There are times I read articles in newspapers and truly wonder am I insane?
I remember a short story of a pickpocket describing himself as a ‘fingersmith’ and giving an account of his craft. Akin to silversmiths, blacksmiths etc he proposed his particular craft required no less hard practice or skill. He needed to develop physical and mental abilities and even social skills to blend into crowds effectively. Skills such as being able to pinpoint a suitable victim were described with avid enthusiasm. You're almost convinced by his arguments and his total reframing of stealing as an art form of sorts. It almost takes a moral slap to remind yourself that he is talking about targeting the vulnerable, to deprive them of what is rightly theirs. Traumatising the innocent to earn his living and leaving scars that last long after the original crime has been forgotten by both the perpetrator and the courts (if they were ever convicted). The victims can feel isolated and foolish, robbed of their savings and pensions. Many look at the world around them with different eyes. Suspicious of all, trusting no one, even doubting their own capacity to cope in this new world of villainy.
Today's fingersmiths are multitalented and are everywhere. They run investor scams, telephone fraud, internet deception, abuse people etc and they have found their way into companies, governments, councils etc It seems perverse that our systems of justice seem laboriously expensive and are notoriously ineffectual. In the movies, the villain is tracked down by eager expert forensic investigators and Poirot-like detectives who remorselessly bring justice to bear. The truth is far from that reality. Murder cases take years and often go unsolved, assaults and rapes are often not pursued because witness statements/investigations are not actioned or recorded in a timely fashion. Even how things play out in the press can bear little or no relation to actual facts. But that no longer seems to matter.
The 38-year-old suspect who stabbed a woman and poured acid on her face, we are informed, was not even questioned and instead of being arrested by the police he was taken to hospital for psychiatric examination. The police found him in a disturbed state. I can actually remember reading about the same character in the same newspaper attempting to murder the same woman in 2012. He hit the woman and stabbed his victim resulting in her losing an eye. On that occasion, he went on the run and spent five hours on a flagpole threatening to jump off. At the time he was actually still on bail pending proceedings for an earlier attack on a previous partner.
I remember the words of sympathy towards this particular individual as he perched on the flag. With increasingly important individuals in the community anxiously endeavouring to talk him down. Offering understanding and empathy to this poor misguided soul. To find that he has, six years later, stabbed the same woman and poured acid on her face is an insult to reason! Exactly how much abuse of women is to be perpetrated and accepted by the police, law and press. Today's article depicts a dramatic picture of the poor fellow’s 2012 suicide attempt, clinging to the flagpole under the misleading heading ‘ acid attack suspect not fit to stand trial’. The article states that the victim is ‘ recovering well from stabs, burns’, oh well that’s okay then isn’t it? The article again places its sympathy squarely on the perpetrator and not on the victim. Are we to feel sorry for this man? His victim had already lost an eye from his previous attack now she lies stabbed in hospital, her face douched in acid and yet somehow the perpetrator is carefully protected from even questioning, never mind arrest!
Am I mad or is this world becoming an art form in 'slight of hand’ and deception? With a choice of font size and the correct photo, they have turned the stabbed and acid burnt woman into a side character to the main story. The injustice of allowing the perpetrator to continue his rampage on the basis that, in the words of the police, he seemed disturbed. Given that excuse won him sympathy and freedom before from the justice system the entirely sympathetic account in today's press does not bode well for this attack being treated any differently from the former.
Obviously, a man climbing a flagpole and threatening to jump off six years ago trumps a woman being stabbed, punched and having acid thrown in her face today. Am I insane or is this?
