Aspies For Freedom

Teenager found guilty of battering 10-year-old neighbour to death

Press Association
15th December 2005

A teenager was found guilty today (December 15) of battering a young neighbour to death just hours after playing cricket with her.

Kieron Smith, 18, murdered 10-year-old Lauren Pilkington-Smith in Leigh, Greater Manchester, on July 7.

She went missing after playing cricket with Smith and a younger boy near their homes.

Her body was found later that night in local woods by her grandfather after the family launched a frantic search when she failed to return home.

Smith was found guilty by a unanimous verdict following a trial at Liverpool Crown Court lasting nearly two weeks.

Mr Justice Mackay adjourned sentencing for reports but said: "There is only one sentence that can be passed on him and that is a life sentence."

Jobless Smith, who left school at 13, admitted playing cricket with Lauren but always insisted he had gone home afterwards and not seen her again.

He told police and the jury that he spent the evening watching television, playing computer games, cooking his tea and taking the family dog for a short walk.

But evidence from witnesses and other sources proved that Smith's story did not add up.

He was also unable to explain how tiny droplets of Lauren's blood came to be on his trainers.

His reason for killing Lauren, described in court as a "popular and well mannered" girl, may never be known.

Smith had been told he suffered from Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism, but that illness was not presented as a defence by his legal team.


Source:  Press Association
http://www.24dash.com/content/news/viewN...ewsID=1880

I'm sure we'll hear more of it as mitigation before sentencing - the most likely reason why the proceedings have been adjourned for "reports."

Lauren's killer found guilty

Manchester Evening News
Thursday, 15th December 2005


GUILTY: Killer Kieron Smith was found guilty today of battering a young neighbour to death just hours after playing cricket with her.

Kieron Smith, 18, murdered 10-year-old Lauren Pilkington-Smith in Leigh, Greater Manchester, on July 7.

She went missing after playing cricket with Smith and a younger boy near their homes.

Her body was found later that night in local woods by her grandfather after the family launched a frantic search when she failed to return home.

Smith was found guilty by a unanimous verdict following a Liverpool Crown Court trial lasting nearly two weeks.

Mr Justice Mackay adjourned sentencing for reports but said: "There is only one sentence that can be passed on him and that is a life sentence."

LaurenJobless Smith, who left school at 13, admitted playing cricket with Lauren but always insisted he had gone home afterwards and not seen her again.

Television

He told police and the jury that he spent the evening watching television, playing computer games, cooking his tea and taking the family dog for a short walk.

But evidence from witnesses and other sources proved that Smith's story did not add up.

He was also unable to explain how tiny droplets of Lauren's blood came to be on his trainers.

His reason for killing Lauren, described in court as a "popular and well mannered" girl, may never be known.

Smith had been told he suffered from Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism, but that illness was not presented as a defence by his legal team.

Lauren’s parents were in court to hear the verdict but were too upset to talk afterwards.

Lauren’s grandmother Pat Smith read out a family statement in which she described the loss caused by the murder.
She said: “Lauren had a wonderful sense of humour, she always had a smile on her face.

“Lauren was very keen on all sports and we used to go as a family to watch her on school sports day. The only outing we have now is to the cemetery.

“Kieron Smith has deprived Lauren of life. We will never know what the future would have held for Lauren. She may have been a great athlete. Who knows, but at least she would have had a future.

“We have been deprived of seeing Lauren grow up into a sensitive, caring adult, which she was as a child.

“Lauren’s death has destroyed us. We get up in the morning thinking about Lauren and we go to bed at night thinking about Lauren. Our lives and our home will never be the same again.”

Ken Pilkington, Lauren’s grandfather, discovered her body on the night of the murder.
He said outside court: “At least the jury has had the common sense to put this fellow away for good.
“Hearing what happened in court has been terrible. We didn’t know the full extent of the injuries. We are devastated.”

Source: Manchester Evening News
http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/men/ne...uilty.html

Greetings,

I suggest we gather as many recent examples as possible of irrelevant inserstions of the fact that someone who committed a crime has AS (examples where the AS clearly has nothing to do with it).

When that is done, AFF should write a letter to the press complaints comission.

I've sent an email to my employment support worker at prospects to see if we can drag the NAS into this.

MURDERED BY THE BOY WHO NEVER GREW UP

Daily Mirror
16 December 2005
Friendless misfit, 18, beat little Lauren with bat 'for no reason'
By Brendon Williams

A YOUTH of 18 who battered 10-year-old Lauren Pilkington-Smith to death was a misfit loner who had no friends of his own age.

Kieron Smith, who was yesterday convicted of Lauren's murder, left school at 13 and spent his days with his dog and cage birds, watching television and playing computer games.

After younger children returned from school, he would play cricket and football with them.

Lauren was beaten with a bat by her 6ft 1in neighbour after they had played cricket on July 7.

Det Chief Insp Shaun Donnellan said yesterday: "The truth is that there is no background to this case because there was no reason for what he did. Little Lauren is from a loving, warm, nurturing family and she made the mistake of extending her friendship to Kieron Smith, who manipulated that friendship and battered her to death. Quite why, we may never know."

Smith, of Leigh, Greater Manchester, suffered from Asperger syndrome, an autism-like disorder which can lead to eccentric behaviour, relationship difficulties, and communication problems.

But his legal team didn't put his illness forward in their defence case.

He left school early because he "didn't like the crowds, they made me feel anxious".

Education services tried to find a solution but gave up when he turned 16.

Ken Pilkington, Lauren's grandad, said after the verdict at Liverpool crown court: "At least the jury has had the common sense to put this fellow away for good.

