On Sunday, October 30, 2004 a gay barman named David Morley, 37, a survivor of the Admiral Duncan pub bombing in Soho six years ago, had been beaten to death by a teenage gang from Kennington, south London. He had been a victim of a practice called “happy slapping” which involved beating, kicking and stamping. The entire action was filmed onto a mobile phone by a 14 year old girl, a member of the gang, which gave the last and the fatal boot to Morley’s skull. His friend, Alastair Whitehead,who witnessed the girl land the final kicks to his head says, “She kicked him like you would kick a football or rugby ball, just swinging her right foot back and kicking him really hard in the head.” The man suffered 44 impact injuries and a ruptured spleen. The four members of gang, being Reece Sargeant (21), Darren Case (18), youth aged 17, and a girl aged 15 whose identities remain concealed for legal reasons, were found guilty for manslaughter. Journalists claim that the crime had been inspired by Anthony Burgess’s novel ‘A Clockwork Orange’ which involves harsh scenes of ultra-violence.
The phenomenon of ‘happy slapping’ seems to originate in south London as a craze that has later become a nationwide and even a borders-crossing issue. ‘Happy slapping’ can be characterized as a crazy idea in which an unsuspecting victim, almost always selected at random, is attacked by a group or an individual while an accomplice is in charge of filming it on a camera (usually a mobile phone camera). Find out more about “Happy Slapping”
In contrast to the case of Jokela High School shooting (discussed before), where the link between media violence or media as such and the actual motives for perpetrating the crime was rather of an implicit nature, this incident appears to give some credit to the theory that supports the idea of direct link between the exposure to violent imagery and real-life violence. As acknowledged by the court, the fact that this gang’s tactics in many ways reminded those of the teenagers from Anthony Burgess’s novel “A Clockwork Orange” might not be just a pure coincidence. Shortly after the novel was filmed and publicly viewed in 1971 a series of violent crimes emerged that were apparently inspired by this movie. A 17 year old girl was rapped under the sound of “Singing in the rain” that was hummed by her rapists, just like Alex’s gang did in the film. In addition a 16 year old boy tortured a younger child wearing the facsimiled uniform of Alex. Both events proved that the film had a negative impact towards the society.
From my personal experience, I must state that despite the fact that there are hundreds of other movies which contain far more detailed scenes of gore and violence this one stands out for many reasons. It hardly comes as a surprise that this movie was labeled ‘controversial’ since I can vividly imagine an emotionally unstable adolescent that would love to identify with such person as Alex; the main character – relentless and sickly passionate for violence. The thing that is probably considered the most irritable and of serious concern among public is that all the violent acts, such as fight, rape or murder, are accompanied by jolly music which only enforces the feeling of characters having extreme fun, while beating people to death.
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It is interesting how teenagers see violence today and 10 years ago. Happy slapping is a good example of how chidlren perceive reality nowadays. Because of the technology and media, chidlren are exposed more to the negative side of media. Overall, good examples.
Were no sources used in the writing of this article? tnesbitt