Cazzovuoi · 18/07/2021 05:20
At least they didn’t say “Girls get stabbed by boy” which is usually how these things are reported. Woman gets raped, woman is killed etc. Not man kills, rapes. I write to every newspaper I see doing this pointing out the veiled victim blaming.
He will murder some day. He needs to be kept in prison forever.
BrandineDelRoy · 18/07/2021 05:25
@Cazzovuoi
He will murder some day. He needs to be kept in prison forever.
I agree. He should at least be out of society until 45ish. I would say the same if he were my son.
NumberTheory · 18/07/2021 07:16
@Cazzovuoi and @BrandineDelRoy
I agree it’s particularly bad. According to the sun article, th judge does too. But. He’s still a child. The first attack (that we know of) when he was just 14. For me at least, I think it’s hard to see that as entirely free will in the same way I would if he were 30. So a sentence aime at rehabilitation seems humane.
NeverDropYourMoonCup · 18/07/2021 07:32
@NiceGerbil
I haven't seen that info.
Yes racism is a huge issue and for women it multiplies.
I do think this conviction is worth talking about on its own terms though.
When it comes to misogyny no women or girls are immune.
Sorry, that came out wrong.
They were. Which is another reason why the media didn't give a shit. Had it been white middle class girls in purley, it might have made it to about page 7 of the Advertiser.
SquirmOfEels · 19/07/2021 12:00
I was looking on the dates in this - the attacks were in late 2019 and early 2020, and the linked newspaper article is dated April 2021 (the date of his conviction)
But I don't remember seeing a single thing about this at the time - we're not that far away from Croydon, and I would have expected that 12 girls assaulted in quite a short space of time would have been known at least across south London.
Even if the police wanted to keep some aspects of the investigations under wraps, I would have expected more attention to a spate of crimes such as these.
Anyone more local remember if these was more?
Weirdfan · 19/07/2021 12:18
And another one, this was linked at the bottom of the Sun article www.thesun.co.uk/news/15596985/scots-schoolboy-rapist-egan-ritchie-unmasked/
Whatwouldscullydo · 19/07/2021 12:19
Oh god this is awful those poor girls.
You do have to wonder where the adults in his life were. How was he exposed to porn?
Without wishing to debunk the influence of porn on society I do also need to he careful how much and what we " explain away"
I watched alot of horror movies as a kid. I'm.yet to attack someone with a chainsaw or even my fists tbh.
Where does acknowledging the influence end and personal responsibility for their choices/behaviour begin. The very tricky line to define.
I hope that at just 15, there's hope to turn him around. If adults were sharing oorn or providing access to porn then he's a victim of abuse himself.
Sorry that probably reads as if I'm defending him. I'm.not. what he did is disgusting and those poor girls
... I can't imagine what they must be going through. They were already with their parents amd that didn't even keep them safe. It really brings home how powerless we are 
UsedUpUsername · 19/07/2021 12:29
[quote NumberTheory]**@Cazzovuoi* and @BrandineDelRoy*
I agree it’s particularly bad. According to the sun article, th judge does too. But. He’s still a child. The first attack (that we know of) when he was just 14. For me at least, I think it’s hard to see that as entirely free will in the same way I would if he were 30. So a sentence aime at rehabilitation seems humane.[/quote]
Honestly isn’t it kind of worse that he’s so young?
He should be named and shamed. Awful.
NumberTheory · 19/07/2021 20:27
@SquirmOfEels
But I don't remember seeing a single thing about this at the time - we're not that far away from Croydon, and I would have expected that 12 girls assaulted in quite a short space of time would have been known at least across south London.
Even if the police wanted to keep some aspects of the investigations under wraps, I would have expected more attention to a spate of crimes such as these.
Anyone more local remember if these was more?
12 girls? I only saw reference to 6. There were 4 sexual assaults on girls between November 2019 and October 2020 and then the two stabbings within two days of each other in early November 2020.
Abitofalark · 21/07/2021 17:49
I thought this might be linked to the kidnap and rape of a 13 year old girl on her way to school who was then rescued by a woman who noticed something wrong when she saw the girl with the thug but it turns out to be a different criminal. When you read the details reported, these attacks by the 15-year old were extremely violent and were going on over the course of a year. "On 2 September 2020 he punched a mother in the face then sexually assaulted her 13-year-old daughter in front of her by trying to remove her underwear, it is alleged." Not even a mother accompanying her child was a deterrent for this brute. He was caught because the police issued a cctv image.
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.