Nieghbours from hell, effect on kids and jail sentences

1 July

Years ago we used to live close to a family that turned from being friendly to absolute demons it seemed. They had three kids, two boys and a girl. I used to cycle to work in Coventry at that time and I lost count of the number of times I saw their mum heading for the pub to meet up with her latest boyfriend. Her hubby by the way, worked the same shift pattern as me but left home a lot earlier than me.

So I left home for night shift at around 9pm and saw mum walked off to see her boyfriend. The boys were off out and about, the girl was locked in the house. I’d get home around 7am the following morning and the boys were sleeping under the lamp post on the corner. Several times reports we made to the cops and to Social Services, and not by me either, yet nothing was ever done.

We moved away from there after a few years and thankfully we never heard any more of them, apart from one comment about the mum and dad getting divorced. Next thing we know is that the youngest lad had broken into a house and the owner came back and caught him in there. In his rush to get out he thumped the house owner so hard he died from his injuries. The lad got 8 years for manslaughter for that one.

Next report, again from the local paper was that older lad had moved up from running into to people on his push bike to doing so on his motorbike. In the same report there was a comment about the sister being drug user and prostitute. Clever he? If only the authorities had taken action all those years ago; perhaps a lot of heartache for a lot of people would have been avoided. Why am I relating all this?

Well, in today’s News there’s the story of another man with the same surname who has been jailed for theft and violence and theft. His four and half year sentence is not his first of course. He took a drug overdose and an ambulance was called. That time he attacked the paramedic, stole the ambulance and rammed a cop car three times with it in his attempt to get away. Now here’s the thing … the current offence was committed straight after visiting his probation officer at the justice centre claiming that he did it deliberately to get arrested cos he had nowhere to live.

The judge said that the man was a risk of reoffending and causing substantial injury in doing so. So why the light sentence I wonder? He has a history of violence and theft and yet he will be back on Dorktown’s streets after just 36 months. To my mind that’s just not long enough. He’s had more than three chances and should now get a much longer sentence. Twenty years should have been the starting point for regular offenders like him!

However, looking at his age I don’t think he is a member of the same family as the ones I was talking of above. Having one family with such a record is bad enough for the town, but more than one such family with the same name? Oh dear, time to start locking jail cell doors for much longer!

Today’s photo then … 

A happy young lady using her camera; and why shouldn’t she be happy, it’s a Sony Nex.

And today’s funny …

 A man walks out of a bar and sees a homeless man on the corner. And the homeless man says, “Sir, can you spare a buck?” The man thinks about the question for a bit and asks, “If I give you a buck, are you going to use it to buy a beer or vodka?” “No, he replies.” The man then asks, “If I give you a buck are you going to gamble it away?” “No, he replies.” So the man says, “Come with me and I’ll give you the buck.”  He takes the homeless man home and tells his wife , “See what happens to people who don’t drink or gamble?”