American tourist dies after brutal attack

AN American tourist attacked by violent criminal while hiking in the Scottish Highlands has died.

[MaryAnne Rankin]

Lock him up for life. He is too mentally disturbed to be free again.

[Peter Dow]

Another person dead because the Scottish legal system has left a very dangerous person free to kill.

Scots are the main victims killed usually, victims of this incompetent legal system overseen by an undemocratic, unelected head of state, Queen Elizabeth and her heir Prince Charles, recently welcomed at the White House by President George Bush.

True we do not have so many guns in circulation these days, since the Dunblane Primary School Massacre.

So we Scots expect to be murdered here rather by having our heads bashed in or something similar.

No-one is safe here - and the only response of the Scottish government is to continue to lie about the state of Scotland to tourists in order to get them to come here, so that they can get your money.

They want your money, and if you are killed - too bad, it will soon be forgotten.

I'm very angry about the state of affairs here in Scotland, but republicans like me are few and far between.

So beware. As far as I and most Scots are concerned, tourists are welcome here, but it is a dangerous place, so be very careful.

Peter Dow,
Scottish National Standard Bearer
http://snsb.byethost31.com/

[Michelle Boleski]

This man's actions have impacted his victim by robbing her of her life but he has also robbed, hurt, scarred and devasted a beautful and giving community who loved her.

[CA Inverness Scotland]

Tourist attacker jailed for life - BBC Website UK

Ms Layman-Mendonca died after being flown home to the US
A 34-year-old man who left a US tourist for dead after beating her with a metal pipe has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Colin Ross attacked school teacher Marty Layman-Mendonca as she walked near Inverness in July.

The 57-year-old primary school teacher from Vermont was left in a coma and later died after being flown to the US.

Ross became the first person to get an Order for Lifelong Restriction (OLR), meaning he will be monitored for life.

Sentencing Ross at the High Court in Edinburgh, Lord Wheatley ordered him to serve at least 20 years before he is considered for parole.

Ross, who admitted her attempted murder at an earlier hearing, was told that he had committed a "savage and senseless" assault on a defenceless middle-aged woman.

Northern Constabulary, whose officers found Ms Layman-Mendonca and later arrested Ross, welcomed the sentence.

Ross was the subject of a Sexual Offence Prevention Order (SOPO) when he launched his attack.

German tourist

The OLR is part of new measures introduced in June and is aimed at stopping dangerous criminals from re-offending by monitoring them for life.

The attack happened less than a month after Ross, of Waterloo Place, Inverness, was freed from a three-year jail sentence for attacking a female German tourist in 2004.


The school teacher was walking the Great Glen Ways

After assaulting Ms Layman-Mendonca, Ross stole from her, tied her wrists together with shoelaces and dumped her in woods.

The tourist was on her third visit to Scotland and had been walking the last six miles of a solo trek along the Great Glen Ways, south of Inverness, when Ross struck.

She was later found by police after a companion reported her missing.

After being treated at Raigmore Hospital Ms Layman-Mendonca was flown to a medical centre near her home in Vermont in September.

She was later transferred to a rehabilitation centre in Bangor, Maine, where she died.

[Kernunnos]

Another splendid example of how the UK is a real 'free for all' for violent people. This man should never have been free to attack this poor woman.

No other country in the world allows people who carry out dreadful violent attacks and let's them walk the streets again so soon.

[criminals walk everywhere]

Kernunnos wrote:

Another splendid example of how the UK is a real 'free for all' for violent people. This man should never have been free to attack this poor woman.
No other country in the world allows people who carry out dreadful violent attacks and let's them walk the streets again so soon.

my sincere condolences to the victims' family and all the good people of my parents' homeland.
NO other country allows this??? the U.S.A. is notorious for it's 'revolving door' policy with violent offenders. this is a global issue that is atrocious!

[Jim]

I have given this subject some thought. The problem is usually one of repeat offending and is common to all western democracies as CWalkE says. It is unusual for someone to attack a stranger very violently in an unprovoked assault without a previous history of violence. Sometimes it is related to drugs, or perceived offence, or mental illness. This case seems to be of the type indicated by his actions:

1. Assault occurred only 6 days after an order banning him from approaching any woman.
2. Been found carrying a ‘rape kit’.
3. Carried out a vicious assault only 3 years earlier. Only out a month.
4. His last victim suffered 19 blows and horrific injuries.

I believe this type of criminal is a problem at school, where people mistake classroom discipline for addressing and correcting a serious problem. His deterioration continues through periods of warnings, probations, fines and short-term prison sentences. This is a pattern we are all familiar with from our newspaper articles across the English-speaking world.

The problem is complex and it is important that prevention, correction and rehabilitation are carefully fitted to the individual. This is not usually done with great expertise.

Speaking generally, I would like to mention four problems that are not usually discussed:
1. The punishment should fit the crime.
Think about this carefully and I believe most people would agree this is medieval nonsense. It presupposes that everyone is equally good and evil; and that you or I are as likely to commit a crime like this as Mr Ross is. It assumes deterrence is the answer and that punishment works. The evidence does not support such nonsense. I suggest that the interventions should be appropriate to the level of violent behaviour displayed. In other words the ‘punishment’ should fit the criminal. The motivation for committing a crime is central to understanding how to prevent it. It is not secondary as it is in: the punishment should fit the crime. One aim should be to interrupt the process of deterioration mentioned above, preferably before the subject leaves school. Even at school it can be too late as schoolboy killings illustrate.

2. Girls can be worse, but criminal violence is still mostly a male problem.
3. The experts are not expert. Have you read what passes for textbooks?
4. The lack of conservatives vs. liberals problem. The former tend to look for stronger punishments and the latter for effective interventions. In the debate, the need to prevent the increasingly violent behaviour of some individuals gets lost.

There is only room here to expand a little on number one.

[Kernunnos]

Medieval or not. Dangerous people who pose a serious risk, whether they are truly evil or mentally ill, should be locked up where they can't harm anyone. Where they can't ruin lives.

A friend of mine was killed a couple of years ago in an unprovoked attack by a mental patient who hadn't been taking his pills. Needless to say, he wasn't convicted of murder, and an inquiry since his court case has blamed just about everybody but him. Society is too soft on these people. They should be banged up out of harms way.

Most of these 'mentally ill' people have nothing wrong with them anyway. They see the system as some kind of parent and keep committing crimes to stay in the loop.