Sunday, February 19, 2012

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?



COURTS
By Jane Sims, London Free Press
February 15, 2012 11:05pm

All he was doing was buying a sausage after a night out with a female friend.

"How did you get a girl?" asked a stranger in an orange polo shirt standing near the man at the vendor's stand near York and Richmond streets at closing time.

"I'm going to get with her," the stranger continued.

The man and woman tried to ignore the orange-shirted, dark-skinned man -- Marol Angou, 25, of London -- but the attack began.

The man was struck to the ground, then kicked in the head "like a soccer ball," assistant Crown attorney Jennifer Chalykoff told Ontario Court Justice John Getliffe.

The man was kicked at least 17 times as he was on the ground in the fetal position protecting his head and begging the attack stop. His female companion was struck by Angou's female friend, and punched by Angou twice when she tried to intervene, Chalykoff said.

Then he walked away.

Identification was the main issue in the case, but Getliffe convicted Angou Wednesday, saying he was convinced it was Angou who committed the random act of horrifying violence on a stranger on Aug. 20, 2011.

Angou offered alibis -- both soundly rejected by Getliffe.

"I simply do not believe him," the judge said.

Angou first claimed he was in custody at the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre after the victim and his friend saw Angou downtown after the attack and approached to make sure he was the man who assaulted them.

Once sure, they gathered friends, returned to where they found Angou, then called police.

An initial check showed Angou was in custody, but that was a clerical mistake.

He was at the jail the following day after he was picked up by police for causing a disturbance not far from the attack the night before -- and wearing the same distinct orange polo shirt he had when he attacked the man.

Angou's second alibi was he had been with a friend at an east London bar, met some girls and partied at someone's house.

But a check of the video surveillance at the London Housing complex where Angou's friend lived didn't support his story.

The male victim suffered serious physical and psychological injuries, but was able to recall the orange shirt, the dark skin and the man's accent.

Angou will be sentenced March 9.





The above article appeared in my local newspaper late last week and was of concern to me because the male in the article was one of the three that had attacked my husband and I in May 2008. He is obviously not too far removed from some savage and untamed animal as his repeated  behaviour continually seems to illustrate.  He obviously learned next to nothing during the twenty four months he sat in jail as punishment for his horrific actions against us. This much is very clearly apparent. 

If anything he seems to be mocking our Canadian judicial system at every opportunity, and is quite clearly not capable of owning any sort of responsibility for his actions. I'm fairly confident that this next sentence he will be receiving in a couple of  weeks time will be as effective as all of the others preceding this one. 

I wish I could believe that this most recent punishment will even go as far as being an actual representation of the crimes committed but I have so very little faith that this could even remotely happen no matter how tough the judges words might appear in this article. No doubt come sentencing day they shall be long forgotten and in their place there will be more rationalizations why we should allow the system just one more chance to attempt rehabilitation. Whatever...