Ryans Fatal Attack on Sukhdev - Essay Example

?Murder law The case study of Ryan’s fatal attack on Sukhdev, which lead to Sukhdev’s death apparently talks of the murder. On studying the background and circumstances in the light of murder law, we can bring out some aspects to the surface which leave the jury to look upon in the process of delivering justice. Facts: - Ryan was enjoying a night out with his girlfriend, Laura. They began the evening with drinks with some friends in a pub before going on to a night club called ‘Gas’. Laura had been drinking vodka in the pub but stopped drinking when they got to ‘Gas’ around 1.00 am. Ryan had been drinking lager all night, topping up the beer up with a few shots as the evening wore on. In the night club Ryan happened to see Sukhdev an Asian engaging in loud discourse with Laura in an intimate position. Under the influence of alcohol, Ryan used dirty language against Sukhdev humiliating his Asian identity. Sukhdev’s friends separated him from the scene, ignoring Ryan. The outraged Ryan shifted his anger over her and tried to pull her out when she quitted saying her day with him was over. Ryan never stopped taking liquor and met a friend of him in another club. During exchange of his experience at ‘Gas’ club, the friend fuelled his animosity on Sukhdev and returned back to ‘Gas’ club to meet Sukhdev again who was just leaving ‘Gas’ with a few friend and two young white girls. Ryan dragged them into altercation and began to attack Sukhdev. Sukhdev’s friend too retaliated in the same coin terming Ryan a white scum. Ryan’s friend joined him and showed his muscle power against Sukhdev, by when the door staff of ‘Gas’ called the police to intervene. However, the police caught hold Ryan and brought Sukhdev to a nearby hospital, where he was declared dead before arrival. Background: - Ryan was aged 22 at the time of the incident. He had grown up in the north Midlands town where the incident took place in a terraced house close to the mine where his father had worked as a young man. The mine had closed in the early 1980s along with many of the town’s other heavy industries. After losing his mining job Ryan’s father had struggled to find work, eventually finding work as a long distance lorry driver. During the 1950s and 1960s when the local economy was booming, people had been attracted to the town from both Pakistan and the West Indies, often to work in the health service, transport and on night shifts in local factories. More recent migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and south-eastern Europe had found it harder to get work – often because they were prevented from doing so as asylum-seekers. Despite this inward migration, the town remained overwhelmingly white and many families had lived in the area for generations. Ryan’s father and mother split up when Ryan was four leaving his mother to bring him up along with his elder brother, Damian, and younger sister, Charlotte. During Ryan’s childhood, his mother had a succession of relationships with men, two of whom had, like Ryan’s father, been violent towards her. One of them, a man called Dave, who didn’t work and spent most of the time drinking at home in front of the television, had taken a strong dislike to Ryan and gave him regular beatings, including on one occasion with a baseball bat he kept behind the door, ostensibly to deal with burglars. Ryan had spent some time in hospital as a result of this beating. Ryan also suspected that Dave had been sexually abusing his younger sister but his mother had threatened to throw him out if he didn’t ‘stop making things up’. From the age of nine Ryan had tried to spend as little time as possible at home. Hanging out on the streets, he came into contact with a group of older boys who were amused by his fearless, devil-may-care attitude and adopted him as a kind of mascot. Through his contacts with this group, Ryan began drinking alcohol and then got into taking drugs. By the age of 13, Ryan was a hardened drinker and a regular truant. On the rare occasions when he did go to school Ryan took the opportunity to sell cannabis he was given by the older boys he hung out with on the streets. His school reports suggested that Ryan was a ‘bright lad’ but a ‘persistently disruptive’ presence in class. After a succession of suspensions for fighting with fellow pupils and damaging school property, Ryan (aged 15) was eventually expelled for calling a teacher who asked him to explain why he hadn’t done his homework a ‘stupid fucking bitch’, smashing the windscreen of her car and threatening to ‘rape’ her daughter who went to a school nearby. After a spell in a special residential unit, Ryan returned to live with