A respected jazz saxophonist who played with the British musical institution Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen in the 1960s, the 65-year-old musician continued to receive regular BBC airplay with his group, Timothy Colwell's Jazzfriends. On the evening of September 19, 2003, Colwell was at home in his ground-floor flat in Lymington, Hants when someone outside began shouting and banging on his windows. The musician had been a target of verbal taunts, graffiti abuse, and violent threats for months since phoning police to report truants congregating in a park near his home. His practice of sometimes photographing the neighborhood toughs led the youths to falsely brand him as a pedophile. Two weeks earlier, someone (later identified as Richard Harris) crashed a tractor tire through his living room window. When Colwell left his apartment on what proved to be the final night of his life and walked to the nearby playground to investigate the disturbance, Richard Harris, 20, and Daniel Newham, 17, knocked the elderly man to the ground, and repeatedly punched and kicked him. Neighbors intervened, but Colwell collapsed as he walked back to his flat. Shortly afterwards, he died in hospital without regaining consciousness. While Colwell had a previous heart condition, it was ruled that the assault was so brutal that it could have caused a heart attack in a healthy 65-year-old while the kicks to his head were sufficient to have killed a 25-year-old.
Harris, who boasted of liking to hurt animals and acting like a vigilante, was on parole for two earlier violent assaults at the time of his attack on Colwell. Conversely, Newham had no previous convictions and apparently came from a decent, supportive family. At trial in February 2005, both men were cleared of murder charges, but found guilty of manslaughter. At a hearing in London in April 2005, Mrs. Justice Harlett sentenced Richard Harris to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of three years before being considered for parole. "It is clear that, whether or not you are mentally disordered," the judge told Harris, "your personality is such that you are likely to remain a danger for many years to come, possibly forever." Daniel Newham was sentenced to five years youth custody."
Richard Harris is a relative of mine and he deserves everything he gets iv disowned him
ReplyDeleteI have not heard about Timothy Colwell's case until today. It's sad that he was killed while on neighborhood watch. They always tell us that when you see something, say something. But unfortunately, half the time, I don't trust that saying. Sometimes it DOESN'T help to just say something. For example, if a man is walking around my neighborhood with a gun and he's pointing it at random people, I'm not calling police until later because I don't know if the gun is real or not. He could try to shoot somebody, even me. If I just let him keep waving the gun around one or two things will happen. 1.He'll shoot somebody else. 2.He'll shoot himself. But then there's that third theory. 3.He'll shoot me. But if I DON'T have a gun, and he's NOT aiming it at me, then I can't shoot him. Just like if I had a gun but he didn't then he couldn't shoot me. But if we both have guns and his is aimed at me, police or no police, I WILL shoot. You're not gonna aim a gun at me while I'm armed. But what I will also do, but only if I'm unarmed, is call 911 on your stupid ass and tell them that you have a gun and we can't figure out if it's real or fake. You're lucky if THEY don't shoot you. You better hope that shit don't happen. I admire Timothy's bravery and his attempt at protecting his neighborhood. And just like you, if I found out that a relative killed one of our neighbors, I too would disown their ass in a heartbeat. Don't come around here asking me for money if you just killed someone. In fact, don't ask me for shit. If you do something like that, that's on you. Screw you boo boo. You got what you deserved. But I DO believe we should both say and do something when it comes our community and our crime watch. Because Big Brother ain't the only one watchin' no more. Rest In Peace, Timothy.
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