Campaigners against smoking always try to present themselves as decent people. You know, they care so much about other people's health that they enact legislation to make them better.Of course if people refuse to be made better then they deserve what is coming to them.
Have a read of this,
Non-smoker jailed for attacking deaf smokerThe reporting is a bit strange. The deaf mute 56 year old "refused" to stop smoking. From reading this one gets the feeling he did no such thing. He didn't hear the request. That is not a refusal. Smoking at a bus stop is not against the law, indeed I often find that the only way to get a bus to turn up at all is to light a cigarette.
A NON-smoker was jailed for two years yesterday for attacking a “deaf and mute” man who refused to stub out a cigarette.
Robert Russo, 35, asked Glyn Robbins to stop smoking while they were waiting at a bus stop. But he didn’t realise Mr Robbins, 56, couldn’t hear him, and thought he was being rude.
Cardiff Crown Court heard Russo then punched him in the face and kneed him as he fell to the floor. CCTV footage was played to the court showing Russo kick Mr Robbins as he lay on the floor. A witness called police and Russo was arrested.
Russo, of Snowden Road, Ely, Cardiff, admitted wounding with intent and unlawful wounding.
He told police, “I told him to stop smoking and I thought he was going to have a go at me so I hit him.”
Mr Robbins was left bleeding from the nose and ear after the attack at Cardiff Central bus station.
The self justification of the thug is a classic of its kind. Please note, "I told him", no he didn't ask him politely, he told him. If I am told to do anything I am far less likly to do it than if I am asked. Simple manners. Then the younger man felt the older one was going to "have a go", what does that mean, tell him to piss off and muind his own business? Take a swing at him? It isn't clear but I suspect the former. Which justifies punching kneeing and kicking on the ground obviously.
I wionder if Russo should serve not merely his two year sentance, but maybe should have a court order banning him from anywhere where cigarettes may be smoked.
5 comments:
Agree with your point but you might not be right that it wasn't illegal to smoke at the bus stop. Cardiff Bus Station is mainly made up of enclosed bus shelters and so would be covered by the smoking ban if that was where the assault took place.
Not that any of that changes the outrageousness of the reaction of course.
Fair point, but I suspect that if the older bloke was smoking in an illegal area the Cardiff bus police would have had him in front of the beak in no time.
Police in Cardiff? Can't remember seeing any away from the sports stadia.
They're all in Swansea and the valleys
Gawain,
It is interesting that having searched the web for some time, I am unable to find any BMA 'paper' that sets out the autopsy procedure for detecting second hand smoke, nor can I find any procedure setting out how to detect the signs of second hand smoke, nor what those signs are.
My standard response to anyone who complains about my smoking is to offer them a 'deal' - I will stop smoking if they stop breathing and, out of courtesy, ask them if they would 'go first'.
David Phipps
You do that bus stop thing too. I thought I was the only one. It works like magic, all the time :-)
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