The killers of Ekram Haque; Leon Elcock and Hamza Lyzai and their victim in hospital
I wrote on the 27th July last about the widespread disbelief and anger in the UK about the message given to society by the sentences passed on three London teenagers who attacked a man leaving a mosque with his three year old daughter. It was called a “happy slapping” attack and resulted in the death of the pensioner who was attacked “for fun.” Local MP Sadiq Khan has described the sentences as “truly shocking”, a sentiment which is widely felt.
I pointed out at the time that all of our lives have been devalued by this lenient sentencing which says you can cause somebody’s death for “fun”, record and leer at the scene on your mobile phone and get away with murder with only minor inconvenience in your own life. These shocking sentences which do not address the need for retribution and rehabilitation cannot be allowed to stand. Unfortunately despite strident campaigning by many and representations by local Labour MP Sadiq Khan to the Attorney General who has the power to refer unduly lenient sentences to the Court of Appeal the Attorney General has refused to intervene. I attach the report from Sadiq Khan’s website and the correspondence to / from the Attorney so you can make up your own mind. I can’t believe the story will end at this.
Ekram Haque and his grand-daughter Marian
Sadiq Khan MP’s website;
http://sadiqkhan.co.uk/
"Attorney General refuses to refer sentences of Ekram Haque killers to Court of Appeal
Saturday, 21 August 2010 10:45
The Attorney General, the Rt Hon Dominic Grieve QC MP, has refused to refer the sentencing of Leon Elcock and Hamza Lyzai, responsible for death of Tooting resident Ekram Haque, to the Court of Appeal. Tooting MP Sadiq Khan wrote to the Attorney General on 28th July 2010, asking him to review the sentencing, which Mr Khan believed to be unduly lenient.
Tooting MP, Sadiq Khan, said, "I am thoroughly disappointed that the new Attorney General has not used his powers to refer these lenient sentences to the Court of Appeal. "This failure compounds the impression that the public have, which is that the authorities are out of touch. The Crown Prosecution Service for entering a plea bargain, the Judge for the lenient sentence and the Attorney General for failing to refer this to the Court of Appeal.
"This attack was not 'happy slapping', but a cowardly attack. The decision of the Attorney General will further undermine confidence in the criminal justice system." Sadiq wrote to the Attorney General on 28th July asking him to refer the sentencing to the Court of Appeal, as he believed the sentences were unduly lenient."
Sadiq Khan MP
You can read Sadiq’s letter here;
Dominic Grieve QC MP - In touch with the voters of Tooting?
The killers of Ekram Haque; Leon Elcock and Hamza Lyzai and their victim in hospital
I wrote on the 27th July last about the widespread disbelief and anger in the UK about the message given to society by the sentences passed on three London teenagers who attacked a man leaving a mosque with his three year old daughter. It was called a “happy slapping” attack and resulted in the death of the pensioner who was attacked “for fun.” Local MP Sadiq Khan has described the sentences as “truly shocking”, a sentiment which is widely felt.
I pointed out at the time that all of our lives have been devalued by this lenient sentencing which says you can cause somebody’s death for “fun”, record and leer at the scene on your mobile phone and get away with murder with only minor inconvenience in your own life. These shocking sentences which do not address the need for retribution and rehabilitation cannot be allowed to stand. Unfortunately despite strident campaigning by many and representations by local Labour MP Sadiq Khan to the Attorney General who has the power to refer unduly lenient sentences to the Court of Appeal the Attorney General has refused to intervene. I attach the report from Sadiq Khan’s website and the correspondence to / from the Attorney so you can make up your own mind. I can’t believe the story will end at this.
Ekram Haque and his grand-daughter Marian
Sadiq Khan MP’s website;
http://sadiqkhan.co.uk/
"Attorney General refuses to refer sentences of Ekram Haque killers to Court of Appeal
Saturday, 21 August 2010 10:45
The Attorney General, the Rt Hon Dominic Grieve QC MP, has refused to refer the sentencing of Leon Elcock and Hamza Lyzai, responsible for death of Tooting resident Ekram Haque, to the Court of Appeal. Tooting MP Sadiq Khan wrote to the Attorney General on 28th July 2010, asking him to review the sentencing, which Mr Khan believed to be unduly lenient.
