It was a story ignored by the American media, likely because it flies in the face of the leftist myth of England as a model of progressivism. Sophie Lancaster, 20 and her Boyfriend were walking home after visiting friends late one evening when they were set upon by a gang of up to 15 youths ages 15-17 who were drunk and out on the town at 11:30am or so. They decided to attack the boyfriend, Robert Maltby because he was a “mosher” which is apparently slang for a Goth. The attack was so vicious that Sophie was driven to try to save Roberts life by shielding his head with her body, at which point the mob turned on her:

A 14-year-old girl who was tagging along with the gang told police afterwards that one of them pointed at Maltby and said: “Shall we batter him?” before another youth ran across and smacked him in the face.

She added that Maltby had laughed, which triggered a full-scale assault, with Lancaster crying out “Leave him alone” and then cradling her unconscious boyfriend in her lap.

The gang then set about her, according to another witness, a 15-year-old boy, who told police: “They were running over and just kicking her in the head and jumping up and down on her head.” Another 14-year-old girl said in a statement to detectives: “I started crying because I’d never seen anything like that. They were all just booting them. They were making loads of noises, screaming noises.

“They were booting them in the head swinging the leg back properly booting them, like jumping on them.”

Shorrock said paramedics who found the victims side by side said the assault was one of the worst they had seen. He said: “Their facial injuries were such that it was not immediately possible to tell which sex either casualty was. Miss Lancaster had blood all over her face and appeared to be bleeding from her ears.”

Maltby’s wallet and its contents were found strewn around bushes later, the court was told, while the gang ran off to a nearby petrol station and boasted to friends about what they had done.

Shorrock told the jury that a witness would describe how they were “behaving in a giddy way, hyperactive and bouncing around doing silly things”.

One of the teenagers offered him Maltby’s mobile phone, telling him: “We’ve just beaten someone up – do you want a phone?” Another said: “You wanna see them – they’re a right mess.”

A 14 year old girl was wandering the streets with a pack of violent underage hooligans a little before midnight and of course there was not a parent in sight. Nor a police officer even though the community had complained about the gang prior to the murder:

Brian Varley, who is from Rawtenstall and a member of the park’s bowling club, said that the park has become a haven for drunken, violent yobs.

He said: “It is devastating that an attack like this could happen in our area and my heart goes out to her family.

“As a community we need to look at what can be done to prevent anything like this from happening again.

“If we had park rangers then maybe then this tragedy might not have happened.

“For the last few months there has been beer cans and empty bottles thrown all over the bowling green on a Sunday.

“They vandalized the club house a few months ago and since then we have wanted Park Rangers to patrol the area like they have in Burnley.

“We have also asked for the park to be an alcohol control zone to help combat the problem but nothing has been done.”

Leader of the council Duncan Ruddick said: “It just would not be financially feasible to employ park rangers. It would cost us £150,000 to pay for rangers to patrol 24 hours a day for the year and that is just for one park, where would we get the money from?

“I think the real issue is why these teenagers were allowed to be out in the early hours of the morning unsupervised and drinking alcohol.”

Ruddick makes a fair point, but the English Model of cradle to grave government services hardly fosters a sense of responsibility for ones own self, much less ones children. That being the case the government cannot simply palm off the responsibility of keeping the community safe from the hellspawn created by their policies. The schools, Police and Children’s Services all dropped the ball on these monsters in the making, and should be more contrite.

England has produced a drug and alcohol fueled violent youth culture that far surpasses the excesses of we “barbaric” Americans. Even the English are aware of it, all except the politicians who refuse to take the necessary steps to curb the anarchy that is slowly engulfing the ruins of the Empire. A commenter from Devatology sums up the feelings of many Brits I’ve spoken to:

# Dazza Says:
August 25th, 2007 at 9:36 am

I’m a lad in my Thirties, who lives in a similar sized town to Bacup in Yorkshire, and my heart goes out to Sophie’s family & also Rob’s. I find it hard to believe what has happened to this couple, and I am sick and tired of those who say “society is no more violent than it was ten or twenty years ago, it’s just that these things are being reported more” BULLSHIT!

This simply is not true. When I was growing up, gangs of lads were NOT going around beating young women up & stamping on their heads.

Incidentally, whenever anyone had a fight, it was more often than not one-on-one, and with fists at that, not weapons. I’m not aware that this group of thugs used any weapons, but when you attack someone and they hit the deck and you not only carry on beating them, but also jump on their head you may as well have shot them at point-blank range.

I did not grow up in utopia, just a typical Northern town, like Bacup.

I usually abhor vigilantism, but if the CPS does not charge these scumbags with murder then I just hope everyone is made aware of their identities.

The Fabian years of England have ended in disaster in more ways than one, but the most obvious consequence to more than a decade of Labor domination is the rise of often cartoonishly violent crime among a state created class of miscreants who need not fear any punishment for their misdeeds.

Sophie Lancaster should be alive today. But it is not just the gang of monsters that stomped on her head until she bleed out of her ears that are responsible, although they should be incarcerated forever for the crime. The parents of those boys who raised them to become soulless monsters are guilty of her death. The town officials who didn’t step in to control that gang when they were made aware of the danger are guilty of her death. The English Justice system that treats murderers with kid gloves is also guilty of her death.

I hope that Sophie’s family and loved ones sue all these people and deliver some small justice to the killers and the forces that created them. And I hope that the American media stops ignoring a story of such inhuman brutality because it’s chic to pretend England is less violent than America. Sophie Lancaster deserves better.

If you have the stomach here’s some news reports about the case:

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Here’s a report with the heart wrenching, and gut churning, call to police by a young girl who witnessed the attack:

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The Sun has some more coverage. Here’s a report detailing the horrendous injuries this innocent girl received.

There’s a MySpace tribute to Sophie that’s collecting funds for a memorial anti-violence program. Help out if you can.