NationStates Jolt Archive

Taken from BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/4568929.stm)

Vandals have smashed gravestones and destroyed flowers and mementoes at a cemetery in Greater Manchester. The damage was discovered by staff at Farnworth Cemetery in Bolton when they arrived for work on Saturday morning.

Greater Manchester Police said about 60 headstones were damaged and keepsakes had been scattered around the scene.

A police spokesman said he was "frankly disgusted that someone could commit a crime of such a thoughtless and disrespectful nature".

Supt Andy Durkin said: "Words cannot describe the devastation that has occurred here, a place where people come to grieve and mourn the loss of their loved ones. Such an act causes untold emotional damage to the friends and relatives of those buried here, not to mention the financial cost which clearing the cemetery and repairing the gravestones is likely to incur," he said.

"Some of the damaged gravestones are more than 200 years old and probably impossible to replace. I really find it hard to believe that people could commit such an offence and we will be deploying many resources to ensure that we catch the people responsible and bring them to justice.

"I can only hope that this will offer some comfort to those people affected by this crime."

Detectives are appealing for anyone with information to contact them.


What do you think should be done to the youths who committed this crime, when they are caught?

Make them spend all their free time maintaining and improving the cemetary. No weekends off, no holidays, no after school or after work relaxation, just community service at the cemetary for three years straight.

Make them spend all their free time maintaining and improving the cemetary. No weekends off, no holidays, no after school or after work relaxation, just community service at the cemetary for three years straight.

They should be split up, too - make them work in different cemetaries, or at least different parts of the same cemetary.

I think they should have some time off, but they shouldn't be messing about with their mates while doing their community service.

I'm all for lining them up, and hanging one out of ten at random.

Then smash the fingers of a few of them, and then send them out to clean up the cemetary.

A public apology along with community service. Sounds about right to me.

Make them spend all their free time maintaining and improving the cemetary. No weekends off, no holidays, no after school or after work relaxation, just community service at the cemetary for three years straight. Hey, that's a good idea. Along with an apology possibly.

They should be fined, they should pay for the damages done, they should spend a weekend in prison and they should apologize publicly. And yes, they should be working their asses off during their free time! My choice would be "All of the above!"

we should bring back public flogging. This country's gone down the nick since we got rid of it. About time we brought back maggie too.....

The same happened in the London Road Cemetary, Coventry.

Sigh. It's a shame I'm banded into the word 'youths' with these vandals with utter disregard for anyone and anything other than themselves if they're lucky...

Community service, but not in the cemetery, in something a lot worse, such as sewage works, or ditch clearing. They should also have to go tho each living relative of those whose graves they desecrated and apologize personally. One by one, seperated from each other. They should be banned from all social venues in the city (sports grounds, bars, clubs, etc.) They should also be fined three times the cost of reaparing the damage they caused. Then flog them.

it happened my town too, the punsihment should be pretty serious punishment

I say we 'hang, draw, and quarter' them.

I say we 'hang, draw, and quarter' them.

Just hang.

Hang their bodies at the entrance to the graveyard, and leave the bodies up until the bones fall of their own accord.

We've had a couple occurences like this in the area I live (near Toronto, Canada) One cemetary was Jewish, which made it even more newsworthy. Don't know what has been done to the youths involved. Not sure they've gone to trial yet.

I think a weekend in a penententiary with an 7 foot tall 3000 gay biker named Killer would help fix things with these little bastards. Show them what it can feel like when someone does something be cause they're "bored" or they "just feel like it". A few years of communtiy work, as suggested, plus a public apology. Although full of dead people, cemetaries are for the living and people get very offended by such idiocy.

Make them spend all their free time maintaining and improving the cemetary. No weekends off, no holidays, no after school or after work relaxation, just community service at the cemetary for three years straight.

Yep, that, and a public apology, in the graveyard in front of the damage that they've done...preferably face-to-face with any family members of the deceased that can be present.

Lay them all on the ground, face up. Then place a damaged headstone on each of their chests until they asphyxiate. Then spit on their faces. Then bury them, then knock over their headstone and shit on it.

bury them alive, and leave a marker explaining what happened, as a warning to others.

I live in a town in England. The local newspaper headline today was as follows:
"Sick Youths Descecrate Cemetary."
It was a childrens' cemetary. We cannot understand why they did it, or if they had a reason.

How about this, break every bone in their body, one by one until they scream for mercy. Open their eyes, pour hydrochloric acid into them, then get those pigs from Hannibal to eat their feet. And then the big finale get some massively obese person 2 use their faces as bicycle seats and then stick them in a cage n leave 'em their two rot.

Hang their bodies at the entrance to the graveyard, and leave the bodies up until the bones fall of their own accord.
In the medieval period a corpse-shaped cage was used to hold the carcass together, otherwise the neck was always the first to go under the weight of the body.

Under that hard facade, they're weak, uncertain and vunerable. Get through to that soft centre and you can squeeze on it like there's no tomorrow, breaking them down without having to kill them. I want to see them weep, dammit, not bleed.

I'm sorry, but I disagree with all of you. I think cemetaries are the biggest waste of space ever! Followed closely by golf courses. This large masses of land should be used for the living or the environment. They're more important in my eyes. It's yet another industry making $ off people, they don't even really benefit from. I do agree that the youth was disrespectful and all that, but I just don't feel sypmathy for dead people. I remember people with photographs and memories not a slab of cold stone. It's ridiculous! Anyway do the world a favor and burn yourself.