A man walked free from court today after he admitted setting alight an RAF pilot who was dressed as a sheep for a fancy dress party.
His victim, Martin Geraghty, 26, suffered 13% burns in the incident, which followed a traditional piano-burning ceremony that dates back to the second world war, Teesside crown court heard.
They were watching the piano-burning ceremony and discussed how a member of staff burned his hands jumping over the embers at a previous event, the court heard. Dan Cordey, prosecuting, said: "It led to a discussion about what would happen to Martin Geraghty if he attempted the feat in his fancy dress costume. The consensus was it was a stupid idea."
I believe I have told you before about my collection of never-before-uttered sentences. This one goes right near the top of the list (next to: "I gave the little girl the Mexican bee's fairy-wand.")
The beautiful thing about this sentence is that it makes exactly as much sense when shuffled twenty-four different ways!
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The court heard Buckingham was himself the victim of a bizarre accident some years ago when he lost an eye due to an injury caused by a wallpaper stripper while he was scraping a wall.
My first thought upon reading the blurb was that the assailant had a really bad reaction to that episode of The Twilight Zone featuring pre-Trek Shatner. (the "man on the wing" looking very much like he was wearing a sheep costume)
So, since the consensus opinion of drunk people was that it would be a stupid idea to jump over it he just went and lit the guy on fire against his will?
I understand the basic concept of how this could be construed as a drunken prank, but at a certain point the fact that you light someone on fire, even if not maliciously, is not excused because you were drunk or because it was a prank. He should have served the year in prison.
I thought the excuse of "I was too drunk to know better" was normally considered to be a poor defense that only makes things worse.
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