[guide.chat] bullies
- From: vanessa <qwerty1234567a@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "GUIDE CHAT" <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:47:17 +0100
The disabled woman abandoned to be murdered for fun by a gang of savages who
she thought were her friends
Murdered: Vulnerable Gemma was led to a disused railway line, beaten, stabbed
and suffocated to death by people she thought were her friends
Gemma Hayter loved animals. She shared her chaotic flat in a tower block with a
hamster and a noisy cockatiel called Jasmine and she would talk to every dog or
cat that came her way.
But Gemma would talk to anybody who showed her the slightest attention ? and it
was her trusting friendliness that was ultimately to cost her her life.
Last week, three young people were convicted of Gemma?s brutal murder on a
disused railway line, an act that followed hours of abuse in a flat.
Two others were found guilty of her manslaughter and all five were unanimously
convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Everyone who came across Gemma, 27, in her home town of Rugby knew that she was
different. She had a rare congenital disorder that caused her serious learning
difficulties, and a distinctive physical appearance with a large head and
crossed eyes.
In the pre ?care in the community? era, it is unlikely that she would have been
allowed to live independently. Dawn Jennings at the post office a stone?s throw
from the ten-storey block where she lived, cashed her benefits cheque on
Tuesdays.
?She was a lovely girl, totally innocent and child-like,? she said.
?She would not have hurt a fly and was a friend to all, but I did worry about
how she coped. She wasn?t aware of time and there was no one to tell her when
to go to bed and when to have a bath.?
Gemma?s neighbours in Biart Place, a triangle of tower blocks less than half a
mile from central Rugby and the grand halls of the town?s famous public school,
were certainly aware of her problems. Her flat smelt so bad that it engulfed
the entire floor.
Those she confided in revealed that she had been moved to Biart Place in 2008
from an almost identical tower block on the other side of town after suffering
bullying and sexual abuse.
Martin Bowes, 56, said: ?I got to know her when I saw her walking past picking
up cigarette butts off the street and asked her what she was doing. She said
that she made them into roll-ups to smoke.
?We got talking and I felt sorry for her. I ended up feeding her twice a week.
Watching her eat was pathetic. She would finish everything off and then ask for
more. She?d mop it all up with bread and then use her thumb to completely clean
the plate.?
Cruel: Jessica Lynas and Duncan Edwards were both found guilty of manslaughter
following the death of Gemma Hayter
More disturbing to Martin than her table manners were her liaisons with men,
drawn in by her internet profile where she described herself as ?big, bold and
beautiful?.
?These fellas would drive here from all sorts of places and she would be driven
off by them,? he said.
?It worried me sick. She was a big woman but she was also like a four-year-old
child.?
And nowhere was her childishness more evident than in her attitude to money. ?I
had no change once so I gave her a £10 note and told her to go round to the
shop and buy a pint of milk so I could sort her out,? recalled Martin.
?She came back 15 minutes later with the milk, a bag full of sweets and
chocolate and no change at all. She said, ?Oh, these are all nice.? ?
Her problems with budgeting meant that despite receiving benefits she often
needed to borrow money to top up her electricity. Those she asked for help
strongly suspected that she was being exploited by some of the ?friends? she
made in Rugby.
Guilty: Chantelle Booth and Daniel Newstead, who were dating at the time of the
murder, were both found guilty
Neighbour Adele Butterworth, 23, said: ?I know there are other people besides
those in the dock who should be feeling guilty for the way they treated Gemma.
?She just wanted to be accepted so badly that she would put up with anything
and often she didn?t realise people were just taking the mick.
?Gemma told me about this boyfriend she had who was in prison. I don?t think he
even existed but she would tell me that she?d had to give money to him so they
could set up a home together.
These so-called friends tattooed the words, ?Simon STD X? on her wrist. She
said it was her boyfriend?s name. She had no idea that STD [sexually
transmitted disease] was an insult.?
With such parasites leeching off her it is easy to see how money became a
problem for Gemma and it formed the backdrop to the terrible events that led to
her murder. In the early evening of Sunday, August 8, last year, Gemma had been
invited to the flat of her friend Chantelle Booth, then 21, and her partner
Daniel Newstead, 20.
