Mboyo

[Steven Toast]

Haven't read every single posting on this thread as I think it would depress me to read some of the comments. I'm sorry but I am in general and overall agreement with the base point Tommytiger made at the start of the thread.
At some point we do have to start having criminals coming back into society - unless we go down the death penalty route (which some on here might find a good idea), and the issue is where do we cross the line. Pop stars, TV stars and sports stars are not like normal members of society as their job is obviously much different to the rest of us - and any crime they do is magnified in how people react to it by the press coverage. One club gave Mboyo a second change (whether that is termed as bleeding heart liberals gone too far by some) and some club down south gave Luke McCormick (killed 2 young boys while drunk driving) a second chance. The question I might raise is which of those footballers committed the worst crime - which is not to say that Mboyo is not a character who I particularly like but if we going to have a moral stance on signings, then should it not be something which is applied at all clubs and is the new policy "one crime and you lose any chance of playing professional football again"

The Luke McCormick case was sad, it apparently sent him into depression and he still wakes up screaming in distress. That's a hell of a burden to bear.

 

[Erik]

If he was a gang member who murdered another gang member at 16 people probably wouldn't be making half the fuss. In my opinion, murder is a lot worse than rape, incomparably worse

Not really. The manner in which somebody is murdered matters, of course, but leaving a 14-year-old girl with the memory of being raped by a gang of men? Rape is far worse, and I would have expected someone who claims to have a young daughter to agree.

You are very different at 16, there are things I did or would have done at that age without thinking it was that wrong, which I am now ashamed to think I would have done those things. And I grew up in a very prosperous area, compared to Mboyo who grew up in a war zone, probably watching his own family and friends be subjected to the very crime he committed

16 is more than old enough to be aware of the difference between right and wrong. Would you be happy to have someone like Robert Thompson or Jon Venables on the team? They were only ten when they murdered James Bulger after all.

 

[Robo]

My point (which I've made clearly and you are overlooking) is that people who are trying to move on from a mistake they've made should be allowed to do so. Clearly their actions aren't going to be forgiven by some, nor will they be forgotten, but how on Earth can you expect a person to build a new life if they're constantly dragged back by a mistake they made over a decade ago? They want to move on, fine: if that's through playing football, community work, donating to charity, whatever, the person is trying to show that they don't want to be defined by their actions. The way some people are talking about him on here, suggests that he's still committing the same crimes he did as a youth.

So if it was Ian Brady/Jon Venables/Mark Bridger/Gary Glitter/Delroy Grant, (all have committed various atrocious crimes), trying to move on in life, would you allow them to do so?

You are missing the point being made, he has done his time for the crime, the ones you have quoted haven't as yet and as far as I can see more than one crime was committed.

 

[originallambrettaman]

But getting into a car while drunk is a deliberate act.

At least if you're pissed, you're unlikely to be capable of gang-raping anyone.

Mr Downstairs is failing in the droopy department. TWT.

 

[SuitedandBooted]

Finally, somebody who can see my point of view.

You only have to look at countries like Somalia to see what life is like for young people in these countries. I wouldn't have thought everybody in the gang was 16 years old, I'm guessing most of the others were much older. The crime in itself is awful, nobody will disagree there, but to write off a person that committed a crime at such a young age isn't fair.



We aren't going to sign him anyway, so it's a bit of a moot argument.

Using background as an excuse

You're absolutely right about what your Dad taught you, those are the values that I've always lived by, but that's defined by our social paradigms, not by those in the DR of Congo, which is vastly different.

Using environment as an excuse

It depends on which viewpoint you take. By law, a person is an adult at 18. That means that if a young girl that's 17 years and 364 days old tries it on with an 18 year old bloke, he goes to prison, regardless of who initiated it. By the time I was 15, I had my own opinions of the world, was going out with my friends and doing lots of stuff that people older than me, technically adults, were doing. I once went to White Room when I was 16 and got ratarsed. I was ill for a few days and my Dad wanted to storm in there are demand why they were serving underage people. I told him not to; it was my fault that I was in there (and Spiders) and I had to accept the consequences. I was still legally a child, but it doesn't absolve me of the blame does it? Saying somebody is a child doesn't completely remove them of blame, it simply makes the punishment for the offender more severe.

