Man gets 70 days in jail for "creepily" staring at someone.

retro:electro

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Oh dear.

Not the "he should have been treated leniently because I've found some completely different instances where women were, and I'll include a graphic photo to shock you into agreeing" point?

It's so laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

The real crime here is inconsistency, Conor. In fact the biggest crime of every crime is inconsistent sentencing, don't you know.

Prune Tracy

Heckler wrote: »

Christ the world really has gone mad. If I was locked up for all the times I scoped out a woman......Alcatraz ultra Max.

Oh and I presume women are immune from this heinous crime of checking out the opposite sex.

Heckler wrote: »

Hugh Grant/ Brad Pitt/ Take your pick staring at you through the window holding flowers while you work Nandos. OMG how romantic.

Average Joe does it. OMG what a creep. #meetoooooo.

lazybones32 wrote: »

Duh! Gay men must be immune too. I've had some unwanted stares. 70 days in prison might be a fantasy to some though.

Ye really are just believing what ye want to believe. You know full well "checking someone out" is not the case here.

Prune Tracy wrote: »

Why are people contextualising this incident as one where a guy has just looked at a woman because he fancies her? Guys do it all the time - women do it all the time. It's no big deal and nobody goes to prison for it.

This is clearly a different type of situation - let's leave sex out of it, it's a person giving the message to another whom they don't know, that they're watching them/have a fixation on them. This is of course threatening behaviour. If I was on the receiving end of that, I'd worry about my safety, about being followed. This is the issue at hand - no amount of "If she fancied him, different story" changes that. By the way, that's some strange logic to draw - if a guy was staring at a woman in a stalkerish manner, just randomly while she's at work (which is weird, off-putting behaviour for anyone) it would be no issue if she fancied him?

That hypothesis (which I agree with Candie can often be used very resentfully - it does happen but it doesn't have to be trotted out *all* the time; nor do all women think that way) only makes sense if the encounter is a mundane/innocent/well meaning one like a guy starting to chat to a woman in a bar... not a stranger staring at her continuously while she's at work.

I do think 70 days in prison seems excessive, but framing it as a "boy meets girl" story is very disingenuous.

Prune Tracy

To be fair to Pete, the blatant misrepresentation and dishonesty regarding this case is one thing for me - the inconsistency in sentencing is another. I agree with him that it's a problem. Those two weapons walking free is a sickener.

I don't think he's saying sentences men get should be reduced or suspended - rather that sentences women get should be on a par with them.

retro:electro

Prune Tracy wrote: »

To be fair to Pete, the blatant misrepresentation and dishonesty regarding this case is one thing for me - the inconsistency in sentencing is another. I agree with him that it's a problem. Those two weapons walking free is a sickener.

I don't think he's saying sentences men get should be reduced or suspended - rather that sentences women get should be on a par with them.

There are certain posters who, no matter what the crime is against a male- will scour the internet in search of similar crimes committed by women with more lenient sentencing.
It's almost as if they find the inconsistency more offensive than the crime?

professore

Candie wrote: »

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

This again.

It's basically used to put women down, while handing a neat excuse to every man who's ever behaved in a way that makes someone uncomfortable - "If I looked like Tom Hardy, she'd think my staring in the window at her while she works in menacing and intimidating way romantic instead of worrying" while painting the woman in an unflatteringly shallow light.

I'm sure it happens sometimes with particularly vacuous people, but it's not a rule of thumb the way some think. Sometimes it really is the mans fault and not the womans, believe it or not.

A lot of men act like this with women depending on their hotness.

kylith

professore wrote: »

A lot of men act like this with women depending on their hotness.

Of course they do. Hot woman sits on their knee, happy days. Woman with face like the back of a bus sits on their knee, get lost you munter.

People Find People They Find Attractive Attractive Shocker.

professore

70 days in jail is very excessive especially for a homeless person with mental health issues. The money would have been better spent on treatment. All the other gender wars stuff on here is irrelevant.

wakka12

anna080 wrote: »

There are certain posters who, no matter what the crime is against a male- will scour the internet in search of similar crimes committed by women with more lenient sentencing.
It's almost as if they find the inconsistency more offensive than the crime?

Dodging the question a bit? Its something that needs to be talked about. Women getting shorter sentences for similar crimes committed by men is not a myth, its not one off articles people find by scouring the internet

And that last bit you said really annoys me, I could say it seems almost as if you don't care that women didn't get any jail time for serious crimes

retro:electro

wakka12 wrote: »

Dodging the question a bit? Its something that needs to be talked about. Women getting shorter sentences for similar crimes committed by men is not a myth, its not one off articles people find by scouring the internet

And that last bit you said really annoys me, I could say it seems almost as if you don't care that women didn't get any jail time for serious crimes

Start a thread on it if it bothers you so much. I'm not saying that it's not a problem in some cases- but it's brought into every single relevant thread lately, as if the inconsistency is what's paramount and the actual crime secondary to that.