Tooting MP, Sadiq Khan, said, "I am thoroughly disappointed that the new Attorney General has not used his powers to refer these lenient sentences to the Court of Appeal. "This failure compounds the impression that the public have, which is that the authorities are out of touch. The Crown Prosecution Service for entering a plea bargain, the Judge for the lenient sentence and the Attorney General for failing to refer this to the Court of Appeal.
"This attack was not 'happy slapping', but a cowardly attack. The decision of the Attorney General will further undermine confidence in the criminal justice system." Sadiq wrote to the Attorney General on 28th July asking him to refer the sentencing to the Court of Appeal, as he believed the sentences were unduly lenient."
Sadiq Khan MP
You can read Sadiq’s letter here;
Dominic Grieve QC MP - In touch with the voters of Tooting?
The killers of Ekram Haque; Leon Elcock and Hamza Lyzai and their victim in hospital
There is widespread disbelief and anger in the UK about the message given to society by the sentences passed on three London teenagers who attacked a man leaving a mosque with his three year old daughter. It was called a “happy slapping” attack and resulted in the death of the pensioner who was attacked “for fun.” Local MP Sadiq Khan has described the sentences as “truly shocking”, a sentiment which is widely felt.
Shocking footage shows a man dying in the street after a “happy slapping” attack as his bewildered granddaughter stands by his side. CCTV footage released today shows 67-year-old Ekram Haque lying flat on his back as his hooded attackers aged 14 and 15 flee. They ran up behind and felled him with a powerful blow for the fun of it. Ekram Haque, a retired care worker, was standing outside the local mosque in Tooting in August last year. He had been there to pray because it was the Holy month of Ramadan. Hospital doctors turned his life support machine off a week later.
A judge ordered that the boys, previously granted anonymity because of their age, be named and shamed. Leon Elcock and Hamza Lyzai struck as Mr Haque waited with three-year-old Marian outside the Idara-e-Jafferiya mosque in Church Lane, Tooting, last August 2009.
Ekram Haque and his grand-daughter Marian
In the film she is seen playing at a railing under his watchful eye when the thugs, who had filmed previous attacks on a mobile phone, attack. The girl goes to his side, falls to her knees, her hand pushed out across his chest towards his face as if pleading with her grandfather to get up and show he is all right. A man in white robes, believed to be Mr Haque's son Arfan, rushes out of the mosque and takes the little girl inside before phoning for help. Elcock was on bail for an attack on an elderly Asian couple at the time.
Judge Martin Stephens told them: “You committed a series of very serious, cowardly, deeply unpleasant offences against elderly and vulnerable men and women. The attacks were entirely gratuitous and done without thought for your victims. Some of the attacks carried out on earlier occasions, although not of the same seriousness, were filmed by you as part of what you saw as fun. As a result of your so-called bit of fun, Mr Haque was deprived of a full and content life and his family were deprived of a devoted, inspiring and beloved father and a grandfather.” Three teenagers were originally charged with the murder of Mr Haque but lawyers accepted pleas to lesser offences after consulting the victim's family. Elcock, now 16, and Lyzai, 15, both from Tooting, pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Elcock was sentenced to four and a half years and Lyzai to three and a half. With time served already, Elcock could be free in 18 months while Lyzai could be out in just over a year. The charge against a third defendant, who was 14, will lie on the file. He was sentenced to six months detention for two other attacks.
The judge said his powers of sentence in relation to the assaults were “very limited” because of the defendants' ages. He lifted restrictions on naming Elcock and Lyzai as a warning to others “who may be tempted to indulge in such appalling behaviour”. Outside the Old Bailey, Arfan Haque was furious that Elcock had been let out on bail after a previous attack, saying: “The Crown Prosecution Service needs to buck up their ideas, because they are being bailed and just walking free. My father is dead, it's just a disgrace.”