his mother, and to renew acquaintances with his old friends on the streets, as a self-proclaimed ‘nut case’ with a reputation for being both unpredictable and violent. With no qualifications and convictions for taking and driving away a vehicle and assaults on an ex-girlfriend and a police officer, Ryan found it hard to find work and he drifted from one poorly paid job to the next. Eventually he found that he could make a reasonable living from dealing drugs he bought from mainly Asian suppliers – or ‘mates’ as he called them – in a nearby city, and from selling on stolen vehicles and car parts using knowledge of the motor trade gained during a spell working in a garage for one of his mother’s old boyfriends. At the time of Sukhdev’s death, Ryan was living with his elder brother, Damian. He had been being thrown out of his mother’s house following a series of increasingly angry arguments over his sister Charlotte’s relationship with a man Ryan described as ‘a dirty gyppo’. He had been going out with Laura off and on for a few months, but their relationship had been punctuated by frequent rows and the couple had split up twice. The second split had been prompted by a violent confrontation over Laura’s continuing friendship with an ex-boyfriend. During the course of the argument Ryan had hit Laura with a pool cue. Despite calling the police and needing hospital treatment for her injuries, Laura had refused to press charges and allowed an apologetic Ryan to talk her into resuming the relationship. An analysis of this background: - Ryan’s lifestyle clearly shows the centre of the issue towards a highly inappropriate parent hood destined on him. The role of his mother had been evidently unbecoming of a mother. The justified dislike of Ryan on Dave, one of the partners of his mother was simply censured by his mother. This naturally had dented his psyche to such an extent that he could not be corrected at a later stage. The follow up incidents that took place in his life were adding more to the exacerbation only. His perverted attitude during his adolescence were not attempted to be corrected by the teaching crew. The teaching community around him was not able to fix the psychological vacuum in him. Instead, the school got itself away from his trouble by way of simple expulsion of Ryan. At the period of his youth hood, the entire society was apparently against his livelihood and existence even. Only bad elements of society were able to identify his very little knowledge on drugs and motor vehicles and used him for their own purposes thus by adding one more element to their ‘world’. Although multiple partnerships might have been accepted in their social culture, Ryan’s perception of his girlfriend, Laura, was in no way different from his mother. Not even a single personality could be identified that was capable enough to guide him at times of his turmoil. But everybody was prepared to check him out or beat or disdain. Patting is never felt by Ryan in his life. Kinnear K.L (2009: p.2) have cited the researcher Frederick Thrasher defining the type and class of a gang member. He asserted that gang members never mingled with the mainstream and did not have advantages others had; they were often composed of individuals of lower class, left out and ignored by the rest of the society. (Kinnear, 2009: p.2) Ryan is a typical gang member who was assumed as a mascot by like minded youth in his early boy hood. The demoralisation of his psyche can not be ascribed merely to himself. But the scene of crime could not be able to consider these aspects of a lifetime activities in a man. Law may be blind to such humane sympathies and emotions. But it is concerned chiefly with the structure of social norms. Murder law generally speaks of first degree murder, second degree murder and manslaughter. Although manslaughter is relatively less culpable crime than murder, some kinds of manslaughter are classified as second degree murder, in which the defendant was aware of the dire consequences that his act would lead to murder. Under present law, killing through reckless conduct, however, culpable can be treated as nothing more serious than manslaughter. (Law Com No.304, 2006: p. 37) Legal aspects of the case: - While attacking Sukhdev, Ryan had been presumed to be well aware of his act that it would cause serious injury to the victim, Sukhdev. The spot of provocation when Sukhdev’s friend made some racial retaliation stems from Ryan’s view on racial identification of Sukhdev at his first sight. Ryan’s outburst with Laura calling Sukhdev as a vindaloo makes it clear that Ryan had long time been viewing Asians with contempt. Defence of provocation under section 3 of the Homicide Act 1957 could well be applied in this case of Ryan’s attack on Sukhdev as follows: Both the factual limb and evaluative limb of the common law get aptly proven in this case. The factual limb which considers the defendant was getting provoked was the factual assertion on two grounds: 1) Ryan was in an inebriated state while indulging in altercation with the mob surrounding Sukhdev. 