Oh, the humanity!
Before getting down to the nitty-gritty details of the “crime,” I know you’re probably on tenterhooks about the child’s condition. I am pleased to be able to report that the “victim” is resting comfortably and expected to make a full recovery.
As for his abuser, Gary McKenzie, the future is less certain:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Prosecutor Paul Abrahams told Teesside Crown Court that if the incident had taken place in a rugby club after the victim had drunk ten pints it may have been dismissed as horseplay, but in McKenzie’s case it amounted to cruelty.
The charge McKenzie faces states: “At Darlington in the County of Durham, being a person who had attained the age of 16 years, you wilfully ill-treated the child, namely by breaking wind in his face, in a manner likely to cause him unnecessary suffering or injury to health Contrary [sic] to section 1(1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933.” [Emphasis added]
This is not a spoof or a satire on the “snowflake” mentality that has corrupted college campuses here in the U.S. It’s an actual story from a genuine news source, The Northern Echo. McKenzie, 22, is quoted as telling the jury(!) at his trial, “I’d never hurt a kid.”
A roofer by trade, McKenzie claims his noxious emission occurred accidentally, but the child testified otherwise:
He pumped [broke wind]. He was right next to me and bending down, he was wearing shorts, his shorts were right next to my face.
I said ‘why did you do that?’ and he said he did it because he wanted to be nasty.
The boy also sais he had seen McKenzie do a similar thing to another child:
He pulled his pants down and pumped right on their face.
I knew he had pumped because I heard the noise.
The article doesn’t reveal what kind of punishment might await the transgressor, though I assume it will not be subjecting him to a taste of his own medicine, which would obviously be crueler than death.
