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Monday November 19, 2007
A teenage girl has told how she saw her father being kicked and punched to death outside their home by a gang of drunken youths.
Zoe Newlove said several thugs surrounded her dad Garry in a semi-circle before launching the attack.
The 18-year-old cried while giving evidence at the trial of four youths - two aged 17, a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old - and Adam Swellings, 19, of Crewe, Cheshire, who all deny murder.
Miss Newlove told how her 47-year-old father had confronted a gang on August 10 which had been vandalising his wife's car.
She told Chester Crown Court that gangs had been causing trouble for the family and their neighbours for months.
"They were just laughing at him and swearing and being awkward," she said.
"He put his arm out to one of them and just put it on his shoulder and said 'was it you who did it?'.
"The lad lifted up his left arm and hit my dad on the left side of his face. Another went behind him to hit him also, he hit my dad on his shoulder.
"When one of the lads punched him from behind my dad started to fall backwards and he received another hit."
Now in tears, Miss Newlove described how her father curled up on the ground and put his hands over his head.
As she and other members of the family ran to help, she said: "The lads started to kick him. About five of them. They were kicking his head, on his shoulder and back but mainly his head.
"They were kicking him like they would kick a football. They were laughing at him and then they started to run off."
Mr Newlove, a father of three, never regained consciousness and died of his injuries at Warrington General Hospital two days later.
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Clearly the lad who did here paid the ultimate price for doing so - with his life. Perhaps it's an extreme case, but also perhaps it's something which is becoming more prevalent in the UK in recent times.
Guess we've all seen large groups of kids on our streets intent on causing problems. Most towns and cities suffer from this problem and yet it goes on pretty much unchecked, with the police not being in a position to be close by when an incident occurs.
People on the other hand seem unwilling to get involved and challenge this kind of behaviour. You get the odd have a go hero like Mr Newlove, but would there be such a problem if there were more of us like him ? Or is it better to not get involved ?
I visit an old lady as part of my job - I help her with various household tasks because she's not very mobile. She lives on her own and his no family in the area. As a result, she is often the target of the local kids - abeit not as bad as the above example, but it still leaves her frightened when they do bang on her door at night and shout abuse. I'd like to think that if I were there when this happened, then I would challenge them. Problem is, it happens at night when she's on her own - and that's what these groups do. They feel they are above the law and can target vunerable people without fear of reprisel.
I guess as ever it's a judgement call - but is it not our duty to stand up to unreasonable behaviour ?
Everyone would like to think they would, but in many cases there are great risks. I think it's one of those split-second judgement calls you can only make when you are faced with the situation.
Sometimes its better to just let the situation fizzle out and die down rather than get involved at the heat of the moment and risk getting severely beaten up etc
Yobs/Thugs would probably never step down and 'calm down' simply because they dont want to be seen as weak so would probably just end up clattering you
In an extreme situation i would like to think i'd get involved though
Maybe, depends what the situation was. If I was in my house, as he seemed to be(?) then I certainly wouldn't have confronted them without a bat or something though. Easy to say now, but a bit of a mistake in putting his arm on someone, with 5 vs 1 he should have used his chance to get the first blows in, vandalise the car with their nappers.
If kids like that did what you said happened to that woman then surely someone could have a word? Or just stay the night (nae shaggin) and open the door to them and sort them oot.
It depends - if they were jyst hanging around then no way. If they were harassing someone or vandilisng something then it would be wrong just to stay out of it.
Would you stand up to a group of yobs ? 
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