Second distressing court case

I wrote yesterday about the tragedy of a mother killing her three children, a court case that is currently underway. An equally tragic one has been in the news as well. A young girl was forced to choose how she died after being tortured by a group of her acquaintances, people she had socialised with, the night before. Two people are already serving life sentences for the crime but a third, who was only 16 , and declared unfit to stand trial at the time, was tried for her part, this month. This week, she was found guilty of kidnapping, but the jurors could not decide whether her role was one of manslaughter or murder. A 14-year-old was also involved and supplied details of the crime to the police. She was given immunity.

The ordeal, which occurred in 2018, was heart breaking. The 17-year-old victim was lured to an abandoned house before being beaten and stripped naked. Her hair was cut off, and soiled underwear forced into her mouth. Her naked body was then burnt with a blow torch after which she given an option of being stabbed to death or being hung. She had to choose how she wanted to die. She chose hanging and afterwards, her body was stuffed into an empty drum.

There was some pathetic excuse for this torture.

What I am having trouble with is how one human being could do this to another. How could there be so much hatred or jealousy, or whatever the motivation was, that anyone would treat another in this way? The victim was only 17 and the perpetrators not that much older.

I know there have been some terrible atrocities carried out during the wars and throughout the ages (I have experienced some of them in my former lives) and I know torture is still carried out in places around the world today. Have we not learnt from the past? This is today in our modern society where we are supposedly educated and know right from wrong. Will humanity ever learn? This girl’s ordeal would have been horrendous. The murderers didn’t just stop at one thing, they tried to inflict as much pain onto the victim as they possibly could.

Had they have let her live, she would have no doubt suffered a lifetime of trauma from the assault but to be forced to choose her own death was shocking.

I am sure the perpetrators have issues themselves, to have even contemplated doing what they did. As a society, we need to look out for each other and to provide help to those who need it.

Let us hope we never hear of any case as tragic as the two I have written about, ever again. Is that too much to ask?