"Hearing what happened in court has been terrible. We didn't know the full extent of the injuries. We are devastated."

Ken found her partly stripped body under leaves in woods later that night with a sock forced into her mouth and two twigs shoved up each nostril.

Smith denied killing her but DNA tests showed her blood on his trainers.

Lauren's gran Pat Smith read out a family statement yesterday.

It said: "Lauren had a wonderful sense of humour, she always had a smile on her face.

"She was very keen on all sports and we used to go as a family to watch her on school sports day.

"The only outing we have now is to the cemetery. We will never know what the future would have held for Lauren. But at least she would have had a future."

She added: "We have been deprived of seeing Lauren grow up into a sensitive, caring adult, which she was as a child. Lauren's death has destroyed us. We get up thinking about Lauren and we go to bed at night thinking about Lauren."

Police said Smith showed no remorse. Det Chief Insp Donnellan added: "He is a lying, violent human being who has snuffed out the life of a little girl for no reason."

Smith faces a life sentence on January 20

Source: The Daily Mirror
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid..._page.html

I hope going forward that you will receive support that will truly benefit you.

I don't think that statements like this will be considered helpful--more likely to be considered incendiary, thereby possibly exacerbating the problems.

Perhaps you meant: serious strategic planning for wholesale NT attitude change?

Oh okay...
I don't consider what you're suggesting to be war--to me that's more like what I meant by strategy.

I'm not especially comfortable with the "war" way of thinking--I worry about the connotations of violence and oppression--group A feels violated and oppressed--they wage war--and stand in danger of themselves then becoming the violators and oppressors.  I'd like to think that constructive change can happen without beating the opposition into submission, literally or metaphorically.  Seems to me as if this has happened with how women are treated, at least in the USA (several other countries have a LONG way to go here), and is happening now with gay people (again, long way to go but vastly better than 30 years ago).

Hello Ironman  :smile:

we've all got reason to feel angry and upset over the way some NTs have treated us, but it is only some, and probably only a minority.

There are very many out there who will be willing to listen to our ideas, and may be happy to accept them if they are well presented and reasonable.

I think we would do best to save our campaigning energy (remember how very few of us there are) for the obvious frauds, charlatans, quacks, and torturers. Hardly a week goes by without some new horror story of systematic cruelty and abuse of autistic children, and in that we have fertile ground for campaigning, a more than legitimate grievance with which the majority of decent people will sympathise.

We don't want to alienate potential supporters and allies with unnecessary hostility.

Stella

Iron Man,

all this wild talk of violence and revenge will get none of us anywhere, and may do us harm.

Why don't you leave all this alone for a while, until you feel more settled, and ready to make a constructive contribution to our efforts here.

Stella

Much of what you write, Iron Man, pains me, for example, the suffering that you've experienced, the anger you feel, the violent thoughts you've had and have towards those who have wronged you or other Aspies, and the grossly oversimplified generalizations you make in your me-against-the-normies narratives.  

Amy's suggestion of posting your story in a different forum makes sense.  Write it all out, but please, not here in the News forum, where people reading your words will think they make a good case for locking up certain Aspies because they're a danger to society.  

I'm going to be blunt: I do NOT, at any future point, want to see Stella post a news article about some Australian late-20s guy with Asperger's Syndrome who went off the deep end and did something violent.
Please get help.

Switching gears here, I was thinking about different ways of achieving social change, and the approaches of Martin Luther King versus Eldridge Cleaver (founder of the Black Panthers) came to mind. I'm on shaky ground here, because I don't know the history really, but I associate King with the non-violent approach and Cleaver with the violent approach. I believe that King's is the more longlasting legacy.

In the process of Googling around, I found what seemed to me to be a pretty interesting article about Cleaver which I hope that you, Iron Man, will read....not because I think that this should be your path but rather to illustrate that any one person's path can change.
http://www.earthlight.org/2004/essay50_neale.html

Okay, I just read your piece and some of your other blogs as well. (I'm assuming those pictures are you, right?  It's nice to now have a better mental image--your avatar doesn't do it for me.)  

Anyway, in one of your earlier blogs you said:
"The real problem, as has been said by many in many places, is that it is difficult to know the answer when one does not understand the question. There are so many people I have encountered who thought the solution was as simple as flipping some kind of internal switch." (You were talking about changing focus--away from thoughts about your mistreatment and over to your interests in writing, music, etc.)

Seems to me like you're dealing with lots of questions--Why was it so hard/took so long to get diagnosed?  How can I get the help I need now? How can I help/make "normies" understand the life of an Aspie? How can I deal with the anger I have against people who've mistreated me? How can I stop the demonization of Aspies in the news and contemporary culture? How can I make up for lost time? etc.  That's a LOT of questions!!!! Following them out means learning a lot about yourself and also how things work in the world, both of which are complicated.

Your comments about medication are sobering--I wish there were way to avoid medicating kids except when absolutely necessary.

Including you, I presume. It seemed from your blog that you've got several interests you're writing about--which means you still care and you're engaged with life.

I wonder what can be done with all the anger some of us feel over being marginalised most of our lives and still being marginalised today.

I don't agree that all "normies" are the enemy but when someone says "why didn't he get help?" - maybe the person did try but didn't know how to say the right things that would guarantee a helpful response. Add to that, funding issues and lack of training and you get a lot of people who never get the help they need.

Things have looked up for me in recent times in some ways but a continued source of extreme frustration is being unable to know the right things to say when I need assistance with a few things. Most of the time I can cope but there are a few things that are beyond me.

This particular person probably had a mental illness co-existing with autism.