Headline, June09, 2013

'''THE DARK SIDE 

- OF - A MODERN SOCIETY'''

Kevin Davies case has total similarities with another high profile case, in which Steven Hoskins, a 38 years old man from Cornwall, with severe learning difficulties, was dragged by a dog collar around his house in St Austell by a Gang he considered his ''best friends.''

In a case police have described as one of ''unparalleled cruelty and evil''. in July, 2006, three of the gang, one a girl of 16, tortured Hoskin until he falsely confessed to being a paedophile. Their kangaroo court sentenced him to death, forced him to swallow 70 painkillers, frog-marched him to the top of a railway viaduct, where they forced him over the safety rail.

Hoskin fell 30m to his death.

Rural deprivation, unemployment, alcoholism and lack of social amenities provided a back drop to both men's lives, and social isolation and family fragmentation were significant factors in their death. Neighbours in Badgers Way, for example later confessed to hearing banging, shouting and cries coming from number 14, but believing it to be a domestic argument, they ignored what was going on.

''People like Kevin Davies or Steven Hoskin who have epilepsy or learning difficulties, or who are not in contact with social services, or those such as drug addicts, sex workers and the homeless, who are on the margins of our society, are often very very vulnerable,'' says leading criminologist David Wilson, Professor of criminology at the University of Central England. ''If there is little or no family contact or support, the mesh in the safety net that should protect them becomes wider, finer and looser and they can disappear. They are often not even reported missing.''

As Jeremy Ridge, editor of the local Cornish Guardian  wrote : ''The murder of such an innocent and vulnerable soul as Steven Hoskin, who lived in our midst and had a right to expect our care, has rightly shocked us all. It should also make us think long and hard about the kind of society we create and live in. He had as much right to live in safety and peace as the rest of us, so just who let him down?''

It's a question that provokes some uncomfortable answers, but not as uncomfortable as the suffering endured by Steven Hoskin and Kevin Davies, two ordinary and humans subjected to extraordinary................!

At the end of the post, the torture misery and subsequent loss of  innocent lives is about the reflection of how much the society has lost its moral compass. This issue goes to the heart of any discussion of who we are as humans? The world and the society is retreating to the Dark. We are becoming our own Worst Enemies!

Respectful dedication to the world's actual affliction : stiff upper lip and soggy spine.

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless