Did you follow the coverage of "The Crossbow Cannibal" AKA Steven Griffiths? There are many aspects to the case that I find quite disturbing, but the perhaps themost disturbing for me is that one of his victims, Shelley Armitage bears a striking similarity to a girl I went out with many years ago. When I first saw her picture on the news, I turned cold and felt sick. I was most relieved to see that it was a different person, but every time I see the picture, it causes all sorts of awful thoughts to come to mind. Firstly I feel guity that I'm glad another person died, rather than someone I know. A natural reaction, but one which I don't feel comfortable about.
Then there is the question of the coverage. Many reports talk of murdering "three prostitutes". Why not three women? Sure they were prostitutes, but they had mums, dads & families. Why not give the families a break? Why dehumanise these women? I doubt any of them ended up touting for business on a street corner because their lives had turned out how they hoped. Of all the professions your daughter may choose, being a prostitute is probably the toughest. In these days of health and safety assessments, how many people work in such a dangerous environment? The risk don't only come from violent psychopathic punters, there's diseases, pimps and the cross association with drug abuse.
The press coverage of the Crossbow Cannibal states that he may have murdered up to 14 prostitutes. If we hark back to the Yorkshire Ripper, the police only really started to take the case seriously, when he got bored with prostitutes and started murdering women who weren't hookers. Then it became a front page story. I suspect that many prostitues who are murdered are not missed by anyone and just disappear. If the "crossbow Cannibal" hadn't put on a show for the CCTV, how many more may he have got away with?
I've often wondered where the motivation to kill prostitues comes from. I think it's true that some heterosexual men genuinely hate women. When I was in my early teens, I recall the father of a friend of mine explaining to us that "all women were evil whores" and we should have nothing at all to do with them "until we decided to get married". Given that he was married and had daughters, I found the outburst quite bizarre. It was probably the first time that I realised that some people had deranged parents. What was even more scary was the fact that as we grew up, his son seemed to demonstrate the same feelings and lack of respect. Several girlfriends ended up in hospital as a result of violence. When I realised that he didn't see a problem with his behaviour, I ended our friendship. A couple of years later, I bumped into one of his ex girlfriends in Mill Hill. I was trying to rent a flat and she was one of the tenants. She saw me and was terrified. She went on to tell me of the abuse she received. It was truly horrific. She made me promise that I wouldn't tell her ex where she lived.
I was duly informed that the flat wasn't available. I saw one of the other tenants after, who had told me she'd vetoed me (which was fair enough in the circumstances). She had moved out shortly after as she was scared that I'd tell her ex in revenge, leaving no forwarding address. I was really upset as she clearly didn't believe the promise I'd given. In hindsight though, I understand. I've not seen the guy in question since 1984. I have heard that he's "quietened down" and is married with children. I hope to God he's seen the error of his ways.
I happen to believe that this type of mindset towards women is the thin end of the wedge, which ends up with a "crossbow cannibal killer". I've thought long and hard how such attitudes can be combatted and have reached the conclusion that it can only happen at schools. My friend was raised in a household where terror reigned. He was terrified of his Dad and moved out as soon as he possibly could, getting a job at 16. He was an extremely bright guy, but failed his O' levels as he wanted to break free as soon as possible. No one likes the concept of a nanny state, but I like the concept of domestic violence and abuse even less. That is where all of this starts. Schools are the only place where the victims of this can escape and get some normality.Perhaps the most disturbing thing my friend ever said to me was on the bus home from school one day, when we were about 13. He asked me out of the blue whether my Dad ever fucked my sisters. Given that my former friend was a rather obnoxious wind up merchant, I just took it as him trying to goad me. The whole concept was perhaps the most bizarre and alien suggestion I'd ever heard. It was only years later when I realised that maybe the question wasn't what I thought it was at all. Bear in mind that at that age, we were far more naive than youngsters today. I had no concept at all of incest and rape then.
One other thing that amazed me was how he could take an endless amount of beating in a fight and still get up for more. Far more disturbing was the extreme violence he would dish out when he had the upper hand. A few times he'd start fights that he had no hope of winning and yet somehow he'd always get up and walk away, no matter how badly he'd been battered. As he grew he found that people would be genuinely scared of him and seemed to revel in it. Even more disturbing was his propensity for being charm personified, only to "turn nasty". The final straw came for me when I realised that he had absolutely no pity and no conscience for his actions. At that point, I decided that the friendship was destructive and ended it.
The more I think about the whole thing, the more I think that our schools are failing us in allowing this to continue. Take my former friend. Why did a boy who was top of the class at 12 and a model pupil slump to bottom of the class, constantly playing truant? Sadly his family were seen as a fine upstanding part of the community. I wonder about the Crossbow Cannibal Killer. How is such a person made? I suspect that all mercy, pity and kindness is driven out of them at an early age. I suspect that an attitude where women are treated as pieces of meat (literally) is not something which you just wake up with as an adult.
I don't know what the answer is, but it has to start within schools. We need to educate young people that we really all are equal and we all deserve respect. We need to get young people to talk about their feelings for one another and try and stop such negativity building up. As an adult I recognise many disturbing and troublesome signs in my former friends behaviour. I wonder how many more monsters are being made up and down the country. My friend was born in age where there were no violent videos, no extreme sadistic porn freely available and salacious details of cases such as the Crossbow killer were not plastered over The Sun in every gory detail. I've no idea if you can ever stop people becoming sadistic serial killers, but you can at least try. Maybe the first step would be for the press to refer to murder victims as women, not by their unfortunate profession.
It was the same during the Ipswich killings where Steve Wright killed 5 prostitutes, each time the BBC newsreaders, often female, would always refer to them as prostitutes. When discussing the case with friends, family, I would refer to them as girls, this was picked up on by a number of people equally upset by the BBC's stance.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you need to drop "The Crossbow Cannibal", he is Steven Griffiths, a murderer, a failure in life and does not deserve a name, like Suttclile, Brady, Shipman etc
Dear Askmikefreer,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about using the term Steven Griffiths in general, but firstly most people don't know his name and secondly, I felt it illustrated the sick nature of his mind. I was trying to provide some analysis as to why we have such individuals. There are many issues thrown up by the case and I couldn't possibly address all of them in a single blog.
Thanks for the input though