Outlaw Pete

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

I'll remember that Candie next time you feel a man gets too lenient a sentence.

'Ah well now in fairness, the courts obviously thought the sentence was warranted and sure they have more information to hand than we do, so who are we to argue'.

Yeah, I can imagine that going down well with you. Come on, courts fcuk up all the time.

If an article has scant information and we wonder at the verdict, it's reasonable to think that there might well be more to it than reported.

If an article has plenty of information about the crime, it's not particularly reasonable to assume there's less to it than reported.

Courts do indeed mess up at times, but we don't know that's the case here.

professore

professore wrote: »

70 days in jail is very excessive especially for a homeless person with mental health issues. The money would have been better spent on treatment. All the other gender wars stuff on here is irrelevant.

I wonder if he was sent down because the judge thought he might be ill and would be better off off the streets and in a place where he could get medical attention? It is November, in Glasgow.

Stranger things have happened. It might be that the judge thought it would be a dangerous thing to send him out on the streets, if he was unstable.

end of the road

gctest50 wrote: »

Yer man dumped his chips over her friends head
That's usually followed by a few punches etc

a nasty thing to do agreed.

gctest50 wrote: »

She stopped it dead, the little wuss is now gone to hide under his mammy's bed

no she asalted him and needs to be off the streets. she is a danger to society and she will do this again, next time it won't be someone dumping chips but someone, well, doing nothing. when you let a violent individual away with something they will definitely do it again.

gctest50 wrote: »

The other one in your post, the judge said :

doesn't matter, she should have been locked up also, with her drug and alcohol issues dealt with.

anna080 wrote: »

Start a thread on it if it bothers you so much. I'm not saying that it's not a problem in some cases- but it's brought into every single relevant thread lately, as if the inconsistency is what's paramount and the actual crime secondary to that.

because sentencing is one branch of crime discussions. there is only so many times one can write or read "shocking crime, lock them up" . the thread has to contain some line of discussion and often that will branch out a bit in to other aspects related to crime in general, such as sentencing.

end of the road

end of the road wrote: »

because sentencing is one branch of crime discussions. there is only so many times one can write or read "shocking crime, lock them up" . the thread has to contain some line of discussion and often that will branch out a bit in to other aspects related to crime in general, such as sentencing.

But they're not even in the same jurisdiction.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Women should serve the same sentences in the same conditions as men.

No more Dochas centre. No keys for their 'room'. Lock em up in cells like the boys.

Outlaw Pete

anna080 wrote: »

I'm not saying that it's not a problem in some cases- but it's brought into every single relevant thread lately, as if the inconsistency is what's paramount and the actual crime secondary to that.

Because it's fcuking relevant, anna, sentences should be consistent and a good way of showing that inconsistency is to highlight certain cases which have made the headlines...... no 'scouring of the Internet' needed. It's also far from a just a gender issue and in my first post on this thread I never even mention gender:

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

The problem here is consistency. Quite often I read about far more serious crimes getting community service in the UK, so why is that not good enough here.

That's not to say that sexism doesn't play a role in some farcical sentencing, it absolutely does. One of the worst examples this case were three women stripped and beat an 18-year-old, burning his testicles with a curling iron, and all of them walked with community service orders. You think we would ever see ancase of three men stripping a beating an 18-year-old girl, burning her genitals and all of them walking? Course not, thankfully.

Not that only women get lenient sentences, indeed twice or three times this year on threads I've spoken about how the man who murdered my best friend received a pathetic sentence. But, in the UK right now, and for a quite a while, it does tend to be more women we see getting laughably lenient sentences and more men getting absurdly harsh ones. Anyway you slice it, this sentence is absurd.

Outlaw Pete

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Because it's fcuking relevant, anna, sentences should be consistent and a good way of showing that inconsistency is to highlight certain cases which have made the headlines...... no 'scouring of the Internet' needed...

Across different crimes in different jurisdictions involving different facts?

The comparable cases should be Scottish and for the same offence, at the very least.

Sam Quentin

Can't believe some of you are sticking up for this creep.

wakka12

Sam Quentin wrote: »

Can't believe some of you are sticking up for this creep.

Nobody in this thread cares about this creepy weird guy
I don't want to be friends with him or ever meet him
I am sticking up the fact that somebody was imprisoned for something that isn't a 'crime'

He was imprisoned for menacing behaviour, it's a crime, and he admitted to it.

wakka12

Candie wrote: »

He was imprisoned for menacing behaviour, it's a crime, and he admitted to it.

