British Prime Minister Meets w/Mom of "Manhunt Murder Victim"

British Prime Minister Meets w/Mom of "Manhunt Murder Victim"

March 7, 2008
As planned, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown met yesterday with Giselle Pakeerah, mother of 14-year-old murder victim Stefan Pakeerah.

The boy's 2004 slaying was initially linked to Rockstar's original Manhunt game, but an investigation by Scotland Yard later discounted that theory. His mother, however, clings to the belief that the game motivate the brutal killing.

As reported by Kent Online, MP's Keith Vaz and Julian Brazier accompanied Ms. Pakeerah in her meeting with the Prime Minister. (photo: Vaz, Brown, Ms. Pakeerah, Brazier) Vaz is a longtime critic of video game violence, while Brazier seeks to create an appeals process for film and game ratings in the U.K. Of the meeting, Brazier said:
[The Prime Minister] seemed to be concerned and was taking notes during our meeting, which is always a good sign. I was sad that the Government chose to block my [ratings] bill, but I think there’s some chance that we’ll make some solid progress on this matter.

If the Government digs its heels in and doesn’t decide to take a firm stance on [content issues], that’s the point when I will have to go back to my front bench colleagues and talk it through.

Gordon Brown's government, meanwhile, is anticipating this month's release of the report it commissioned from Dr. Tanya Byron on the effects of video games and the Internet on children.

Comments

Fear is the path to the anti-gaming....

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering...

I sence allot of fear in that boys mother and her grief that she still feels about loosing her son to such a horrible accident...

and now the suffering shows that she is not believing the facts and still clings to her mind that a violent videogame (which she would have better off looking at the 18 rating in the first place if she originally ignored the 18 rating) was the cause to her son's brutal death, and not blaming the actural person who did it.

There is no helping her now...
[...] Brazier’s Private Members Bill to reform the BBFC was discussed and eventually stopped in Parliament late last month, but that hasn’t stopped Brazier from trying to revive its political chances. Brazier insists that the eventual decision to release Manhunt 2 “shows once again that the BBFC and its appeals system do not meet the concerns of the public” and that “the public wants a significant tightening up in that vital area.” Earlier that month, Brazier accompanied Gordon Brown in a meeting with Giselle Pakeerah, a mother who believes the original Manhunt contributed to her son’s murder. [...]
[...] Brazier’s Private Members Bill to reform the BBFC was discussed and eventually stopped in Parliament late last month, but that hasn’t stopped Brazier from trying to revive its political chances. Brazier insists that the eventual decision to release Manhunt 2 “shows once again that the BBFC and its appeals system do not meet the concerns of the public” and that “the public wants a significant tightening up in that vital area.” Earlier that month, Brazier accompanied Gordon Brown in a meeting with Giselle Pakeerah, a mother who believes the original Manhunt contributed to her son’s murder. [...]
If the Prime Minister said that it's Manhunt's fault, it's Manhunts fault (sarcasm)
I think that the woman is either uninformed about the Scotland Yard investigation, or ignore it. Either way, I think it's the Prime Minister's fault for her mislead mindset.
I'd go with "ignore it". Just like the rest of these idiots.
Ignore it, the British PM has bigger problems to worry about.
I'll be curious to read Dr. Byron's report.
@KayleL

She'll ignore the truth of it because she needs something to blame it on so she doesn't feel it's her fault. The mother needs some serious counseling.
look i feel bad for her loss and everything, its something a parent should never have to go though, but she really needs to wake back up into reality and start realizing that the only person to blame here for the murder is the killer.
Poor lady...damn sad. Even sadder that she's been so mislead and used to further this dickweed's cause.
Natural selection take them away! (Ahh calgon..)
After you lose someone, you are angry. You look for a target. For some reason, it isn't politically correct to blame the murderer. It's almost as if we are used to the "It isn't their fault, something made them the way they are" excuse.

So she thinks it isn't the killers fault, it was the video games fault. Even thuogh Scotland Yard disagrees. After all, what do they know, they are only a large group of highly skilled investigators, she is a mother.

The game itself sucked, I felt. However, people have been blaming whatever is handy for sometime. I think there was even a murder blamed on Pac-Man, which could hardly be considered a murder simulator.

While I feel for her, I think she needs to get some therapy, someone has to tell her that video games don't kill people, and the video game didn't kill her son. It was a 17 year old boy, who liked other violent things and seems to be a violent person. Scapegoats don't solve anything.

