Natural Justice?
In common with most people I have met I am a person of contradictions, not in the hypocritical sense but sometimes I'm prepared to set aside one set of values for the advancement of another.
Let me explain.
There's an area of Bournemouth which historically, for the past twenty five-thirty years or so, has been blighted with social problems, mainly drugs and prostitution. It was there that the MP Tobias Ellwood was attacked during the summer by a group of youths. Almost exactly a year ago a Bournemouth University student was chased, attacked and then stabbed to death by three men from London. When the story was initially reported the victim was portrayed as an innocent party, somebody in the wrong place at the wrong time and there didn't appear to be any motive for the murder.
The case has now reached Winchester Crown Court and we are no closer discovering the real reason for the killing but one or two important facts which were not reported (quite rightly in my opinion) have now come out in court. Firstly the victim was delivering drugs, about the only moment of hilarity in the case is the fact that the delivery was being carried out on a BMX bike - well I suppose every dealer has to start somewhere. Secondly the three men accused of his killing were/are all well known in London as drug dealers. It seems that the victim had insulted the perpetrators who had initially chased him, then cornered him and then stabbed him with a 15cm kitchen knife that they had stopped off at friends to collect.
My initial reaction to the killing was one of sympathy, particularly for the victims family and friends who offered the usual mealy mouthed platitudes to the press about the nice lad, hard-working student, wouldn't hurt anybody etc. Given that it now transpires he was a drug dealer killed by three drug dealers who will almost inevitably be found guilty and serve long sentences for murder my sympathy has suddenly been misplaced. It may sound callous but four dealers being taken off the street in one night is possibly something the local police could only have dreamt of.
4 comments:
I think there are two things going on here, Paul. Firstly, there is the "What goes around, comes around" principle. Some might say "Those who live by the sword, die by the sword" and I think most people would know that drug dealing often involves serious violence and all that it leads to. I don't think we should be surprised at what has happened to these four people.
The other thing is "What should our response be?" About ten years a drug dealer in Durham was shot dead by another drug dealer and a police officer I knew at the time regarded this as a "result" since two dealers were taken off the street. For me, the tragedy is that these people chose this lifestyle in the first place. The death at the end of it may not have been inevitable but was always a distinct possibility.
I agree with your closing two lines Shy.
The area where this took place has struggled for years to overcome the stigma it has because of the drug trade. It has a higher than national average of burglaries and the prostitutes are on the game to earn money for their drug dealing pimps, there are regular fights and last year two murders within a hundred yards of each other on the same night. Two pubs in the area have been closed by the Police under new Home Office rules and the people who live in the area who are law abiding citizens have had enough.
I had a client who ran a clinic for drug dealers there and I saw a couple of the young women involved and it was quite a pitiful sight.
The compassionate side of me agrees with you, it is a tragedy, the part of me that remembers the area as it was is glad that these four will be gone.
I am sure you mean you had a client who ran a clinic for drug "USERS"!
I'm afraid they get what's coming to them and we should be pleased (or at least not upset) as long as innocents aren't hurt (enough innocents are hurt by the "trade"). Their world is not compatible in any way with decency as it always drives people down be they the addicts, their families, or the abused prostitutes etc...down into more misery.
Drug dealers...Fuck 'em.
"I am sure you mean you had a client who ran a clinic for drug "USERS"!
Well spotted that man - and a good point well made.
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