Teenager detained for 12 years minimum for attempted murder at private Blundell’s school in Devon
A teenager who attacked two sleeping students and a teacher with hammers at a private school in Devon has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 12 years after being found guilty of attempted murder.
The 17-year-old, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was armed with three claw hammers and waited for the two boys to be asleep before attacking them at Blundell’s school in Tiverton, Exeter crown court heard.
He was wearing just his boxer shorts and used weapons he had collected to prepare for a “zombie apocalypse”, the court was told.
The judge said the boy experiences an autism spectrum disorder …
That’s not for a judge to determine.
Edit: While the above statement remains true, reporting elsewhere shows:
Kerim Fuad KC, defending, told the court the defendant had also been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder …
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c781p92vdyko
Sloppy journalism from The Guardian here.
Did the judge actually determine it, or did the judge just relay information given to them by someone else?
What makes you think that’s not the judge just reading a medical professional’s opinion?
I don’t get why this is sloppy. They didn’t say he diagnosed him with autism, only that he said he experiences it.
You jumped to conclusions and are trying to blame them. I certainly did not interpret it the same way you did.
The only authority cited in the article for this autism diagnosis is the judge. A different article stated that the defendant’s attorney “told the court that [the defendant] had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder …” That’s far more trustworthy than the judge “saying” it.
Excluding that context is sloppy journalism.
The only authority cited in the article for this autism diagnosis is the judge.
And precisely zero that indicated the judge came to this conclusion themselves. It’s doesn’t make sense to assume that the judge would come to this conclusion themselves, so blaming the article for leaping to that conclusion doesn’t make much sense.
The fact that it can be interpreted in multiple different ways makes it sloppy. Should be more explicit.
If the judge said it then it would have been established fact in the case. This can be established by evidence and found as fact in the case, or it can be part of the agreed facts of the case, in which case the court doesn’t waste time hearing evidence. All it takes to become agreed fact is for the defence to present it as part of their case and for the prosecution to not dispute it.
In that context the finding of fact by the court is more than enough for the paper to report on it, and the two versions presented by you of it being said by the defence and by the judge, are entirely compatible with one another. Nobody is going to demand to see the boy’s medical history to verify an uncontroversial point like this. That would just be a waste of time.
The papers presented it as stated by the defence and the judge, they said nothing false or misleading, and I don’t see any problem with that part of their reporting.
Now, if you have an issue that it was reported because it casts autistic people in a bad light, the issue becomes whether you think it’s something the papers should leave out. Well, the defence considered it important, and it became news. Not much we can do about that after the fact.