As Tyger said, in the case with the teacher, he went along with it, knowing the consequences, so he rightly should go to prison. The girl also knew the stakes, but willingly went along with it. She wasn't held against her will, she wasn't a prisoner, she actively wanted to be with him and wants to continue the relationship after he gets out (which I highly doubt will happen). She's as much to blame as he is because she knew she was getting him into trouble but sacked the risk off because she was 'happy'. Silly girl.

Not even understanding the basic laws of this country

No, down to people like me we have The Internet, The Hubble Space Telescope and probably most importantly of all, those little chocolate covered peanuts you get from the petrol station.

Again, you've been blinded by your own idiocy. People can't move on if they don't accept the mistakes they've made, otherwise they'd just be living in denial their whole lives (like Michael Jackson). I'm saying that people who can accept that what they've done is wrong are the people who are best suited to starting over. It's a bit of an over-exaggeration that everybody under 25 thinks they are care free and outside of their of responsibility. There are 10 year old kids out there who know that if they do something, they're responsible for the consequences.

You need to understand the whole picture, instead of being so black and white over everything. Instead of saying yes or no, question why you are making the choice. If you see something on the news, don't just take it as fact, ask the question of why it happened? Analyse what you are told and form it into your own opinion, instead of being told something is the way it is because that's that. You see all the riots that are happening across the world, in Brazil, Egypt, the UK; do you ever wonder why they're happening and try and satisfy your curiosity, or do you just see them and say "That's bad", like a red top reading luddite? If you don't ask the questions, you'll never learn anything and your stance on society will become outdated and pointless.

 

[originallambrettaman]

Not really. Would you be happy to have someone like Robert Thompson or Jon Venables on the team? They were only ten when they murdered James Bulger after all.

To be fair, if Jon's related to Terry, he might be half decent.

 

[Steven Toast]

Not really. The manner in which somebody is murdered matters, of course, but leaving a 14-year-old girl with the memory of being raped by a gang of men? Rape is far worse, and I would have expected someone who claims to have a young daughter to agree.



16 is more than old enough to be aware of the difference between right and wrong. Would you be happy to have someone like Robert Thompson or Jon Venables on the team? They were only ten when they murdered James Bulger after all.

I actually made that point earlier in the thread; the link I put up a few pages ago listed young people who committed deliberate acts of horrific violence. The two that were ten and eleven at the time knew exactly what they were doing. The point I was making there was about young people not being able to take responsibility for their actions or not being to blame. Who was to blame in the Jamie Bulger case? Oh, the two kids still in primary school. Children aren't always absolved of blame.

 

[BigotAlertAnalRimMan]

It's all good saying "what if it was your daughter?" and seeing only one side of the story/


what if he was your son? would you gladly encourage the father of the victim to hunt down your son and kill him?


Just ****ing think for a second. You're making it sound like it's black or it's white no ****ing in between grey area but I'm sorry life is just one ****ing **** load of grey area... if it makes me a liberal tree hugging **** for acknowledging that then so be it.


why do you think there are different degrees of murder?? by your standards Luke Mcormick would deserve to die just as much as Bin Laden.

 

[Steven Toast]

Not sure what you class an excuse. It's not about excuses. I'm not his defense lawyer, I'm not trying to say he didn't do it, just that his circumstances may have been a factor in why he ended up the way he did. I'm sure he didn't wake up that morning and go 'you know what, I think I'm going to rape somebody today'. If he was in a gang, then that will have put immense pressure on him, maybe even threatened him if he didn't join in, I don't know, I wasn't there.

As for not knowing the laws of the country; I'm aware that the age of consent is 16, but you're not legally an adult in the eyes of the judicial system until you are 18. Which means that by your own admission, Mboyo was still a child in our societies eyes.

 

[originallambrettaman]

It's all good saying "what if it was your daughter?" and seeing only one side of the story/


what if he was your son? would you gladly encourage the father of the victim to hunt down your son and kill him?


