Hang ’em and flog ’em

by Rick Johansen

I’m sure that many of you will have seen the video footage of two young people smashing up a defibrillator belonging to Buxted rugby club in Sussex on the night of 13th June. After what happened to the Swedish footballer Christian Eriksen, who suffered cardiac arrest during a European Championship game, no one can deny it’s an act of rank stupidity and irresponsibility. Minding my words here, a 17 year old boy has been detained by the police in connection with the vandalism and that’s probably as far as I should speculate at this moment in time, certainly with regard to the alleged vandal. But, I must confess, I am almost as shocked by the reaction on social media.

We should not be surprised that the string ’em up brigade are out in force. It’s not quite ‘hanging is too good for them’ but it doesn’t feel too different from that. The TV ‘personality’ Nick Knowles suggests handing the alleged criminal to the rugby club where the members would beat the shit out of him. Actually, Knowles’ tweet leaves the bit blank after suggesting dropping the lad off at the club but what else could he possibly mean? Many replies were broadly along these lines. What’s the correct way of looking at things?

I don’t know that there is a correct way. I suppose it depends on whether you think punishment alone is enough or you would prefer it if a person learned from their stupidity. I definitely prefer the latter option.

Many of us did very stupid things as children. I trespassed frequently on railway lines, I once stole an LP (ask your parents what an LP is, kids) and, unaccountably, took books from the local library, covered them in dog shit and returned them to the shelves. The latter resulted in the arrival some days later of a burly uniformed police officer who arrived at our house one morning where a terrified young boy confessed to his crime and was advised by the policeman to visit the library to say sorry and it might all be forgotten. “Why did you do it?” was the ultimate killer question. My mum marched me to the library later that morning where I must have been shrinking in plain sight, issuing an apology in the hope I wouldn’t be sent to prison. I never forgot this lesson and whilst I have done some stupid things since then, none quite so embarrassing.

I wasn’t destroying a defibrillator, not least since they didn’t exist, but I would suggest my actions were equally stupid, if not life-threatening. The point I am making is that most of us, maybe all of us, make bad, irrational and just plain stupid mistakes. Perhaps the defib destruction was one such example?

It’s the rush to judgement I don’t like, the holier than thou condemnation, the absence of allowing for the fact that an immature 17 year old may have acted like an immature 17 year old and probably doesn’t deserve to be beaten into pulp at the suggestion of a TV presenter.

If it turns out whoever committed this act is full of remorse, regrets their actions and wishes to go some way to make up for their actions, wouldn’t that be better than an hysterical social media campaign to tar and feather the boy? Even 17 year olds have feelings, you know.

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