They were entertaining their neighbours Jessica Lynas, 18, and her boyfriend
Joe Boyer, 17, as well as another teenager, Duncan Edwards, 18.
Jailed: Joe Boyer was convicted of the murder of Gemma Hayter
All of them had gone into Rugby town centre the night before and Gemma had
annoyed them by telling bar staff that Chantelle was only 15. It was Gemma?s
idea of a joke but she?d ?ruined their night? and Jessica had slapped her.
Shortly after Gemma arrived at the flat, a £5 note went missing and Jessica
found it tucked behind the fridge.
Chantelle then brought up an incident from two years earlier when she believed
Gemma had stolen £800 in backdated child benefit that was meant for Chantelle?s
six-year-old son who was in care following her conviction for unlawful wounding.
The mood darkened. Bubbly blonde Chantelle became upset. This angered her
chubby boyfriend Daniel, the father of her second child, and her other suitor,
Duncan ? with whom she had been swapping flirty texts.
Duncan began hitting Gemma with pillows.
Then Joe and Duncan both urinated into a beer can and forced Gemma to drink it.
Jessica, also a teenage mother with a child in care, jabbed Gemma in the face
with a broom handle. Duncan waved a mop at her and Chantelle is said to have
broken her nose with a head-butt.
Daniel, who claimed to the court that he had left the flat to get help for
Gemma, returned and was so cross to see her blood in his bedroom that he
punched her twice in the face.
Gemma is then said to have asked for Joe and Duncan to walk her home but in the
event all five of them went.
The group was filmed leaving the centre of Rugby on CCTV. Gemma was wearing a
cap pulled down low over her head. Instead of taking her home, the five led her
down on to a disused railway line where a bin bag was put over her head before
she was stripped naked, strangled, kicked mercilessly in the face and then
stabbed in the neck.
Her clothes were then burnt by Duncan ? who singed his hair.
The next day the group went with Duncan to get his hair cut before going to
Coventry to visit pubs.
They were all arrested on the Tuesday after Daniel told a receptionist at the
local social services that he had been present at the killing.
During the seven-week trial that ended on Thursday, the young defendants?
behaviour caused utter dismay to their expensively assembled legal teams.
They changed their stories several times but finally the two couples ? Jessica
and Joe, and Chantelle and Daniel ? decided Duncan was solely responsible,
while he blamed Daniel.
Their inconsistencies were easily exposed under cross-examination. At one
point, when cornered, Chantelle swore at a barrister while Joe who, in a police
interview had casually referred to Gemma as ?that thing?, claimed to have been
too intoxicated to remember anything.
In the dock, they simply larked about ? laughing, passing one another notes and
betraying not the slightest hint of concern.
At one point, the judge, the Right Honourable Lady Justice Rafferty, was forced
to separate them like schoolchildren and warn them that they would be sent to
the cells if they continued to misbehave.
It was only when the verdicts were read out that their demeanours changed.
The boys sat emotionless while Chantelle and Jessica screamed, cried, swore and
hugged one another, their faces contorted and covered in black mascara.
All five were found guilty of the assault in the flat. Chantelle, Daniel and
Joe were convicted of murder while Duncan and Jessica were found guilty of
manslaughter.
A tragedy for six young people ? Gemma, and the five hapless, undirected,
unsupported individuals in the dock
In the public gallery sat a row of Gemma?s family including her mother Susan,
who endured every day of the trial, and her two half-siblings.
It looked like a big support network but it seemingly failed to function once
Gemma had reached adulthood and begun to live on her own and become the easiest
target for the lowest of the low.
At different times of her life Gemma had contact with social services but she
did not have a social worker. It is understood support had been offered but
refused.
Warwickshire County Council described Gemma as a ?vulnerable adult? and after
her death a Serious Case Review was commissioned by the Warwickshire
Safeguarding Adults Board.
Wendy Fabbro, chair of that board and strategic director for Adult, Health and
Community Services at the Council, said: ?The review, which is being
independently chaired and authored, is expected to conclude in September to
take account of any additional information to emerge from the trial. A public
summary of the findings and recommendations will be published.?
Lady Justice Rafferty called the case, ?a tragedy for six young people? ?
