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Nurse-killer was a fan of Manhunt
The mother of convicted teenage murderer Stuart Harling has claimed violent video games like Manhunt triggered his violence.
The 18-year-old killer was recently convicted of murdering nurse Cheryl Moss, in April 2006, by stabbing her 72 times in a shocking random attack. His mother, Lorraine Harling, said he played lots of video games on his Playstation but that she never knew how violent they were.
“I knew he was playing the video games but we didn't really know what went on in them, how brutal and graphic they were,” she told the News of the World .
"Stuart was 11 or 12 when I bought him the Playstation. For a long time I didn't even realise games had age limits on them. We'd just buy him the game that all the other kids had. I didn't really know what they were about. I think most parents are the same.”
One of the games Harling played was the controversial Manhunt, which involves stalking and killing people in graphically violent ways with meat cleavers, wire, axes and knives. Its successor, Manhunt 2, recently became the first game in 10 years to be banned in the UK and Ireland.
Harling, a former Scout leader and trainee accountant, claimed at his trial that he killed Moss because he was bored and only stopped stabbing her because his disguise wig fell off. He is now serving life.
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Obvious fault here
Quote: "For a long time I didn't even realize games had age limits on them" Bad parenting wins. Watch your kids! Get involved! If you don't even know what your kids are doing, don't turn around and blame someone else when it all goes wrong.
Posted by Vee, 17 Jul 2007
Mum To Jail
This happens, if a parent does not care nothing about his/her child and than she is surprised. The MUM has probably not even noticed she has a child and now she is wondering. this is afault of the parent which is trying to find excuse in violent games as this is easier and also unfortunately easier to acceot by many simlar parents which do not care about own childrens and let them sit in fron of TV and let play games all day. when she buyed the game, she was blind to see that is a violent game ? The woman is stupid and should be putted to jail. Parents are responsible for they own childrens.
Posted by Kerembe, 19 Jul 2007
Wow.
Wow, talk about negligent parenting! If you are a parent and have absolutely no idea what your children are doing right in your own house, you can't turn around and push the responsibility off on someone else.
Posted by John, 17 Jul 2007
Great
You have to have a license to drive a car, about time that you also need one to raise a child. Its about time people time responsibility instead of looking for something or someone to blame for their mistakes.
Posted by tk, 17 Jul 2007
Parent of the year award goes to....
"For a long time I didn't even realise games had age limits on them. We'd just buy him the game that all the other kids had."
Posted by GC, 18 Jul 2007
the blames is the new generation of parentz
absolutely totally without any responsability. Separation and divorce for silly question, want freedom, without accept the duties. This generation of mothers and fathers sucks! No sense of duties and the blame is the videogame the blame is in this new generation of father and mother instead to go to with friends think and look after the childrens!
Posted by alex, 19 Jul 2007
Little doubt a contributary factor
I think that a great deal of violence can be blamed on scenarios and scenes of violence, primarily in video games ? which tend to be more graphic than films. My understanding of an editorial in a fairly recent New Scientist was that this was the unanimous finding of every independent piece of research into the effects of violence in video games. Of course, pitted against this we have the material (propaganda?) disseminated by a multi-million pound industry protecting it's assets. Yes, I am sure that violence in films and TV must also have a desensitising effect, but it is not viewed so continuously as that churned out so relentlessly in video games, which are viewed for endless hours by those with formative minds (and older ones, who ought to know better). Violence in books? Here much depends on the imagination, (based on real life experiences).Also, am I showing my prejudices, in suggesting that those most likely to be affected, are unlikely to spend much time in contemplation of the printed word. I might add that my experience of the content of video games is nil; my understanding of this is based on reviews and articles.
Posted by Ben, 20 Jul 2007
A spurious argument
All alcoholics start by drinking beer/lager/alcopops, so we should ban alcohol. However, all alcoholics actually start by drinking MILK, so should we not ban milk, as it is the major cause of alcoholism, drug taking, speeding etc. People with a social tendency for violence will be violent, whether they have access to computer games or not
Posted by sterthian, 20 Jul 2007
Games have ratings
How long was he playing these games for? If he was 18 when he commited the crime. I agree that there ia a lot of voilence in games but they have a rating if parents paid attention to them. It is their responsibility all through the childs life.
Posted by Ger, 24 Jul 2007