Lawyers for the “happy slap” gang claimed they were simply bored teenagers craving entertainment. Oliver Blunt QC told the court: “They are young, bored, listless youths who sought entertainment in this extremely unpleasant and distorted fashion.” Throughout the Old Bailey case the three defendants did not show a flicker of remorse, sitting impassively as they watched the sickening violence on CCTV film. Leon Elcock, the oldest of the three and the gang leader, was said to recruit his “foot soldiers” with the same ruthless intimidation he showed his victims. He shares a council house in Tooting with his mother and five siblings. A serial truant after being suspended from school for assaulting a teacher, he is suspected of committing several robberies. Hamza Lyzai is Ugandan-born. Neighbours claim he was transformed from a polite boy into a killer when he joined the gang.
The youngest defendant, who was not named, photographed the gang's attacks. All the “happy slap” clips recovered by police were found on his mobile. A teacher told police she found him watching internet clips of elderly people being happy slapped and he was “laughing hysterically.”
Can anyone actually explain why these loathsome individuals were given such lenient sentences? Reading the Home Office guidance would suggest anyone aged over 10 but under the age of 18 can be given "Detention for life" for manslaughter. So how exactly does a pitiful 3 and a half years come into play? And if the judge is in fact constrained by the system then the system needs changing. A man has lost his life, a family had theirs irreversibly blighted and the perpetrators will be back on the streets laughing about it in a year and carrying on their trend of violent crime on their next unfortunate victim.
It is difficult to see how the sentences meet the needs of retribution and rehabilitation. Is anybody in any doubt how these totally unrepentant feral teenagers will behave on the streets of London when they are released in just over a year’s time? It is even more difficult to imagine how the family of Ekram Haque will be able to explain to his grand daughter Marian when she is older that her beloved grandfathers life counted for so little in the eyes of the justice system. All of our lives have been devalued by this lenient sentencing which says you can cause somebody’s death for “fun”, record and leer at the scene on your mobile phone and get away with murder with only minor inconvenience in your own life. These shocking sentences which do not address the need for retribution and rehabilitation cannot be allowed to stand.
The killers of Ekram Haque; Leon Elcock and Hamza Lyzai and their victim in hospital
There is widespread disbelief and anger in the UK about the message given to society by the sentences passed on three London teenagers who attacked a man leaving a mosque with his three year old daughter. It was called a “happy slapping” attack and resulted in the death of the pensioner who was attacked “for fun.” Local MP Sadiq Khan has described the sentences as “truly shocking”, a sentiment which is widely felt.
Shocking footage shows a man dying in the street after a “happy slapping” attack as his bewildered granddaughter stands by his side. CCTV footage released today shows 67-year-old Ekram Haque lying flat on his back as his hooded attackers aged 14 and 15 flee. They ran up behind and felled him with a powerful blow for the fun of it. Ekram Haque, a retired care worker, was standing outside the local mosque in Tooting in August last year. He had been there to pray because it was the Holy month of Ramadan. Hospital doctors turned his life support machine off a week later.
A judge ordered that the boys, previously granted anonymity because of their age, be named and shamed. Leon Elcock and Hamza Lyzai struck as Mr Haque waited with three-year-old Marian outside the Idara-e-Jafferiya mosque in Church Lane, Tooting, last August 2009.
Ekram Haque and his grand-daughter Marian
In the film she is seen playing at a railing under his watchful eye when the thugs, who had filmed previous attacks on a mobile phone, attack. The girl goes to his side, falls to her knees, her hand pushed out across his chest towards his face as if pleading with her grandfather to get up and show he is all right. A man in white robes, believed to be Mr Haque's son Arfan, rushes out of the mosque and takes the little girl inside before phoning for help. Elcock was on bail for an attack on an elderly Asian couple at the time.