2) Sukhdev’s friend called Ryan a white scum. In proving the evaluative limb of the common law that deals with the allowance of defendant’s characteristics in comparison with the provocation of a normal man with normal power of self-control, (Law Com No.306, 2006: p.84) Ryan’s anger and rage could not simply be considered something planned or malice aforethought particularly against Sukhdev. Although disdaining Asians was the characteristic of Ryan, this could not well be given allowance in this case, since a normal man would easily be provoked when humiliated on his racial identity. Thus Ryan’s attack on Sukhdev could well be treated as manslaughter rather than murder. Paragraph 2.78 of the Consultation Paper on Great Britain’s Law Commission report provides a candid presentation of the case of Ryan’s attack. The contents of the paragraph read: The failure or success in a provocation plea, and hence a defendant whether or not receives a mandatory life sentence, may often turn on one or more of a whole range of finely-judged matters. These include whether the defendant’s reaction was influenced wholly or partly by a self-induced intoxication; whether a characteristic affected the defendant’s level of self-control as well as the gravity of provocation; and (possibly) there were reasonable grounds for thinking the victim had made a remark particularly in a provocative way. In the case of Ryan the intoxication factor could be accommodated fully into the judgement, while the degree of provocation and the role of victim (Sukhdev) in passing a provocative remark be considered in the light of alcoholic impact in Ryan; because, although Sukhdev had not factually made any humiliating remark on Ryan, his friend had called him a ‘white scum’, for which Sukhdeve’s reaction was plainly nothing. The defendant has more probable opportunity to consider/understand the racial remark uttered by the accomplice of Sukhdev as Sukhdev’s itself. Apart from this point of view on the attack as manslaughter, one more special aspect of the case is also to be seen. Ryan’s friend joining the melee and giving more blows on Sukhdev has the possibility of the entire brawl being considered as gang violence. An Ireland study on gang violence ascertained that influx of foreign workers was prone to increase hate crimes on streets and public places performed by youth. (Covey, 2010: p. 94). A deep study of Ryan’s attack resembles this evaluation in which Asian influx escalated racism. In gang violence the exact perpetrator could be identified and fixed with much difficulty adopting extensive probe on the scene. Absence of feedback about this issue in the case study renders charging Ryan with the offence of murder quite improbable. The case study is silent on the role of the night club ‘Gas’ owner during the confrontation between Ryan and Sukhdev at around 1.00 A.M. Had the scene of altercation between Ryan and Sukhdev in the presence of Laura at about 1.00 A.M been taken note of by the pub owner, the re-entry of Ryan and the meeting of Sukhdev could well have been diverted/restricted or at least be informed to the police in advance of the occurrence of the crime. Here the pub owner may not have the responsibility of protecting a single customer against any attack by a third party. (Beaty and Samuelson, 2009: p.8) However, the pub owner had ample chance of foreseeing any brawl between Ryan and Sukhdev from which reasonable and necessary safety precaution against the attack could have been made. But in this case study we can not focus on this, since the report is silent on this part. Moreover, it is not the case between the pub owner and any claimant. Reference list – Beatty J.F and Susan S. Samuelson (2009) Introduction to Business Law, Third Edition, South-Western, Cengage Learning, USA Great Britain Law Commission, (2006) Murder, Manslaughter and Infanticide, Project 6 of the Ninth Programme of law Reform. Crown Copyright. London. Great Britain Law Commission (2006) A New Homicide Act for England and Wales?- A Consultation Paper No.177, Published by the TSO(the Stationery Office) Herbert C. Covey (2010) Street Gangs Throughout The World, Second Edition, Charles C Thomas Publisher Ltd, Illinois. Karen L. Kinnear (2009) Gangs: A Reference Handbook, Second Edition, ABC-CLIO-LLC, California. Read More

 

Read More