DUMB CRIMINAL OF THE WEEK: IT WASN’T MY FAULT, BLAME GRAND THEFT AUTO
by Hazed
While there have never been any studies that show that violent computer games make people commit violent crimes in real life, that doesn’t stop concerned commentators from worrying about the effect they have on poor, vulnerable teenagers.
Well, they’ve just been handed some more ammunition (so to speak) by a teenager who’s been jailed for armed robbery. He claimed in his defence that he and his friends had been trying to re-enact the game Grand Theft Auto while they were drunk.
Kristian Allan Coulter Scott and two friends held up a service station last year. He and one of his accomplices threatened the attendant with a knife while the third acted as lookout. The trio took cash and cigarettes.
Scott’s partners in crime were underage so were dealt with by children’s courts. The knife-wielder got a month in juvenile detention, and the lookout was given a suspended sentence.
Scott pleaded guilty to a aggravated assault charge, but tried to claim mitigating circumstances by saying he “tried to emulate or replicate the [video] game in real life”. But the judge was sceptical, and said “That game is a well-known and well-used game and this is the first time I’ve heard it said that it may have been the basis upon or the reason for which an offender then went on to rob a service station.” He sentenced Scott to four years and 11 months.
The claim that “video games made me do it” was clearly an attempt to disavow responsibility, and it didn’t work, but I am sure that won’t stop campaigners from citing it as evidence in the future that such games are eeeevil.
