Rape and assault claims now reported on the BBC website, nothing new added, just cross quoting from The Sun.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-45887227

I’m glad that things worked out that way for you. But that’s just one asshole meeting another asshole. (Her and him)

and to suggest some cosmic force put her in her situation would also suggest it put you in yours. And that’s doing you a disservice

I would wager your hard work, morals, eithics put you there. Not karma.

If karma existed, in the way it’s spoke about so regularly. Wouldn’t anyone who had ever made money selling weapons, big pharma, drugs, slaves etc all be dead or on the bones of their ass.

Im not being argumentative, I just find it a fascinting discussion

Blimey, that all seems a bit messy.

Regardless of who was shot perhaps a change in the law will happen.

Most bizarre comment for a long time…

As Kimbers said it was a comment on believing whatever the media tells you and whipping you into some good old outrage rather than employing the slightest critical thinking. Nothing proven and already the easily led are lining up to piss on his grave.

Maybe the father was in on it too ? All very murky but some serious allegations flying around. Sure truth will come out in due course.

Surely, “karma” would have involved a Deliverance type scenario involving said hunters.

Whee, whee!

I personally believe karma leads to people who believe unsubstantiated accusations  from tabloids, ending up, (possibly) looking really stupid.

The guy may be guilty, but, the sun and mail have a long history of making things up, and Ruining people’s lives, to sell papers.

Regardless of the back stories I find the whole thing totally terrifying, we are out in Morzine at the the moment and the weather has been stunning now for over a week.

This prompted me to start looking for a couple of bikes to hire for me and my wife,but  after a few conversations with people who live out here I’ve decided against it.

Even the locals stay away from marked hiking trails etc for fear of being shot, the typical rationale from the french hunters is that their ancestors have hunted in these woods for centuries without boundaries so no one is is gonna tell them when and where they can’t shoot !

During the drive over here we were also stunned to see rows of guys with dogs and guns driving wildlife out of a field and shooting at it , the field actually bordered the motorway .Can you imagine that happening at the side of the M1 or M25 etc?

Crazy

Can you imagine that happening at the side of the M1 or M25 etc?

Yup.

i was riding along a road beside the M5 two weeks ago, some shooting going on in neighbouring field, at one point some shot rained down around us. Bit further over it’d have been raining down on the M5….

May not be well known or obvious to all but the danger of shotguns and rifles are not in any way comparable. Boar and deer hunting is the latter. Grouse and pheasant (common in the UK) is the fomer. There’s a bit of deer stalking in Scotland but it’s a very different affair from drunkards stumbling around in forests taking pot-shots in the general direction of boar-like sounds.

a bit of deer stalking in Scotland

Bit?

Well it’s not like we’re all tramping over the place with a .243 to hand is it?

Are we still angry because French people

Yes.

There’s a bit of deer stalking in Scotland but it’s a very different affair from drunkards stumbling around in forests taking pot-shots in the general direction of boar-like sounds.

Yes, deer stalking will be done under the supervision of a professional stalker, who knows the area intimately and is responsible for making sure any shooting is done safely.

Locally, I’ve only ever witnessed a grouse shoot, on a few occasions. They openly drink whisky, before and after lunch, and also openly shoot over a road, albeit a very quiet singletrack one.*

A bunch of boorish, singing louts.

A few short miles from your hometown squirrelking.

*gamekeeper let’s me build as I wish, as long as I’m not around during shoots, so I don’t moan really…. 😊

deer stalking goes on in England.  the deer in england are much bigger than the highland ones.

You can go deer shooting in Oxfordshire.

My only experience of the hunting fraternity was when beating on a shoot as a kid.

A group of Italian guns came to one shoot.  It was stopped before it started.  The Italians started shooting at anything that moved, even well before they were anywhere near the butts.  Rabbits, songbirds, the works.  Despite being taken to one side with the Head Gamekeeper and given a talk on british shooting etiquette initially, and then a stern final warning.  “We are here to hunt” was the response, somewhat different to a what we expected.

Blimey, that was an unexpected twist.

While I hate the Daily Mail as much as anyone and find their presentation of that story quite inappropriate, they and The Sun don’t just make quotes up in situations like this.

