LondonLax

The death penalty doesn't help prevent crimes and it cost more than keeping people in prison.

When you understand those two things is there any other reason left to bing it in?

flitting between longer sentence and correct sentence, plumped for the latter in the end, based on the judges verdict not being an awful one and he's better placed than me. If he'd have given them a spell in adult jail for a few years once they were old enough I probably wouldn't have opposed that either tbf. With this one, as the judge didn't release them instantly nor sentence them to death, I'll go with his judgement, which is probably avoiding the question in some folks eyes, but there we go.

I think the thinking was that if they were sent into a normal prison when they were adults it would have increased their likelyhood of becoming adult criminals by mixing with other criminals and drugs etc that go with prison life. Their rehabilitation into normal adults would have been set back.

It is interesting having the poll 30 pages into the debate.

I wonder how different it would have been if it were put up on the first page.

Do you believe then that some people are born to be killers no matter what happens to them after birth? Like some sort of “evil gene” passed down from your parents??

...

There are thousands and thousands of children born every year to poor (not in the financial sense) parents, and not all of these kids go out and snatch a toddler and proceed to torture and murder him.

So are they born with a genetic defect?

Just because some people react one way to something as a child doesn't mean everyone does.

But you get the right (or should I say wrong?) combination of factors and they all combine together you can come up with a killer.

It is important to learn what these factors are so that future killers can be prevented from developing.

It's also worth attempting to undo some of the factors so the person can become a regular contributing member of society again.

Disagree completely Stevo, It's an excuse. It explains nothing

Do you believe then that some people are born to be killers no matter what happens to them after birth? Like some sort of “evil gene” passed down from your parents??

Of course it is an explanation, the more we learn what makes people turn bad the more we can prevent it.

Only dealing with people with extreme punishments after they have committed crimes and not looking for the reasons why people commit crimes doesn't help anyone.

Prevention is better than cure so they say...

Stoke away is a tough tough fixture. I am more confidant about our games against Wigan, Sunderland and Hull after than I am of this one.

If we get a win I will be delighted but I think it will be a draw, something like 2-2.

Wiggy, let me turn the "imagine if it was your child" argument back on yourself.

Imagine if, for some horrible reason, you had a 10 year old (or 8 year old if you wish) child and they comitted this crime of torturing and murdering a young child.

Would you think it was fair to hang your 10 year old child?

Obviously not, but im sure the parents of the victim would.

If you tried to look at it objectively and without emotion. What do you think 'the law of the land' should say?

I suppose the fact that im about to become a parent that thought of this happening to my own scares the living shit out of me. And to answer your question, the parents should decide their fate, what do you think the parents would have liked as their punishment Bof?

The trouble with letting the victoms family decide the fate is that it opens up all sorts of problems. The family are not impartial enough to make a rational judgment.

I'd argue that this country would be more **** if we were hanging 10 year old children.

that argument would be spot on too.

So instead we release the offender back into society to re-offend and then stand there saying how the rehabilitation programme he was put on didnt work and he was allowed to roam free.

The country would be a safer place for my children if scumbags like these were dealt with properly and removed. If that means the death penelty then so be it.

That doesn't have to mean the death penalty, though, does it? I think it's your blood lust for hanging 10 year old boys that many on here can't get their heads around. Imprisonment, fine. Imprisonment for longer than these boys/men served, again fine.

hanging 10 year old boys (and even 8 year olds as you now espose), not fine.

Since when do i have a blood lust? Try reading the thread and understand im not on my own in what i beleive.

I cant believe so many people try to make out that this is borderline acceptable.

Let me ask you Jon, do you have children?

Why can you not understand that just because people do want to kill these kids they don't think what they did is "borderline acceptable"??

If these sub-human creatures had done this to my kid, i would make it my mission to spend every minute dedicated to hunting them down... and when i eventually found them....

well lets just say i would go to jail for a lot longer than they did!

Not if one of their family then hunted you down and got to you before the police did.

It’s pretty stupid this whole vigilante thing.

Heskey was a bit naff wasn't he..

No not in the second half.

Apart from one run which he created himself to get one on one and then err miss, he still spent the majority of the second half giving them the ball straight back!

It's a bit harsh to say it was a miss, more a great save from the keeper i recon. He did get the ball up and over but the keeper got a hand up to it.