However, expect a press release by JT stating that Manhunt was not just involved, but that Scotland Yard indicated it actually controlled his mind and a video game controller was the murder weapon.
If you want to meet your country's leader, here's what you do.

1. Give your underage kid an M rated game.
2. Get another kid to kill yours who has no association with said game
3. Bitch about it to your government
4. Leader will meet you and feel sympathy for your idiocy
Will the UK become the next Germany for gamers? My money is on "yes".

My condolences to UK gamers.
So, rather than attempting to curb actual violence, they're going to try to curb fantasy violence? The ill-informed continue to cite the lack of ability for children to distinguish fantasy from reality, but it looks like it's the ill-informed themselves who can't draw the line. It seems like a clear-cut case of projecting their own faults into another medium. And we pay these people to make important decisions?
They worry we'll mistake fantasy and reality because they do. They see digital people getting killed and say"What if that were me?"Thing is, it can't be them because it's not real. It's a game.
Dennis,
Have you considered creating a gamepolitics for the U.K.?
I'm sure you could find someone who is surely competent in running a mirror site to this. As the U.K. game politics get more and more involving, I see this as being a nessecary step in expansion for GP, at least in my opinion.
Now, I'm not suggesting that we do this for all major countries, it's just that it is becoming a more complicated situation that is practically equal in importance as it is here. I think that if someone could cover the news that comes from there things can be much more detailed.
Will the ignorance ever end???
@ cidas

I would vote beemoh or moi
I know lots of people dismiss Vas as a moron but his access to the Prime Minister is worrying... He may not be as bananas as JT, but his potential for causing harm is much greater IMHO.

Gift.
Tch. Vaz is a damn vulture. There are limits to this kind of thing........
I don't get why his mom clings to it when she bought her son the game which he played but the murderer didn't.

On a side note, I thought the house of commons was supposed to be full of politicians, not tools.
@ PeterWDawson

"I don’t get why his mom clings to it when she bought her son the game which he played but the murderer didn’t."

Just a guess, but I expect grief is easier to deal with if you have something to blame and campaign against.

"On a side note, I thought the house of commons was supposed to be full of politicians, not tools."

Your mistake, besides most of the time I'm not sure there's a difference :P

Gift.
One thing I want to point out, as a lot of people are missing this.

The mother claims the game found in her sons room belonged to the murderer and was lent to him two days prior.

Whether this is the case or not, I don't know. Also, if she knew that an older person was giving her son material she felt he wasn't old enough for, she should have done something about it. Either way, I don't see the connection of the crime to the game, and I'm in good company as neither did Scotland Yard.
Why do we live in a day of age when we don't care what the real investigators say. Why can't we accept that this people do kill people, and doesn't need the influence from video games, movies, music, books, etc.

Violence was part of human history since the stone age, it would always be that way one way or another.
Like I keep saying Manhunt is responsible!!!!

It made the VICTIM release all his aggression on the game so that when the murderer that doesn't even own the game attacked him the VICTIM(which owned the game) WAS HELPLESS AS MOST VIDEO GAME PLAYERS ARE....

We need to stop games and replace them with the draft to make our kids able to defend themselves!!!!

From this particular story I can draw no other conclusion, unless I admit that the game had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS HORRIBLE CRIME... in which case the theory sounds ridiculous as it should...
@mogbert

It may be disturbing but I can see into the mind of the killer. You owe me money for drugs and I'm beyond pissed off that I haven't gotten it. I'm going to kill you if this keeps up and so I'm going to give you the one unmistakeable warning... I'm going to lend you my copy of Manhunt!

Hopefully the notes the PM were taking was the name Vaz & then every synonym for the word 'moron' he knew.
I feel pity for the woman. She lost her son to violence, and it must help her in her grief to have something tangible to blame (you know, other than the killer). Something that can be fought against in a reasonable manner. That's why she's willing to be used by these anti-gaming zealots. She most likely believes that her actions will save the lives of future potential victims.

Blaming video game violence is a lot easier than blaming the sociopathic tendencies in a fraction of the population. You can identify and fight video games, where sociopaths (and people with mental disorders in general) are harder to understand.
Once again, I'd like to repost this petition I've set up on the Prime Minister's site, requesting that the government actually talk to the games media on this subject, rather than hiding in the tabloids:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/byronclarity/

/b
"Manhunt Murder Victim" is quite the misnomer. The game wasn't even in the murderer's possession. Also, blaming a crime on whatever possessions the victim had (keeping in mind that the crime had nothing to do with robbing the victim of said possessions) is some of the most bizarre rectroactive logic I've ever seen.