It’s clear the mum and sister have very strong feelings and – as Mrs Toast says – with the supporting evidence of what appears to be a domestic violence conviction and another aggrieved ex-GF,things are pointing a certain way.

The editorial staff will have felt that they were on pretty solid ground to run that. Would people feel differently if he’d been a 1970s Radio 1 DJ rather than an MTBer?

I noticed that the Mail was desperately trying to row back the story yesterday. I won’t link for obvious reasons. But they claimed to have checked both magistrates and Crown Courts for the domestic abuse conviction and couldn’t find it.

Also had talked to a load of people about the mother and received a distinctly unflattering portrait. She apparently got 5 grand off the Sun for their original ‘exclusive’.

It’s still a Mail story, so to be taken with the proverbial pinch of salt, but it certainly should make anyone wary of jumping to conclusions about this bloke.

Nobeer, if its the estate of L*** G****** that’ll be pheasant, be bloody lucky to get grouse up there. Shooting over a road with shot, as said, is a different story to bullets. Can’t say I’m impressed with drinking though its still not the same as the French hunters by all accounts (looking at terrain, discipline etc.)

You can go deer shooting in Oxfordshire.

There will be deer shooting pretty much everywhere in the UK (in woodland rides look for the tree stands which allow them to have a safe backdrop).  Outside of Scotland (since thats where traditionally the muppets go shooting the red deer for trophies as opposed to going after muntjac) though where you can get numpties being babysat one on one by a professional its generally restricted to people who whilst often amateur will have had to passed several tests and shoot at most in a group of 2-3. If they did get caught being a tad drunk they would also have a rather unpleasant chat with the local firearms licencing officer before saying goodbye to their licence. They are normally up at o stupid hour as well so unless you like early morning or late rides (admittedly more of a risk at this time of year) they tend to be invisible. That said last week saw a couple of hunters with suppressed rifles getting out of cars next to one of my local routes. Despite assuming they would not be pissed and so would be shooting downwards through a woodland ride I did choose an alternate route back in.

Not dissimilar to shotguns although there the idiots are more broadly spread where you have the gamebird shoots aimed at the idiots doing it as a social event. I remember being getting mildly worried once where disregarding a locals warning I though the local estate shoot would actually have some vague skill requirement having been used to my local shoots which, I think, were mostly small groups funding a shoot together as opposed to commercial.

“Can you imagine that happening at the side of the M1 or M25 etc?”

There was a hunt/shoot about 500m from the A1m ,just a mile north of the m25 on Saturday morning.

Nobeer, if its the estate of L*** G******

Na, Southannan estate mate. LG wouldn’t let you cut bugger all tracks, unless you were paying him.

You can go deer shooting in Oxfordshire.

You can also go deer shooting in Swinley, which is another reason for sticking to the ‘official’ trails!!

They do seem to use the ‘chairs’ though so in reality you’ll be safe(ish) wherever you ride

While I hate the Daily Mail as much as anyone and find their presentation of that story quite inappropriate, they and The Sun don’t just make quotes up in situations like this.

But they really should investigate the veracity of the claims before publishing, especially if, for example, the assault conviction was a lie.

All that does is make it even harder for genuine victims to be heard.

I’m inclined to believe he went to prison.. The sun has a pic of a letter he sent from there. Likewise if he wasn’t in jail those trying to say its all made up could very easily prove it I would have thought.

No smoke without fire.. Saville thought me that..

No smoke without fire..

How do you reconcile that with innocent until proven guilty?  Or do you not?

How do you reconcile that with innocent until proven guilty? Or do you not?

<i>I</i>ts not easy to do that when the evidence is compelling. Saville wasn’t proven guilty as I remember, are you saying he was innocent?

An extreme case admittedly, but then so is this I would argue. The guy has been accused of raping his sister over 100 times and beating his ex. I struggle to believe that accusation has been made entirely.

How do you reconcile that with innocent until proven guilty?

That’s in the eyes of the law. This is the internet, a lawless, godless place.

I struggle to believe that accusation has been made entirely.

You struggle to believe that sometimes people are accused of things wrongly, for all sorts of reasons, from it not being true to it not being provable and all sorts of versions of callous vendetta type accusations in between?  Can you really not believe that that happens?

