Car Thief Jailed For Kidnap Of Blind Passenger

[naomi24]

//A man who stole a car while a vulnerable 89-year-old passenger was inside it has been jailed.

The driver left the engine on so it was warm for her mother, who is blind and has dementia, in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, in January.

David Stephenson, of no fixed address, drove away with the woman still in the passenger seat but was captured after a police chase.

The 51-year-old was jailed for eight years and six months.//

 

This is bizarre.  What on earth possessed this man to steal a car with someone still sitting inside - and what did he intend to do with his passenger?

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-68805374

[ToraToraTora]

probably a junkie, they don't tend to do a lot of thinking.

[davebro3]

8 years (really 4) BRILLIANT! - if the woman hadn't been in the car he'd have got away with a slap on the wrist. The kidnap made it altogether more serious.

[New Judge]

"...probably a junkie, they don't tend to do a lot of thinking"

Indeed. The reason you find this bizarre, naomi, is that you are trying to assimilate it with the sort of thought processes that you or I would undertake before doing something. People that do this sort of thing don't do that. As Tora implies, the perpetrator was probably a drug addict. It is estimated that more than 80% of "acquisitive" crime is committed to fund drug addiction.

It's handy that this creature has been put away (though he will probably serve no more than four years). But it's wrong that it takes such a crime to see that happen. I doubt he knew there was a vulnerable passenger on board when he decided to steal the car and in that respect he is just as culpable as if it was empty. Eight years seems a decent sentence for taking a car, whatever the circumstances. 

[Ken4155]

^

I find it hard to believe that when he entered the car, he did not notice that the passenger seat was occupied, NJ.

[New Judge]

"I find it hard to believe that when he entered the car, he did not notice that the passenger seat was occupied, NJ."

He may well have noticed, Ken. But his thought processes (such as they are) may not have been sufficiently acute for him to decide that it might no be a good idea to nick a car with an old lady inside. You have to see some of these people to understand. They simply do not function in the way you or I would.

Of course all this is based on the assumption that this creature was indeed a drug addict. He may not be; he might just be tuppence short of a shilling. That said, I have to say that nicking a car is not the usual modus operandi of drug addicts. Their "acquistive crime" usually consists of anything they can easily carry in their pockets or a small bag which they can flog for the price of their next fix.

[Hymie]

All that jail time would have been for kidnap, had he just stolen the car the police would not have even attended the crime.

 

Manchester police are too busy at present investigating a potential crime that took place over 8 years ago involving a Labour politician (on which the statute of limitations has expired) at the behest of the Daily Mail and our Tory government.

[naomi24]

The weren't too busy to catch him, hymie.

[newmodarmy]

LOL Hymie, I wasn't around on Answerbank at the time of Partygate but I assume at the time you were questioning why so much police time was taken up by a plate of cake and a few crisps

[Old_Geezer]

One assumes the front passenger seat. Had they been in the back passenger seat she may not have been noticed at first.