Man sentenced to anger management therapy

[SomeGuy]

www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/Court-punishes-father-stood-yobs/article-1095438-detail/article. html

'Father-of-two David Magson had suffered two years of vandalism, abuse and threats from youths at a hostel near his home.

Then one day the bus driver reached "the end of his tether" and marched outside with a rounders bat to confront his tormentors.

He hit one twice with the bat and pushed him over, and ended up in court charged with actual bodily harm and having an offensive weapon.

After admitting the charges at Leicester Crown Court, he was given an 18-month community order, with supervision, and will have to attend an anger management course.

He and fellow residents had repeatedly complained to the police, the hostel, their MP and the local authority about the youths' behaviour, but nothing changed.

Magson was watching television on March 21 with his young children when a neighbour in Lower Hastings Street, Leicester, rang him to tell him his car was, yet again, being vandalised.

The 39-year-old "saw red" and went outside to complain to the hostel staff, armed with his son's bat.

He was surrounded by a gang who began goading him.

Magson struck one of the youths twice, although no injury was caused, and then pushed him over his car. The youth suffered a lump on his head and a grazed hand.

When the police arrived, Magson told officers: "You're quick enough to arrest me but you never do anything when that lot are causing havoc."

Janet Hall, prosecuting, told the court it was accepted the defendant and his neighbours had endured on-going problems with the youths.

In interview, Magson explained to the police he was a member of a community group who wanted things to change. The situation had become intolerable, he said.

Ms Hall said: "The Crown gave careful consideration to prosecuting him because there is sympathy for him and the situation he was facing."

Five days after his arrest in March, Magson was attacked with a pint glass in the city centre, which has left him virtually blind in one eye and jeopardised his job as a bus driver.

Rebecca Herbert, defending, said: "He cannot say the youths who glassed him had anything to do with the hostel situation, but he has his suspicions."

She said Magson had suffered abuse and threats ? including a threat to rape his seven-year-old daughter by a man who later appeared naked in his back garden.

He had suffered assaults and had items, including excrement, thrown at his flat.

Judge Ian Collis said: "The assault involved a push causing the man to hit his head and although you took a bat outside, no injury was caused with it."

The situation has improved since the incident, with regular police patrols and behaviour from residents at the hostel, under a new manager, much improved.

Magson added: "It's a pity it involved me being prosecuted, by standing up for the community, before anything was done about the problem"
'

I wonder what sort of anger management thereapy could teach you to deal with such behaviour.

Maybe I need anger management therapy too as I'm thinking his mistake was to do it that way when he could have taken them one at a time without witnesses.

that's effing ridiculous. he was protecting his property and then should have claimed he believed he was in real danger of physical harm when he was surrounded by the youths and acted in self defence.

well done him, pty he didn't caus a bit more damage.nothing serious but a broken arm or leg might have done the trick.

I love how they say 'the Crown gave careful consideration to prosecuting' but still did it. They had the discretion not to, but still went ahead.

Reminds me of this anecdote:

"A man was admitted to our hospital having taken an overdose of painkillers while he was very drunk. The hospital staff knew him well: he had been abusive to most of them at some time during his career as a recurrent patient. He had a very long criminal record. During a recent hospital admission, the nurses had called the police because he had assaulted a patient in the bed opposite his. As usual, the police did nothing....

During his last admission to my ward, he took himself to the lavatory to smoke and then refused to come out again. Since he needed an antidote to the pills he had taken and might otherwise die, the nurses tried to persuade him to return to his bed. He refused in no uncertain terms, and the nurses called the security staff. They hauled him, struggling, back to his bed, where the treatment was given, and his life was duly saved.

Two weeks later this same man took himself off to the local police station to accuse the security staff of assault. The police, of course, knew this man to be a recidivist criminal, a drunk, a liar, a general nuisance, and inclined to violence into the bargain, but they took his complaints seriously. Having refused to act when he assaulted the patient opposite him, they now interview the security men, not once but repeatedly. They interviewed other hospital staff to ferret out any evidence that might lead to the prosecution of the security men.

The police have told the hospital authorities that they are duty bound to take every complaint seriously and investigate it thoroughly, but this they must know to be an unscrupulous and stupid lie, for in the ten years that I have worked in the hospital they have never taken any complaint by a member of the staff seriously. Instead they take the part of a drunken psychopath and ignore the safety of the hospital staff - to demonstrate they have know social prejudices that might offend liberal opinion. As a result, the security staff are now understandably reluctant to lay a hand upon and obstreperous or violent patient, leaving the rest of the hospital staff completely unprotected at a time when assaults upon them are increasing."

I wonder more and more these days what use the police are since they only seem to be a threat to the innocent and to protect the guilty.

Oh, didn't you know, onager? You only get human rights if you're a criminal.

If you aren't a sack of shit, you have to bend over and take it up the arse and can in fact be thrown in jail for refusing to help a burglar out to his van with your tv.