Judge Martin Stephens told them: “You committed a series of very serious, cowardly, deeply unpleasant offences against elderly and vulnerable men and women. The attacks were entirely gratuitous and done without thought for your victims. Some of the attacks carried out on earlier occasions, although not of the same seriousness, were filmed by you as part of what you saw as fun. As a result of your so-called bit of fun, Mr Haque was deprived of a full and content life and his family were deprived of a devoted, inspiring and beloved father and a grandfather.” Three teenagers were originally charged with the murder of Mr Haque but lawyers accepted pleas to lesser offences after consulting the victim's family. Elcock, now 16, and Lyzai, 15, both from Tooting, pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Elcock was sentenced to four and a half years and Lyzai to three and a half. With time served already, Elcock could be free in 18 months while Lyzai could be out in just over a year. The charge against a third defendant, who was 14, will lie on the file. He was sentenced to six months detention for two other attacks.
The judge said his powers of sentence in relation to the assaults were “very limited” because of the defendants' ages. He lifted restrictions on naming Elcock and Lyzai as a warning to others “who may be tempted to indulge in such appalling behaviour”. Outside the Old Bailey, Arfan Haque was furious that Elcock had been let out on bail after a previous attack, saying: “The Crown Prosecution Service needs to buck up their ideas, because they are being bailed and just walking free. My father is dead, it's just a disgrace.”
Lawyers for the “happy slap” gang claimed they were simply bored teenagers craving entertainment. Oliver Blunt QC told the court: “They are young, bored, listless youths who sought entertainment in this extremely unpleasant and distorted fashion.” Throughout the Old Bailey case the three defendants did not show a flicker of remorse, sitting impassively as they watched the sickening violence on CCTV film. Leon Elcock, the oldest of the three and the gang leader, was said to recruit his “foot soldiers” with the same ruthless intimidation he showed his victims. He shares a council house in Tooting with his mother and five siblings. A serial truant after being suspended from school for assaulting a teacher, he is suspected of committing several robberies. Hamza Lyzai is Ugandan-born. Neighbours claim he was transformed from a polite boy into a killer when he joined the gang.
The youngest defendant, who was not named, photographed the gang's attacks. All the “happy slap” clips recovered by police were found on his mobile. A teacher told police she found him watching internet clips of elderly people being happy slapped and he was “laughing hysterically.”
Can anyone actually explain why these loathsome individuals were given such lenient sentences? Reading the Home Office guidance would suggest anyone aged over 10 but under the age of 18 can be given "Detention for life" for manslaughter. So how exactly does a pitiful 3 and a half years come into play? And if the judge is in fact constrained by the system then the system needs changing. A man has lost his life, a family had theirs irreversibly blighted and the perpetrators will be back on the streets laughing about it in a year and carrying on their trend of violent crime on their next unfortunate victim.
It is difficult to see how the sentences meet the needs of retribution and rehabilitation. Is anybody in any doubt how these totally unrepentant feral teenagers will behave on the streets of London when they are released in just over a year’s time? It is even more difficult to imagine how the family of Ekram Haque will be able to explain to his grand daughter Marian when she is older that her beloved grandfathers life counted for so little in the eyes of the justice system. All of our lives have been devalued by this lenient sentencing which says you can cause somebody’s death for “fun”, record and leer at the scene on your mobile phone and get away with murder with only minor inconvenience in your own life. These shocking sentences which do not address the need for retribution and rehabilitation cannot be allowed to stand.
The Celtic Sage is not the only one dismayed at the forces of Law and Order having lost their direction and is seemingly not the only one railing against closed police stations, call centre prioritisation and policing driven by political correctness and central targets. The middle classes have lost confidence in the police, a stark report has warned. They fear they have been alienated by a service which routinely targets ordinary people rather than serious criminals, simply to fill Government crime quotas. The attitude of some officers has also led to spiralling complaints about neglect of duty and rudeness. The report from the Civitas think-tank says incidents which would once have been ignored are now treated as crimes - including a case of children chalking a pavement.
Its author, journalist Harriet Sergeant, says she was also told of a student being arrested, held for five hours and cautioned for keeping a London Underground lift door open with his foot. The report warns that a generation of young people - the police's favourite soft targets - are being criminalised, putting their future prospects at risk. Some offences being prosecuted are now so minor that senior officers have even begun talks with the U.S. authorities to prevent such a "criminal record" stopping decent citizens obtaining a visa to cross the Atlantic.