Just ****ing think for a second. You're making it sound like it's black or it's white no ****ing in between grey area but I'm sorry life is just one ****ing **** load of grey area... if it makes me a liberal tree hugging **** for acknowledging that then so be it.


why do you think there are different degrees of murder?? by your standards Luke Mcormick would deserve to die just as much as Bin Laden.

There's a swear filter on this site, you don't have to **** about with all those asterisks.

 

[Erik]

Not sure what you class an excuse. It's not about excuses. I'm not his defense lawyer, I'm not trying to say he didn't do it, just that his circumstances may have been a factor in why he ended up the way he did. I'm sure he didn't wake up that morning and go 'you know what, I think I'm going to rape somebody today'. If he was in a gang, then that will have put immense pressure on him, maybe even threatened him if he didn't join in, I don't know, I wasn't there.

As for not knowing the laws of the country; I'm aware that the age of consent is 16, but you're not legally an adult in the eyes of the judicial system until you are 18. Which means that by your own admission, Mboyo was still a child in our societies eyes

The age of criminal responsibility is 10.

 

[Steven Toast]

The age of criminal responsibility is 10.

It is indeed, which puts to bed this nonsense that 'a child is more to blame than an adult'. A child could kill an adult and be responsible for it (unless the adult fell on the knife, which would be unfortunate to the childs case)

 

[SuitedandBooted]

Not sure what you class an excuse. It's not about excuses. I'm not his defense lawyer, I'm not trying to say he didn't do it, just that his circumstances may have been a factor in why he ended up the way he did. I'm sure he didn't wake up that morning and go 'you know what, I think I'm going to rape somebody today'. If he was in a gang, then that will have put immense pressure on him, maybe even threatened him if he didn't join in, I don't know, I wasn't there.

As for not knowing the laws of the country; I'm aware that the age of consent is 16, but you're not legally an adult in the eyes of the judicial system until you are 18. Which means that by your own admission, Mboyo was still a child in our societies eyes.

So if you know the laws of this country why did you state than an 18 year old male would go to prison if he had sex with a girl who was 17 years and 364 days old?

 

[Steven Toast]

So if you know the laws of this country why did you state than an 18 year old male would go to prison if he had sex with a girl who was 17 years and 364 days old?

I might have missed out the point about it being a teacher and a student context. Well, that'll teach me not to proofread!

 

[Robo]

The age of criminal responsibility is 10.

Quite so but then you have to get proof from them that they fully knew that what they were doing was wrong.
Like Tommy says we weren't there at the time so we do not know the full circumstances of the crime, 3 years served in Belgium seems like he was not fully involved as they are not as liberal as we are here.

 

[Erik]

It is indeed, which puts to bed this nonsense that 'a child is more to blame than an adult'. A child could kill an adult and be responsible for it (unless the adult fell on the knife, which would be unfortunate to the childs case)

All I can say to that is, 'WTF?!'

 

[BigotAlertAnalRimMan]

There's a swear filter on this site, you don't have to **** about with all those asterisks.

i didn't?

 

[Walter Sobchak]

It is indeed, which puts to bed this nonsense that 'a child is more to blame than an adult'. A child could kill an adult and be responsible for it (unless the adult fell on the knife, which would be unfortunate to the childs case)

EH???

 

[Amin Arrears]

Not really. The manner in which somebody is murdered matters, of course, but leaving a 14-year-old girl with the memory of being raped by a gang of men? Rape is far worse, and I would have expected someone who claims to have a young daughter to agree.



16 is more than old enough to be aware of the difference between right and wrong. Would you be happy to have someone like Robert Thompson or Jon Venables on the team? They were only ten when they murdered James Bulger after all.

Murder is far worse than rape, and I'd expect any father of a young daughter to agree. When someone is murdered they are gone forever.

I'd quite happily have either of them in the team if they were quite handy with a football.

 

[Erik]

Murder is far worse than rape, and I'd expect any father of a young daughter to agree. When someone is murdered they are gone forever

And when they're raped at fourteen, they're mentally ****ed and become little more than an empty shell.