London samurai sword mob, who tried to behead a man, sentenced to 63 years

[Blackleaf]

Seven members of a London gang were jailed for a total of 63 years yesterday for trying to behead a rival man.

Thavapalasingham and Kirubananantharasa Gunaratnam, 32 were sentenced to a minimum of 12 years with no chance of parole before that time.

Factory worker Sabesan Sivaneswaran, 19, jobless Santosh Panthaplavil Sasidharan, 24, salesman Selvarajah Mayuran, 28, student Arumugan Paratheeban, 24, and salesman Edward Jaganathan, 26, were given sentences ranging from three years to life.

Victim Arulmurugan Sebamalai, 23, was left with his wrist hnging from his arm after the bloody and savage attack in Wembley, north west London. He and other members of a gang were set upon as they set out to play cricket.

The sentences comes at a time when a survey finds that Britain is the most violent country in the Western World.

Lethal ... Detective Inspector Andy Chalmers shows gang's weapons, including sword



63 years for samurai sword mob


By ANTHONY FRANCE
Crime Reporter
Published: 19 Jul 2008
The Sun


SEVEN members of a gang were jailed for a total of 63 years yesterday for a samurai sword attack in which they tried to hack off a rival’s head.

Cops seized a terrifying arsenal of knives, baseball bats and swords, including the blood-stained samurai blade, from the mob led by a thug dubbed “Psycho”.

Victim Arulmurugan Sebamalai, 23, was left with his hand hanging from his wrist after being ambushed by 25 of East London’s East Ham Boys.

He and members of a Tamil gang known as DMX, were set on in Wembley, North West London, with swords and pick-axe handles studded with bolts as they set off to play a game of cricket.

The Old Bailey jury heard that the mob shouted: “Slash him, Psycho, kill him,” as encouragement to leader Senthurrajah Thavapalasingham, 21.


Sliced


Mr Sebamalai grabbed a cricket bat and lifted it to shield his head — but the razor-sharp 3ft sword sliced through his left forearm, exposing the bone.

He told police: “Psycho was armed with a samurai sword. He was holding it in a raised position and running towards us.”

After police crushed the mainly Sri Lankan Tamil gang by nicking key members or placing them on Asbos, some crimes in the London borough of Newham nosedived by 80 per cent. Anti-social behaviour fell by half and extortion of shop owners virtually halted.

Detective Inspector Andy Chalmers, who led the inquiry, said: “They thought they were above the law. The fact that they have been removed from the Tamil community and cannot taint and intimidate the law-abiding majority can only be good.”

Cashier Thavapalasingham and jobless Kirubananantharasa Gunaratnam, 32, were convicted of attempted murder and violent disorder. They got life sentences with a minimum term of 12 years.

Factory worker Sabesan Sivaneswaran, 19, jobless Santosh Panthaplavil Sasidharan, 24, salesman Selvarajah Mayuran, 28, student Arumugan Paratheeban, 24, and salesman Edward Jaganathan, 26, were convicted of crimes of violence after a three-month trial.

They got sentences ranging from life to three years. All seven had denied their parts in the attack. Judge Richard Hawkins QC told them: “It was a pre-planned attack with dangerous weapons to inflict grave injuries. Gang warfare on the streets of London will not be tolerated.”

thesun.co.uk

 

[Lester]

I wonder how long before people get tired of these petty gangs, and opt for vigilante justice.

 

[quandary121]

Country grapples with surge of knife attacks

9 hours ago
LONDON (AFP) — Britain is struggling to get to grips with a surge of fatal knife attacks, which analysts say reflects a growing sense of insecurity on the country's streets.
While some say young people are increasingly carrying knives as a fashion item, others say it is simply because they are scared of being attacked and so make sure they are armed.
On Friday police confirmed the death of an 18-year-old in south London, the 21st teenager to die of violence in the British capital this year, amid wider concerns about anti-social behaviour among young people on the streets.
That came after nine people were killed across the country the previous week, including six in only 24 hours.
"We have seen the emergence of a worrying trend in relation to knife crime ," said Scotland Yard's Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alf Hitchcock.
"We see both an intensification in the severity of offending, and a worrying change in the age profile of offenders and victims, which has decreased from mid- to late-teens to early 20s down to early to mid-teens," he added.
Analysts say young people appear to be increasingly worried about their own safety, although Home Office statistics released Thursday showed a nine percent fall in overall crime in England and Wales in the year to March 2008.
"They fear they're going to be attacked themselves," said Professor Gloria Laycock, from the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, named after a well-known BBC television presenter who was shot dead on her doorstep in 1999.
"I don't think it's got anything to do with some fundamental social cause like the economy, or poor parenting or anything like that, because it's happened too quickly," she added.
According to a 2006 study compiled for the Home Office, 85 percent of young people who had carried a knife said they did so to protect themselves, while 42 percent of young victims of assault went on to commit an attack themselves.
The most recent crime statistics showed there were 22,151 recorded offences involving knives last year. The highest number -- 7,409 -- was in London.
"They feel they need to have a weapon for their own protection. I think that's really the problem," said Professor Douglas Sharp, head of the Centre for Criminal Justice Policy and Research at Birmingham City University.
"Young people think that life in their particular locality is so dangerous, that there's so much threat around, that when they get into confrontations they expect to be subject to some violence," he added.
But Sharp, a former senior police officer himself, said: "Most of this violence going on is not related to other criminality, is not related to fights over drug territory or anything like that.
"It's to do with fairly mundane disagreements that just get out of hand very quickly."
Another new trend is that recent killings have taken place in public places in busy city centres, outside bars and clubs, as opposed to previously where attacks were more usually the result of domestic disputes.
"This is relatively new. Certainly in the scale we are seeing this at the moment," said Laycock.
"I think it's because it's become a kind of fashion thing. Young people have got this into their head that it's more trendy to have a knife and so they're doing that," she added.
"It has to do with their image, rather than anything more fundamental than that."
This theory would seem to be backed up by media reports, which have included photos taken from social networking sites showing young people proudly wielding knives and even machetes.
But not everyone is convinced that carrying knives is simply to be trendy.
"I don't agree that it's a fashion," said Roger Grimshaw, of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College, London.
Research showed that young people are "more likely to have been victimised and to fear being attacked. So it's... not a trend. If they feel threatened, they try to reduce the fear by becoming threatening themselves."

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h_MmZnGrOYnc8QRLq_Jh1TJi3CfQ

its getting worse each day we hear of somebody new dieing from knife wounds or attacks ...!!!