It's almost as bizarre as extending it to witnesses. "A crime witness reportedly had a copy of Manhunt. Police have therefore linked this game to the crime."
why cant she just blame the wall socket... that what i do and it doesn't hurt anyones feelings. i feel sorry for her. but being misinformed is worse than knowing
Crikey.

Its hard enough be a UK gamer as it is. America and the East always sees Europe a last resort as it is, without the PM and Vaz misinforming the general public.
Stupidity has reached an all time high. I wonder if she thinks that the piece of sh*t that killed her kid should get a lighter sentence because he shouldn't be held responsible for what he did. doubt it! And to top it off, the idiot apparently never even played the game.

GamePolitics ShoutBox

Posted 11/07/09 at 04:27pm
ZippyDSMlee: man I got alot of junk and dup files too >< god I need orginization...and no not the knee capping media mafia kind :P
Posted 11/07/09 at 04:26pm
ZippyDSMlee: replaced :P
Posted 11/07/09 at 04:23pm
ZippyDSMlee: beemoh:hey its like 60GB porn,400GB anime 100GB games and crap I have took from all my DVDs, I hate waiting on dvds to install stuff..... oh and 40GB of my porn was in the found.000 folder...mostly corrupted.... least I got names of wut needs to be repa
Posted 11/07/09 at 04:18pm
beemoh: @Zip: ...and you'd have to spend all that time re-downloading that porn?
Posted 11/07/09 at 03:34pm
ZippyDSMlee: ggrrrrr......vista lost one of my hard drives and I had a heart attack thinking I lost 1TB of data....
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:58am
JDKJ: Which could be explained by both (a) and (b).
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:56am
Austin_Lewis: JDKJ: You forgot C) the fact that, for some reason, every time he did something that would suggest he shouldn't be in the military, let alone an officer, higher ups ignored it or let it slide.
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:51am
JDKJ: Part of the problem is, I believe, that (a) the Army had a lot of time and money already invested in him and which they were unwilling to simply write-off and (b) an increasing need for the type of skills and services he provided.
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:48am
JDKJ: And that even if he was begging not to get cut loose, he was apparently a real good candidate for being cut loose, anyway.
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:11am
JDKJ: @chada: And while Kennedy once noted that there's usually more than enough blame for everyone to get a slice, the possibility that the Army was unwilling to cut loose someone who was asking to get cut loose could be a factor.
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:07am
ZippyDSMlee: *noms on his feet*..nomnomnomnom*droooll* ...wuuutttttt uuu looking at?
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:05am
JDKJ: I'm no psychologist, but I'm told that crazy people have a tendency to do crazy things.
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:03am
chadachada321: Whoops, was out of the convo for awhile. I do wonder what type of ammo he used etc, but the real issue is WHY he did it, not HOW
Posted 11/07/09 at 09:56am
JDKJ: But if it turns out that they actually did, they'll have Hell to pay.
Posted 11/07/09 at 09:45am
JDKJ: And I'd tend to rule out the possibilty of FN Herstal supplying restricted ammunition to someone merely because they're ordering it from a military base.
Posted 11/07/09 at 09:37am
JDKJ: I know you don't leave your gated community and get around much in dark alleys, so you may be surprised to learn that there's this thing called "the black market" where, if you've got enough money, ain't too much of anything which can't be bought.
Posted 11/07/09 at 09:36am
Austin_Lewis: Or, maybe he or someone else at the base ordered the SS190 from FN Herstal.
Posted 11/07/09 at 09:32am
Austin_Lewis: the hands of private owners. They run about 300 dollars minimum for a box of 50, and boxes of AP 5.7 are extremely scarce, mainly residing in the hands of Class III stores or individuals who for one reason or another got a demo box of it.
Posted 11/07/09 at 09:30am
Austin_Lewis: There are other firearms that fire the 5.7. However, I too would like to know where he got the ammo and what kind was used. Maybe Hasan, planning not to live through this, went out and bought one the boxes of SS190 that are floating around in
Posted 11/07/09 at 08:44am
JDKJ: And it isn't yet clear what type of ammunition Hasan used. It's strange that he purchased a gun but didn't purchase ammunition for it at the same place and time. Especially because the calibre required is peculiar to the actual gun.
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