Menacing behaviour is extremely subjective. he didn't physically harm somebody, or verbally say anything to her even, no threats made
Regardless of what he admitted to its ridiculous theres laws punishable by jail time for this 'crime'

Sam Quentin

wakka12 wrote: »

Nobody in this thread cares about this creepy weird guy
I don't want to be friends with him or ever meet him
I am sticking up the fact that somebody was imprisoned for something that isn't a 'crime'

Well, if it's not a crime!?
IT SHOULD BE.

wakka12

wakka12 wrote: »

Menacing behaviour is extremely subjective.

Lots of crimes like our own threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour can be claimed to be subjective. But the Courts usually just ask if the reasonable person would have found the words or gestures threatening, abusive or insulting. Are you saying there is a different test in Scotland?

wakka12

wakka12 wrote: »

Menacing behaviour is extremely subjective. he didn't physically harm somebody, or verbally say anything to her even, no threats made
Regardless of what he admitted to its ridiculous theres laws punishable by jail time for this 'crime'

I think the court probably had a better handle on the nature and extent of the menacing, and the guy admitted to it.

I'm not sure what's served by arbitrarily deciding that he wasn't menacing at all and just admitted to it for kicks, and was sent down for no reason at all.

Whether you approve or not it's a crime to behave menacingly to another person, and it seems that's what this person was doing, or said he was doing.

Allinall

I do, but it doesn't mean I can swing my arm wherever I like, with my fist closed.

Or lie on the fround and look up a girls skirt.

GritBiscuit

wakka12 wrote: »

Menacing behaviour is extremely subjective. he didn't physically harm somebody, or verbally say anything to her even, no threats made
Regardless of what he admitted to its ridiculous theres laws punishable by jail time for this 'crime'

Menacing behaviour is on a spectrum of nuisance behaviours - for reasons best known to yourselves, some posters are choosing to assume this case is on the most minor end of that spectrum. We don't know if the assistant is female. We don't know if threatening behaviour was part of the "odd behaviour" the article refers to. We don't know what the guy was doing or how he looked other than it clearly wasn't in the category of "normal behaviour".

Put it another way, if some big hairy bloke was growling and stalking up and down outside your house a couple of times a day, coming and pressing his nose up against your windows would you find that menacing? Other than this being the pharmacy assistant's workplace (and I would imagine being a drugs dispenser probably had something to do with why his behaviour was taken so seriously) - can you really see no reason why this could be considered a criminal offence?

kylith

We had a menacing starer in a place I worked before. He'd come in and stare at a particular member of staff. Then he started following this staff member around at work, muttering to himself under his breath. Nothing illegal there, right?

Then he started hanging around outside. Then he tried to follow the staff member home. You'd better believe we called the Gardaí.

Hammer89

kylith wrote: »

We had a menacing starer in a place I worked before. He'd come in and stare at a particular member of staff. Then he started following this staff member around at work, muttering to himself under his breath. Nothing illegal there, right?

Then he started hanging around outside. Then he tried to follow the staff member home. You'd better believe we called the Gardaí.

This is what I mean. This is why I don't see much wrong in the 70-day sentence, because some people just aren't okay. Either they're fully aware of the level of discomfort and anguish they inflict on others with this sort of carry on or, more worryingly, they're completely oblivious.

The fact that the Scottish chap returned to the scene a second time might suggest that he doesn't understand that it's creepy or why, and that's a problem because like Kylith's example, it could've easily escalated into a more serious issue had the judge not come down hard on him.

Staring isn't a crime in itself, obviously, but when that behaviour suggests you could be a threat to society then that's when questions must be asked about whether he should go back on the streets without being given a very clear message.

end of the road

Hammer89 wrote: »

This is what I mean. This is why I don't see much wrong in the 70-day sentence, because some people just aren't okay. Either they're fully aware of the level of discomfort and anguish they inflict on others with this sort of carry on or, more worryingly, they're completely oblivious.

The fact that the Scottish chap returned to the scene a second time might suggest that he doesn't understand that it's creepy or why, and that's a problem because like Kylith's example, it could've easily escalated into a more serious issue had the judge not come down hard on him.

Staring isn't a crime in itself, obviously, but when that behaviour suggests you could be a threat to society then that's when questions must be asked about whether he should go back on the streets without being given a very clear message.

it's not the job of the justice system to give messages, it's their job to punish crimes and protect society. it's the job of the education system to give messages.
it's being concerned about sending messages and deterrents that has the justice system the way it is, because it has forgotten what it's job actually is

dubrov

end of the road wrote:

it's not the job of the justice system to give messages, it's their job to punish crimes and protect society.

The whole point is to protect society and not to punish unless necessary to achieve this aim.
If sending messages achieves that then so be it

Allinall

No.

But you can be at risk of harassment, intimidation, stalking etc.- all of which are offences.