One member of the public gave a telling comment;
"I live in an area of central London which the police have effectively abandoned, and despite being a high crime area, we have no CCTV on any of our streets and no community police. When I was the victim of crime, the police told me to move house. As if life is that simple. When I have attempted to report crimes they have told me to phone the council or passed the buck in some other way. However, I have a criminal record due to some extremely petty law enforcement which they were very happy to jump on and resulted in a punishment that far exceeded the crime and has limited my whole life from a work and travel perspective."
Harriet Sergeant
Meanwhile responses to crimes such as burglary are slow and statements given by victims of serious crime are often left lying idle for months, the report warns. An apparent emphasis on motoring crimes is another negative factor. Miss Sergeant warns: “The loss of public confidence is a serious matter. The police cannot police without the backing of society. Without trust and consensus it is very difficult and costly to maintain law and order.”
Her report says: “Complaints against the police have risen, with much of the increase coming from law-abiding, middle-class, middle-aged and retired people who no longer feel the police are on their side.” In 2006-7, there were 29,637 complaints - the most since records began 17 years ago.
Miss Sergeant said this was due in part to the law-abiding middle-classes becoming upset by the “rudeness and behaviour” of officers. The report details how officers are expected to reach a certain number of “sanction detections” a month by charging, cautioning or fining an “offender”. Arresting or fining someone for a trifling offence - such as a child stealing a Mars bar - is a good way of hitting the target and pleasing the Home Office. Amazingly, the chocolate theft ranks as highly as catching a killer. They also have to get their quota of “politically correct” crimes such as harassment, racial and domestic violent often pressurising unwilling complainants. Amazingly the Police Service have to report to the Home Office each month on an arcane set of 86 KPI's (Key Performance Indicators). Somebody should tell the jawless wonders in the Home Office that the key part of KPI is "Key"!
Miss Sergeant says performance-related bonuses of between £10,000 and £15,000 a year for police commanders depend partly on reaching such targets. This leads them to put pressure on frontline officers to make arrests for the most minor misdemeanours. Officers said at the end of a month, when there was pressure to hit the target for that period, they would pursue young men as the most likely “offenders”. Offences could include scrawling a name on a bus stop in felt-tip or playing ball games in the street. One officer was so concerned he told his teenage son to be careful at the end of each month.
The pamphlet, parts of which were serialised by the Daily Mail earlier this year, says the police themselves are angry at the way they have to “make fools of themselves”. There were high levels of 'bitterness and frustration' and the targets were 'bitterly resented'. One officer told how he was pressed to charge children playing with a tree with “harassment”. The same offence was used against a drunken student dancing in flowerbeds, who aimed a kick at a flower.
At the cost of £550 per household and rising there are two factors irritating the mugged masses:
1. Coppers chasing targets and looking to fill quotas. This allied with trying to make an impact by running “high visibility” operations which are hugely wasteful of resource but are designed to grab attention and create the appearance of "activity". Result no coppers on the streets, no neighbourhood policing, closed police stations and relying on automated penalising with speed cameras and the like.
2. The Justice Gap. Even when brought to book the retards laugh at the system. They get “community orders” which are laughable and breaches are not followed up, the Probation Service is overworked and can’t follow up as several recent murders and serious crimes have demonstrated, the Prosecution Service (which prioritises on targeting Naomi Campbell!) has 30% of cases failing because of bad paperwork or missing deadlines, fines are not collected from the great unwashed and if they get to Prison they get automatic remission and let out early and the main educational benefit is learn the trade from old lags! Result; there is now very little relationship between Crime and Punishment.
The Celtic Sage is not the only one dismayed at the forces of Law and Order having lost their direction and is seemingly not the only one railing against closed police stations, call centre prioritisation and policing driven by political correctness and central targets. The middle classes have lost confidence in the police, a stark report has warned. They fear they have been alienated by a service which routinely targets ordinary people rather than serious criminals, simply to fill Government crime quotas. The attitude of some officers has also led to spiralling complaints about neglect of duty and rudeness. The report from the Civitas think-tank says incidents which would once have been ignored are now treated as crimes - including a case of children chalking a pavement.
