The boyfriend of a 20-year-old woman who died after an attack in a skate park joined more than 300 mourners in a celebration of her life.
Sophie Lancaster died two weeks after the attack in Stubbylee Park in Bacup, Lancashire in August.
Her boyfriend Rob Maltby, 21, suffered head injuries, but made a recovery.
In the humanist funeral service, Miss Lancaster was described as an "original" who embraced life as one great adventure.
Sue Davies, officiating, told the congregation at Whitworth Riverside Centre that Sophie's death was "painful, cruel and tragic".
"Sophie Lancaster was an original. A remarkable and true individual. An exciting fierce woman of high intelligence and understanding," Ms Davies said.
"Sometimes stubborn and uncompromising with a strong moral code, someone who cultivated truth and beauty with equal ardour."
Mourners were invited to write farewell messages on the casket as her favourite music and a montage of photographs were shown on a projector.
Mr Maltby, whose friend read out a poem he wrote for his girlfriend, was among the first to pen a final goodbye as he kissed the coffin.
The pair, who were Goths, had previously been targeted because of the way they dressed.
Following her death, Miss Lancaster's parents Sylvia and John launched a campaign to highlight the hostility which Goths face.
The Stamp Out Prejudice Hatred and Intolerance Everywhere (Sophie) memorial fund aims to raise money to teach young people about alternative cultures and to respect everyone.
Five teenagers have appeared in court charged with Miss Lancaster's murder.
Two 17-year-olds and three 15-year-olds, all from Bacup, are due to face trial at Preston Crown Court next March.
There's more about her on her wiki page. Some of the funeral can be seen here.
Having been beaten up on the floor by a gang of assholes for largely the same reason (one of the most frightening experiences of my life), I have to say it's annoying as fuck that this hasn't really been reported on till now, maybe the charity will do some good in public education. I also know a load of local bands are doing some gigs to raise money for the charity, but what a goddamned shame.
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Julhelm wrote:Out of interest, what sort do the assholes in question belong to? Skaters? Chavs?
They'll be chavs, I'd bet all the money I have on that. Skaters and goths usually are in the same "alternative" circles. A gang of chavs once beat a friend of mine with his own skateboard, in fact, on his way home.
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Zuul wrote:
They'll be chavs, I'd bet all the money I have on that. Skaters and goths usually are in the same "alternative" circles. A gang of chavs once beat a friend of mine with his own skateboard, in fact, on his way home.
What precisely are Chavs anyway? They sound like every American rap culture urban sterotype rolled into one.
Zuul wrote:
They'll be chavs, I'd bet all the money I have on that. Skaters and goths usually are in the same "alternative" circles. A gang of chavs once beat a friend of mine with his own skateboard, in fact, on his way home.
What precisely are Chavs anyway? They sound like every American rap culture urban sterotype rolled into one.
In the US they'd be White Trailer Trash or Whiggers.
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Zuul wrote:
They'll be chavs, I'd bet all the money I have on that. Skaters and goths usually are in the same "alternative" circles. A gang of chavs once beat a friend of mine with his own skateboard, in fact, on his way home.
What precisely are Chavs anyway? They sound like every American rap culture urban sterotype rolled into one.
Devvo is a parody, but generally exemplifies what they are and how they behave, albeit funnier. White trash is totally accurate. They generally listen to happy hardcore (worst dance music ever) and uk garage (worst hip hop ever) instead of country, though.
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Only a first class loser would even consider beating up someone because of not liking how they dress. A violently psychopathic loser at that. There's really not much else that can be said about the subject.
Adrian Laguna wrote:Only a first class loser would even consider beating up someone because of not liking how they dress. A violently psychopathic loser at that. There's really not much else that can be said about the subject.
Psychopathic, xenophobic and violently resentful of his own life.
Their life stories are usually almost identical, whether they're chavs, gangstas ,rednecks, trailer trash or whatever. It seems to be human nature in it's ugliest.
Julhelm wrote:Out of interest, what sort do the assholes in question belong to? Skaters? Chavs?
They'll be chavs, I'd bet all the money I have on that. Skaters and goths usually are in the same "alternative" circles. A gang of chavs once beat a friend of mine with his own skateboard, in fact, on his way home.
They sound like a good argument for carrying baseball bats in public...or at the least, a stungun/Mace/whatever legal self-defense option is available.
Matt Huang wrote:I'm pretty sure that both stunguns and mace/pepper spray are illegal in the UK.
Oh.
...a loud whistle/cell phone with cops on speed dial, then?
It's a damned tragedy that anyone would die from such fucking stupidity. It sounds like it was a touching funeral, at least...I hope the murderers get a stiff sentence.
Matt Huang wrote:I'm pretty sure that both stunguns and mace/pepper spray are illegal in the UK.
Unless I'm mistaken, there's little right to defend yourself in the UK. It's really only hearsay though, so don't quote me on it. But yeah, I'm pretty sure that stunguns and any sort of mace are illegal in the UK.
