Northern Ireland has a poor reputation for violence against gays and today two thugs who beat up and murdered a gay man in September 2002 were sentenced to 13 and 14 years respectively. Both were young when they killed their victim, Ian Flanagan (who was 30 at the time of the killing), but it is the younger of the two, Trevor Peel (also known as Newton) who is still only 16, who received the longer sentence in order, in the words of Belfast Crown Court judge Mr Justice Coghlin:
| "to reflect my clear view that you were the one responsible for the initiation of this enterprise, that you armed yourself in preparation and changed weapons when you thought the knife was ineffective and that you inflicted the most vicious and unremitting element of the violence visited upon the deceased". |
Truly sickening, but at least these two have not got away with their crime.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Welcome to my comment area. Whilst all comment is welcome you are requested to respect the views of others. To read full terms for use of this facility, please visit my 'Terms of Use' section, linked to under the 'About this Blog' heading at top right of the blog. Note added 12JUL2010 - All comments will now be pre-moderated before they appear in this blog; this is a measure to prevent 'spam' commenting, which has become frequent of late. Thank you.