The Faces of Evil...

Pair convicted of viaduct murder

A man and a teenage girl have been found guilty of the murder of a man with learning disabilities. Steven Hoskin, 38, from St Austell, Cornwall, was humiliated and abused for hours by a gang, a court heard. He was drugged, taken to a viaduct and forced to hang from railings.

The 17-year-old girl stamped on his hands causing him to fall 100ft to his death. Darren Stewart, 30, was jailed for life and the girl detained. Another man was convicted of manslaughter. Martin Pollard, 21, had also been accused of murder but was convicted of the lesser charge by a jury at Truro Crown Court.

All three had pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and Pollard and Stewart had pleaded guilty to false imprisonment. The girl was convicted of false imprisonment. Two 17-year-old boys, who cannot be named, were also found guilty of assault and false imprisonment.

The jury at the Truro Crown Court heard Mr Hoskin, who had the reading ability of a six-year-old, was burnt with cigarettes, walked around on a dog lead and was forced to confess to being a paedophile. He was also forced to eat 70 paracetamol tablets.

The teenage girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court a plan was then hatched to take him to the top of a viaduct in Trenance Road, St Austell "to scare him". Mr Hoskin was stamped on and kicked in the face as he clung to railings at the viaduct, the court heard.

Det Ch Insp Mike Fowkes, senior investigating officer, said: "The group of five defendants tortured him in the secrecy and privacy of his own home, a meagre home he had willingly opened to them with the hand of friendship. Collectively their behaviour culminated in unparalleled cruelty and evil that has absolutely no place in modern society."

Cornwall County Council has confirmed that a multi-agency review will be held to see if any lessons can be learned from "this terrible incident".

...From the BBC tonight. The face of evil in our world.

Mike Fowkes is right to use that non-police word 'evil', for it is from the very Devil himself that such deeds come; but Mike is too hopeful, too nice, too kind meaning to say such evil has no place in our world. For it is precisely in our world that such evil has taken root. It has its place all right, right in our midst, it is there among us and if we do not act to destroy it it will kill us all.

As for Cornwall and their "multi-agency review" looking for lessons to be learnt, that makes me vomit. Bleeding hearts gathered round a flipchart intoning platitudes. Nothing more. They wouldn't recognise evil if it ripped their heads off and laughed them to damnation. Which it does, only they haven't yet noticed.

The Judge in the case is considering whether to give the names of the juveniles to the public. He will I hope and you shall have them here.