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Notes -
According to the GiveSendGo:
I don't know if it changes your opinion if Lola wasn't walking around with the weapons, but retrieved them during the attack.
Of course, how on Earth does one retrieve weapons fast enough to return before the end of a scuffle between a 13 year old girl and two adults? How long does it take to attack a 13 year old girl?
I think the statement was carefully written to avoid further legal trouble and Lola "retrieved" the axe and knife from somewhere on her person.
If she lives in a flat that faces that playground, it could be a matter of about a minute or two. I wasn't retrieving knives and axes, but I've done this sort of thing plenty of times as a kid.
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That description does not seem like a match for what I saw in the video. If there had already been a physical altercation before the video took place, why didn't the two girls run away?
It seems clear to me that there was some kind of altercation which took place off-camera before the video starts in which the girl showed the hatchet and knife to the migrants. It was only after this that the male migrant started filming, which is why he already knows about the hatchet and knife when the video starts. Since the girls stick around and engage in trash talk rather than running away screaming, we can presume that no significant blows have been exchanged before the video begins. If there was violence then it must have happened after.
I would also not be surprised if a fundraiser bent the truth a little bit to make the victim more sympathetic.
There were three girls, one of them concussed (according to the girl's family) and maybe unable to move quickly.
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A relevant factor in the case is that hatchets are difficult to conceal and twelve year old girls are not, in general, very large. It seems unlikely that she was carrying this weapon on her person and more likely that she had it stashed for some reason.
hatchets like the one she has are quite easy to "conceal" in what she's wearing. handle down the back of your pants-leg, belly of the blade hooked over the hem, shirt covering the blade. It'll almost certainly print in a variety of ways and make moving and sitting a bit awkward, but nothing prohibitive.
The one that's going to be hard to conceal is the chef's knife, unless she has some sort of sheath, which in my experiences knives like that don't tend to have and kids don't tend to think of making. A long blade sitting against your flesh is not a recipe for safety. There's also not enough structure to hook the hemline reliably, and you don't want one of those dropping down your pantleg along your thigh and calf and into your ankle and foot at an inopportune moment.
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The statement is interesting to me to the extent that it's the girls' story, and therefore something fixed that we can measure against further solid evidence. I'm skeptical about how "retrieving" a hatchet and chef's knife works, but it's at least plausible. But as for the rest, it's he-said-she-said; I disagree with comments here that kids brandishing blades isn't a lethal threat, we have no actual proof of the inappropriate sexual remarks and I learned a long time ago the hazards of "Listening and Believing", but also I'm keenly aware that foreign males treating native girls like whores is in fact a serious problem and one the current establishment has proven they will expend significant resources to cover up; but then, this guy making passes at kids in front of his sister seems pretty odd.
At this point, as far as I can tell, all the points that seem morally significant to me have zero solid evidence behind them:
What we actually have on video is pretty much useless for answering the above questions. Notably, I'd argue that knife-and-hatchet brandishing can in fact be morally-legitimate self defense, and so can knocking a minor assailant down and then kicking them while they're down, including in the head. Whether the weapons were carried or retrieved seems entirely irrelevant to me.
I'm given to understand that Urban England does not suffer from a paucity of security cameras. I have a strong presumption that this event was captured on video. I want to see that video. If it shows anything other than the girls approaching the adults and immediately brandishing or initiating assault, the girls are, in my opinion, in the right. The longer we go without seeing the video, the more my priors shift toward the girls being in the right. I see no reason to blindly trust the authorities or presume that their secret judgements are valid, and my priors on their interest in an incident like this one are fairly strong.
Just to point out in other cases the CCTV is often never released. For example the Rivera case where three teen girls killed a Bolivian man in London, was mostly caught on CCTV, but only a few heavily blurred stills were ever released. Interestingly there too the girls claimed the man harassed them, but witnesses contradicted that and all three girls pled guilty to manslaughter.
So I am not sure CCTV not being released should change your priors much one way or the other.
Also it was in Scotland not England. Which doesn't really change the point about the cameras but might save you some harsh words from some of my more nationalistic brethren.
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This isn't Urban England! It's Urban Scotland!
When I first set foot in London, several years back, I was distinctly unsettled by the sheer number of security cameras around. In the central parts, there were more of them than the stop signs.
Scotland? Far, far fewer. You can hop into Google Maps like I just did and check out that bit of Dundee, the only cameras I can see are private security cams, and not that many. That is not the same claim as saying that the police don't have footage, they likely do, but even the UK isn't a homogenous surveillance state.
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The GSG excerpt above talks about three girls; the two sisters in the video, plus their friend Ruby -- who was allegedly attacked. If she'd taken off while Lola was arming herself, the video more or less adds up?
Someone else in the thread has cited hospital records of treatment for a concussion, so it looks like there was in fact violence inflicted on at least one of the girls.
The screenshot is right there in my original post, but the source is the anons following the case, so it still could be a TracingWoodgrainesque hoax. I wish the local media could get the girls' side of the story but they're all awfully quiet on that.
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If this happened they way the anons / crowdfunders describe, I'd guess she took off after Lola showed up. The dude was tormenting Ruby, Lola comes back armed and tells him to leave her alone, he turns around, takes one look and says "oh, ain't that cute, let me get my phone, I have to record it".
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Apparently the child was treated for a concussion and there is a hospital record to prove this
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