A Despicable Pair

Words cannot do justice to the despicable actions of Maggie Bowden, Rebecca Willis, and Anthony Connolly, who, as a drunken gang, tortured Sean Ruddeforth, tying him to a lamp-post and, during a four-hour ordeal, covered him with paint, nail varnish and food.



Two things are especially worrying about the case.

Both these feral women were given 12 months prison sentences by judge Peter Lakin at Manchester Crown Court but he suspended the sentences for two years when told both were mothers, as if that excuses in some perverse way their appalling behavior. Indeed, if they do have children what sort of mothers are they who get drunk and carry out the systematic torture of a vulnerable man with learning difficulties.

It is to be hoped Manchester Children’s Services are taking a keen interest in their fitness to be in charge of equally vulnerable children.

Of equal concern is that Manchester police were, it is reported, twice alerted by 999 calls to what was taking place but declined to act, telling one caller it was ‘an environmental health issue' and another it was a ‘non emergency’!

The case is being investigated by Greater Manchester Police Professional Standards Branch and The Disability Hate Crime Network wants an inquiry into the case carried out by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

I wish the former well and agree with their spokesman Stephen Brookes when he said “These sentences are a total farce”, although I hold out little hope that Manchester police will come up with anything other than the all too familiar platitudes that ‘lessons will be learned blah blah blah’.