Shamed, yob who pelted vulnerable woman with f lour
FIVE teenagers who spat at a vulnerable woman and pelted her with eggs and flour before posting photos of the incident on social media admitted their appalling actions yesterday.
The boys caused outrage around the world when the shameful images – which showed them laughing and joking as they stood behind her – went viral, adding to victim Janice Morris’s humiliation.
When police visited her home later that evening they found her still covered in flour and with ‘smudged mascara down her face’.
The teenagers appeared at Ipswich Youth Court yesterday, where they pleaded guilty to using threatening behaviour which caused harassment, alarm or distress.
One of them – Cohan Semple – who can now be named because he recently turned 18, will be sentenced next month after a probation report has been prepared. The other four, two aged 15, a 16-year-old and a 17-yearold, were each handed a 12-month referral order and told to pay their victim £100 compensation, plus £85 prosecution costs and a £20 victim surcharge. A sixth boy, aged 17, denies being involved and his case will be heard at a trial next year.
Chairman of the bench Simon Islett told the boys they would have faced jail if they had been older. He said: ‘This was a nasty attack on a very vulnerable lady. She must have been terrified.’
The gang approached Miss Morris – who has mental health issues and was classed by police as vulnerable – in a park near her home in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on July 27.
Prosecutor Wayne Ablett said: ‘ She sat on a bench near a basketball court and a play area. All of a sudden a number of male youths appeared around her. She recognised some.’
Mr Ablett said she didn’t feel threatened but one of the boys who she regarded as ‘loose cannon’ spat on her head. When she asked them what they were doing she was spat on twice more as the boys laughed and goaded one another.
They then disappeared and were ‘away for five or ten minutes and came back with flour purchased from a nearby shop’.
Mr Ablett said: ‘ This was chucked over her. Her head, torso, face and lower half were covered in flour and eggs. They boys were laughing and she was spat at again.’ Semple took a photo and posted it on Snapchat where it could be seen by about 25 friends on the social media network. One copied it and put it on Facebook where it was shared tens of thousands of times.
Police were alerted and found Miss Morris after asking locals to identify her. The youths were also identified by disgusted acquaintances.
Further anger was caused when the boys’ parents complained they needed police protection because of a public backlash on the internet.
The court heard yesterday that Semple was asked by police if he ‘thought it was funny what they had done’ and replied: ‘No comment.’
But Mr Ablett said he now felt ‘remorseful for what happened. He said he didn’t intend for the photo to be out in the public domain’.
The 17-year- old, who was flanked by his parents in court, had been having ‘difficulties’ over the past two years but was now back living with his family.
One of the 16- year- olds said: ‘I have learned not to be an idiot and to never do anything like that again.’
‘I have learned not to be an idiot’