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Matt Huang wrote:I'm pretty sure that both stunguns and mace/pepper spray are illegal in the UK.
Unless I'm mistaken, there's little right to defend yourself in the UK. It's really only hearsay though, so don't quote me on it. But yeah, I'm pretty sure that stunguns and any sort of mace are illegal in the UK.
You can defend yourself if you feel threatened and court agree's you were under threat.
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Matt Huang wrote:I'm pretty sure that both stunguns and mace/pepper spray are illegal in the UK.
Unless I'm mistaken, there's little right to defend yourself in the UK. It's really only hearsay though, so don't quote me on it. But yeah, I'm pretty sure that stunguns and any sort of mace are illegal in the UK.
You can defend yourself if you feel threatened and court agree's you were under threat.
Yeah, but what with? your fists aren't going to cut it against more than 3-4 people, especially with improvised weapons.
It's things like this that make me advocate concealed carry laws.
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Sephirius wrote:It's things like this that make me advocate concealed carry laws.
What makes you think the thugs would be any less likely to carry weapons than the victims?
Well if you make weapons illegal, who's going to have weapons? It's pretty obvious that your good law abiding citizen would be unarmed, but its also obvious that criminals wouldn't give up their weapons so easily. Even if said weapons are just things like kitchen knifes, brass knuckles and chains.
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Sephirius wrote:It's things like this that make me advocate concealed carry laws.
What makes you think the thugs would be any less likely to carry weapons than the victims?
Well if you make weapons illegal, who's going to have weapons? It's pretty obvious that your good law abiding citizen would be unarmed, but its also obvious that criminals wouldn't give up their weapons so easily. Even if said weapons are just things like kitchen knifes, brass knuckles and chains.
Note that the goths weren't shot, they were beaten. To put it another way, when someone gets shot here, it often makes national news, methinks it's a bit different in the US, despite the vaunted awesomeness of legally concealed weapons.
As for the right to defend, you can basically do what you feel the situation requires in order to protect people's lives and then it's down to the police/judge's discretion as to whether the force involved was reasonable or not.
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Adrian Laguna wrote:Only a first class loser would even consider beating up someone because of not liking how they dress. A violently psychopathic loser at that. There's really not much else that can be said about the subject.
Psychopathic, xenophobic and violently resentful of his own life.
Their life stories are usually almost identical, whether they're chavs, gangstas ,rednecks, trailer trash or whatever. It seems to be human nature in it's ugliest.
Chavs are the kind of unavoidable fuckwits who despise you for being tall/short, fat/thin, clever/dumb, practically anything not them, often randomly shouting and swearing at you in the streets from their Chavmobiles like the idiot fruitcakes that they are - my neighbourhood, Hanham Abbots (Bristol), is really going down the shitter in recent years because of these type of people drifting in from Kingswood and "Banjo Island" (with two local pubs closed down temporarily for being used as drug dens by these Chavs).
Sephirius wrote:It's things like this that make me advocate concealed carry laws.
What makes you think the thugs would be any less likely to carry weapons than the victims?
Well if you make weapons illegal, who's going to have weapons?
Because instantly upon making guns illegal all criminals automagically have them by virtue of being criminals.
The idea is that since anyone with a gun would be a criminal, any one that's a criminal would have a gun.
A > B
B > A
I leave you to figure out why that's logically retarded yourself, the little diagram there should help...if not, try this on for size:
All witches are women, therefore all women are witches.
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As has been already been noted - the widely held misconception about the UK is that your not allowed to defend yourself. This is complete and utter bollocks of the highest order. You are allowed to use whatever force you think is reasonable in a situation. For example: Your allowed to kick, punch and generally knock an assailant out, but your not allowed to keep putting the boot in. And generally, the police, CPS and Judiciary will accept that if any criminal happens to say the magical words "They assaulted me!"
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Vehrec wrote:Well if you make weapons illegal, who's going to have weapons?
Because instantly upon making guns illegal all criminals automagically have them by virtue of being criminals.
The idea is that since anyone with a gun would be a criminal, any one that's a criminal would have a gun.
Fucking strawman, Keevan, and you know it. No, not all criminals would automatically have guns, but criminals who presently have guns wouldn't give them up, while law-abiding citizens would... and those previously law-abiding citizens who wouldn't would now be criminals, but that's another issue entirely. That is not even remotely the same thing as saying that all criminals would be automatically armed with firearms.
In effect, banning concealed carry only disarms potential victims; to an armed criminal, it's just one more charge appended to the end of a doubtlessly already long rap sheet.
As for Mike's original question, the answer is that known thugs aren't licensed to carry concealed weapons, not even in the most gun-friendly states of the U.S. So it is already illegal for a criminal to carry a concealed weapon; making it illegal for a law-abiding citizen to do so doesn't change the criminals' legal situation with regards to firearms in the least.
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