Gemma, and, ?the five hapless, undirected, unsupported individuals in the dock?.
It was an acknowledgment that of the defendants, only one, Duncan Edwards, had
a parent present at the end of the trial. The others, it seemed, had been
abandoned.
But what of the many other Gemma Hayters living out there? How can they cope in
a society that would appear, in part, to have lost its sense of right and wrong?
The charity Mencap estimates that nine out of every ten people with a learning
disability are verbally harassed or exposed to violence because of their
disability.
In Gemma?s case exposure to violence meant murder, committed by vacuous souls
who saw her as a figure of fun to be laughed at, abused and killed for their
entertainment.
I became aware of a disturbing pattern four years ago when I was news editor of
the magazine Disability Now.
During the previous year ? 2006 ? eight disabled people were robbed, beaten and
brutally killed in a period of just six months, yet each death was seen by
police, prosecutors and the media as an isolated incident, a motiveless crime
against a vulnerable ¬victim who couldn?t fight back.
I began to investigate such crimes and discovered that the incidents weren?t
isolated and the crimes weren?t motiveless ? they were committed out of hatred,
rather than because the victims were vulnerable.
Fiona Pilkington (left) killed herself and her daughter Francecca Hardwick
(right) after years of abuse from bullies
There are so many cases: Fiona Pilkington, who killed herself and her disabled
daughter Francecca after suffering years of verbal and physical abuse from
youths; Christine Lakinski, who collapsed near her own front door but was
covered in shaving foam and urinated upon as she lay dying; Brent Martin, who
was punched and kicked to death by a gang of youths ?for sport?, in the words
of a prosecutor.
My research, which eventually led to a book, Scapegoat: Why We Are Failing
Disabled People, suggests that, although this is a problem with ancient roots,
failures in the implementation of modern ?community care? policy are also to
blame.
The lack of money to fund disabled people?s resettlement was one problem;
another was the failure to anticipate the bitter backlash that would ensue. For
disabled people had been maliciously stereotyped for at least 2,000 years as
either scapegoats, sinners or freaks.
By Victorian times, disabled people were so shunned that many, particularly
those with mental health conditions and learning difficulties, were imprisoned
in asylums or long-stay hospitals. By the mid-Fifties, the number of disabled
people who had been institutionalised had reached a peak of 150,000.
Katharine Quarmby's book
These institutions were, almost without exception, awful places where people
with learning difficulties were treated with profound inhumanity.
Then a number of well-publicised scandals in the Sixties brought pressure to
bear on the Government to start closing the institutions down.
In 1971, the White Paper, Better Services For The Mentally Handicapped,
kick-started the community care initiative, pushing for at least half of those
in hospitals to be living in the community by 1990. A similar White Paper,
Better Services For The Mentally Ill, was published in 1975 by the Labour
Government.
Community care was the right thing to do. But the way in which it was carried
out failed the very people it was supposed to help.
Between 1955 and 1975, about 80,000 people left the asylums. But their need for
medication, accommodation and support was not met. Community care was done on
the cheap.
As early as 1985, a Social Services Select Committee report warned that
hospital closures had outrun provision in the community. Even worse, a small
number of killings by people with mental health problems sparked a fearful and
angry reaction by the general public.
Jean Collins, a campaigner from the charity Values into Action, observed that
the closures were characterised by ?chaos and confusion?.
No one had prepared people with learning difficulties for life outside
institutions. They were pauperised too, she said, adding: ?Many were abandoned
in a hostile, fearful society.?
Most were resettled in houses that nobody else wanted, on estates where nobody
wanted to live. Many became socially isolated. And it wasn?t long before they
were targeted.
Many, particularly people with learning difficulties, were desperate for
friendship and were befriended by people who groomed them, robbed them,
attacked them and killed them ? so-called ?mate crimes?, a recognised subset of
hate crime.
Prejudice against disabled people had only grown stronger because so many had
been shut away for centuries. Disability hate crime should have been a tragedy
foretold.
But it wasn?t. Such crimes will carry on until we face our own prejudices about
disability ? and, as a society, start to change
from
Vanessa The Google Girl.
my skype name is rainbowstar123
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