Its author, journalist Harriet Sergeant, says she was also told of a student being arrested, held for five hours and cautioned for keeping a London Underground lift door open with his foot. The report warns that a generation of young people - the police's favourite soft targets - are being criminalised, putting their future prospects at risk. Some offences being prosecuted are now so minor that senior officers have even begun talks with the U.S. authorities to prevent such a "criminal record" stopping decent citizens obtaining a visa to cross the Atlantic.
One member of the public gave a telling comment;
"I live in an area of central London which the police have effectively abandoned, and despite being a high crime area, we have no CCTV on any of our streets and no community police. When I was the victim of crime, the police told me to move house. As if life is that simple. When I have attempted to report crimes they have told me to phone the council or passed the buck in some other way. However, I have a criminal record due to some extremely petty law enforcement which they were very happy to jump on and resulted in a punishment that far exceeded the crime and has limited my whole life from a work and travel perspective."
Harriet Sergeant
Meanwhile responses to crimes such as burglary are slow and statements given by victims of serious crime are often left lying idle for months, the report warns. An apparent emphasis on motoring crimes is another negative factor. Miss Sergeant warns: “The loss of public confidence is a serious matter. The police cannot police without the backing of society. Without trust and consensus it is very difficult and costly to maintain law and order.”
Her report says: “Complaints against the police have risen, with much of the increase coming from law-abiding, middle-class, middle-aged and retired people who no longer feel the police are on their side.” In 2006-7, there were 29,637 complaints - the most since records began 17 years ago.
Miss Sergeant said this was due in part to the law-abiding middle-classes becoming upset by the “rudeness and behaviour” of officers. The report details how officers are expected to reach a certain number of “sanction detections” a month by charging, cautioning or fining an “offender”. Arresting or fining someone for a trifling offence - such as a child stealing a Mars bar - is a good way of hitting the target and pleasing the Home Office. Amazingly, the chocolate theft ranks as highly as catching a killer. They also have to get their quota of “politically correct” crimes such as harassment, racial and domestic violent often pressurising unwilling complainants. Amazingly the Police Service have to report to the Home Office each month on an arcane set of 86 KPI's (Key Performance Indicators). Somebody should tell the jawless wonders in the Home Office that the key part of KPI is "Key"!
Miss Sergeant says performance-related bonuses of between £10,000 and £15,000 a year for police commanders depend partly on reaching such targets. This leads them to put pressure on frontline officers to make arrests for the most minor misdemeanours. Officers said at the end of a month, when there was pressure to hit the target for that period, they would pursue young men as the most likely “offenders”. Offences could include scrawling a name on a bus stop in felt-tip or playing ball games in the street. One officer was so concerned he told his teenage son to be careful at the end of each month.
The pamphlet, parts of which were serialised by the Daily Mail earlier this year, says the police themselves are angry at the way they have to “make fools of themselves”. There were high levels of 'bitterness and frustration' and the targets were 'bitterly resented'. One officer told how he was pressed to charge children playing with a tree with “harassment”. The same offence was used against a drunken student dancing in flowerbeds, who aimed a kick at a flower.
At the cost of £550 per household and rising there are two factors irritating the mugged masses:
1. Coppers chasing targets and looking to fill quotas. This allied with trying to make an impact by running “high visibility” operations which are hugely wasteful of resource but are designed to grab attention and create the appearance of "activity". Result no coppers on the streets, no neighbourhood policing, closed police stations and relying on automated penalising with speed cameras and the like.
2. The Justice Gap. Even when brought to book the retards laugh at the system. They get “community orders” which are laughable and breaches are not followed up, the Probation Service is overworked and can’t follow up as several recent murders and serious crimes have demonstrated, the Prosecution Service (which prioritises on targeting Naomi Campbell!) has 30% of cases failing because of bad paperwork or missing deadlines, fines are not collected from the great unwashed and if they get to Prison they get automatic remission and let out early and the main educational benefit is learn the trade from old lags! Result; there is now very little relationship between Crime and Punishment.
