Two young boys have been hit and killed by a London Underground (LU)
train in Barking in east London.

British Transport Police (BTP) said they were part of a group of four
boys who had been writing graffiti in a depot late on Friday night.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6258337.stm

Boltar wrote:

You know you're going to get the do-gooders coming on saying "But these
poor kids have a family.. they didn't deserve to die.. would you
suggest killing someone for stealing a chocolate bar in a corner shop"
etc, don't you?

It's clear that these people knew what they were doing. I was in
America last week and there was an accident where two 17 year olds were
killed on motorcycles, having been drinking and street racing. I was
quite surprised to see that the media and even friends blamed them for
their stupidity. Rather than saying 'Poor lads' or 'it was a tragic
accident' or blamed someone else (the bike manufacturers or something),
they were quite clear - a stupid 'accident' that wouldn't have happened
if they hadn't been idiots.

Jonathan Morris wrote:

I am going to add that I feel for the driver, and possibly the security
staff if they witnessed the collision. These are the people we SHOULD
be feeling sympathy for.

Jonathan

Jonathan Morris wrote:

You think that the UK is *more* nannyish and litigious than the US?
That's an impressive disconnect from reality.

In real life, there will not be an enquiry, nobody will sue anyone and
no compensation will be awarded - I'd happily bet

John Rowland wrote:

Don't talk like a c**t. I wouldn't "feel fine" if I saw somebody's
brains all over the coupler, half of them in the four foot and half in
the cess, their lungs and guts draped over the shoe beam, still less if
i had to bag said items up.

Having said that, it was their own fault. Trespassing on LUL has to be
a fairly good way of getting a Darwin award - twice as many juice rails
as the Southern, where I grew up.

What kind of people, in their early twenties, spend a Friday night spraying
paint on Underground trains in sidings and whilst services are still
running? If it were teenagers you could put it down to youthful
recklessness, but people aged 21 and 23? They can vote, work and pay taxes
and (theoretically) have completed a university education. It is sad that
there are people like these that have clearly been left behind by society.

Graffiti artists (sic) have proven track records (no pun) of covering
speed restriction signs, signals, OPO CCTV or mirrors and train
head/tail-lights, cut holes in depot fencing which could allow access
for small children, all of which could impact on safety. And if we
really need contrasting door and body colours on UK trains under DiPTAC
(which I do doubt) then are even causing difficulties for the partially
sighted too.

These two are no loss to society and it's just a pity so many
passengers are staff were inconvenienced last night and today. Good
riddance though I expect they're already being hailed as martyrs on
taggers' message boards.

Trixie wrote:
[quoting fixed - JB]

In law, a 16-year-old is a child. If you don't like that, why not stand
for Parliament and try and get it changed?

Tony Martin is a sad, deluded, slighly mad person. A court of law found
that, beyond reasonable doubt, he knowingly shot a fleeing child in the
back. He was eventually acquitted of murder on the grounds of
diminished responsibility. And who cares about the ethnic origin of the
child he killed? (well, racists might, I suppose).

John Rowland wrote:

The primary meaning of "pikey" is "Irish traveller", although it is
also used to mean "general scumbag".

Since Fred Barras was from an Irish traveller family, I rather assumed
that the OP was using the term in that sense...

John B wrote:

Well, that's what I thought too. Maybe they're gaining a sense of
reality?

An interview on Sky News had a police officer saying they were
convinced there was no chase going on, suggesting people are already
beginning to question whether the security guards might have 'caused'
the incident.

My comments were of course not just about this once incident.

Jonathan