I know, thank god we have fans like you, whilst the rest of us have our own opinions right or wrong; your still consistent by just having MON's.

Once again jez you are completely wrong. Against burnley i wanted downing off and then he went and scored 2 goals. Against reading i wanted downing off again and heskey to come off and then we go and score 4 goals in a half.

Yet your once again getting worked up with people not happy with certain things of the performance before, during and after the game.

However, you've just admitted you've done the same.

So whats the difference?

I think it is the posts that call for the manager to be sacked and players to be sold, just because of a poor 45mins (in an excellent season so far), that most normal fans think is ludicrous.

Are you saying you could honestly hang two 10 year old boys, regardless of what they did? I don't think i could.

I dont understand the 'regardless of what they did' bit mate? Would i hang two 10 year old boys for stealing sweets...no. Would i hang two 10 year old boys for murdering and torturing a small child...hand on heart i would walk them to the gallows. Society has no place for these two individuals.

That's pretty messed up dude.

If you buy a puppy and you hit it and beat it and starve it and have it fight other dogs the dog will pretty quickly become agressive and dangerous.

The same thing happened to these kids. If you can reprogramme them and reteach them surely that is better than just killing them and washing your hands of it?

It doesn't matter if we play chelsea in the semi or in the final. We would have to play them and beat them at wembley to lift the cup either way.

The match thread makes for some entertaining reading after the game has finished

It's probably even better than the ones from Burnley at home and the Blackburn second leg

I might be being daft but this non-dom thing, it seems a bit mad to me, they do pay taxes on earnings in this country don't they? Its just they don't pay UK tax on earnings in other countries? Isn't that the correct state of affairs, you get taxed in the country where the money is earned? Seems like thats the way it should be, or am I missing something?

Yes, if you are living here but not domiciled you don't have to pay tax on your earnings abroad so the UK acts as a bit of a tax haven. I think there was a new rule brought in though that non-doms had to pay the government £30,000 if they had been living here a long time and still wanted to be considered non-domicile.

I've always assumed that the expression comes from a load which has been shed. The shed in the garden isn't involved in the common phrase in so far as I'm aware, it just happen to sound the same.

Precisely. The origin is from traffic reports and is taken to mean "enough stuff to close a motorway".

Yes I think this would be correct.

The phrase comes from the transportation term but when most people hear the word shed they think of a garden shed so that probably became the more popular meaning of the phrase.

A win here and we are back at Wembley to put right this weekends loss.

Lets put in the performance here.

I will be watching at Temple Walkabout because I have no ticket

I feel sorry for Spurs. They must know what’s coming; the inevitiable financial problems and ruin that come from being managed by Henry James Redknapp. Every club he has managed has suffered financial difficulties, if not administration

Levy won't let that happen.

I'm going to wait till after they are out of the FA Cup before I am gloating. If they avoid Chelsea they will probably go to the final.

Permission granted to gloat, BTW.

Ahaha brilliant!

No Wembley for that bunch of mopes.

They have a tough run of fixtures coming up as well with a lot of away games. They are already looking shaky.

Gringo,

I think the plan is to devalue us out of the debt. If we'd gone into the Euro when Blair wanted (and on this single issue Brown deserves credit) we'd be in very deep doodoo right now.

When you say 'plan' you make it look like they've thought this through!! But yeh, inflation / devaluation is the only way out other than an outright defaulting of the debts.

Yes, since this Greece debacle come out a couple of weeks ago the Euro has been dropping against the Pound. This is not what Mervyn King will want.

The latest announcement threatening to kick off QE again does the job of devaluing the pound back down again.

Yeah if there were a massive empire state building creature down there built to survive the pressure it would probably explode if it ever tried to come to the surface where there wouldn't be enough pressure to hold it together.

That would be cool to see...

Will be in the Covent Garden area on the saturday night. Is there any plan for a Villa get together and early sing song?

i will be there too, any more about?

where you drinking in covent garden?

not a clue where as never been before so anyone who has a can name a good pub to meet up in im all for it!

I can name you several bad pubs.

There is the Covent Garden walkabout and the truely aweful Roadhouse bar/nightclub.

Actually your best bet is the Porterhouse, round the back behind the walkabout. Loads of different beers and I think they brew some themselves. It gets very busy in there though so you want to go early, they usually show football as well i think.

Yes, this whole "getting bored" idea is just wishful thinking by rival fans...