If that were the case, then surely then we don’t even need a trial, anyone who is accused should just be locked up.  We could save society a fortune, it’s amazing no-one has thought of it before.*

*A few people have, and it does seem to have side effects when implemented…

I don’t think people are saying it’s definitely all made up, just that allegations made when the ‘abuser’ is in no position to defend himself should not be taken entirely at face value. Particularly when the allegations are made via the press, possibly with payment involved.

It’s quite hard to prove that someone hasn’t been in prison, but I’m surprised that court records haven’t been forthcoming for the six month sentence. Would seem to be a basic piece of journalism, since the ‘fact’ that he went to prison for a violent offence is being used to prop up some completely unverifiable and far more serious allegations.

If he had been seriously injured, rather than killed, there is no way that the bulk of the story would have been published. It is only the fact that you can’t libel the dead that allows the press free rein.

I hate how this has changed into a discussion about karma and deciding whether he deserved it or not based on some tabloid journalism.

It’s nice and neat to think you won’t get shot by a drunk idiot unless you’re evil, so lets not worry. But then surely everyone who dies young deserved it, or is it only karma when it aligns with your views? In which case perhaps it should be called coincidence.

Regardless we have very little evidence and close family on both sides arguing two opposite view points. To try and guess the truth based on a few quotes in the Daily Mail seems insane.

I wish all this wouldn’t overshadow the fact that a man was just shot and killed because we have so little regard for human life that the rights of people who enjoy killing animals is somehow more important.

You’re right, woodster.  Sorry for derailing (or at least continuing the derailment).

As I rode around yesterday, on what was a beautiful day I came across a couple of signs in the woods :

Zone de Chasse : Prudence

(Hunting area : Be careful)

They were permanent signs, not temporary ones indicating hunting was actually happening there and then, and there were in a publicly accessible area of a forest.  It struck me as being quite amazing that potential victims were being asked to be careful around their potential agressors and made my wonder if I’d be OK driving around a bit drunk as long as I stuck a big notice on my car saying :

I’m a bit drunk : Be careful around me

Saddens me too that the local Decathlon has been advertising their hunting products on Facebook recently just a couple of days after another old lady lost her life to a hunter.  I’m not against hunting, but hunts here in France really are a different beast to organised shoots in the UK.

In my opinion the fact of the matter is the Federations de chasse aren’t doing their job.  Rugby federations are looking at ways of changing their sport to reduce head trauma in young players, and any other federation would have serious attention focused on it if there were anything like the number of annual deaths and injuries caused (not counting the number of hunting dogs that get shot “accidentally”).

Does anyone remember the horrible murder of a young woman around Christmas in Bristol a few years ago? Her landlord was arrested, and the sun decided he was guilty, then set about ruining his life. Endless stories dragged up from the past, mostly made up, or grossly exaggerated, and splashed across the front pages. Turned out, he was completely innocent.

Or, the stories of Liverpool fans stealing from the dead after Hillsborough? As I said before, be careful taking “facts” from tabloids.

Surely his doing time for assault will be a matter of record rather then opinion?

And whilst that wouldn’t mean any of the other allegations are true it does mean the whole thing isn’t a complete fabrication.

You struggle to believe that sometimes people are accused of things wrongly

Not at all, I am allowed to express an opinion on the matter however. And I’m pretty convinced that he has indeed gone to prison for beating his ex…the rest of the story.. Who knows

Does anyone remember the horrible murder of a young woman around Christmas in Bristol a few years ago? Her landlord was arrested, and the sun decided he was guilty, then set about ruining his life. Endless stories dragged up from the past, mostly made up, or grossly exaggerated, and splashed across the front pages. Turned out, he was completely innocent.

Yep, Chris Jefferies. And part of it was true – the bit about him being questioned in connection with the murder. He was briefly a person of interest to the police. The articles about him being a creepy sex pest and peeping tom were just made up.

At least in that case the poor bloke was able to take them all to the cleaners for libel.

Another MTB’er has been shot and wounded last weekend in Ariège by people hunting wild boar.  It’s very regular durng the hunting season and has nothing to do with karma*

*At least it seems not to, but perhaps this one will turn out to have some dark past too… 

Karma? On a forum as profoundly atheist as this?