Station assault videoed by thugs (From Bury Times)

Station assault videoed by thugs

4:17pm Thursday 22nd February 2007

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A YOUNG girl was thrown onto the Metrolink track while her attackers filmed the incident on a mobile phone.

The 15-year-oldmanaged to crawl off the track to safety just moments before a tram passed through Besses o'th Barn station at Whitefield.

A 16-year-old girl from Cheetham Hill has since been jailed for the attack which happened on October 13 last year.

The video of the attack was played before magistrates at Bury last Thursday when a second offender appeared in the youth court charged with assaulting the girl's friend on the station platform.

That attack was also captured on camera by the gang of thugs.

The footage, which was later seized by police, shows around 15 hooded youngsters intimidating passengers leaving the Metrolink station.

It then zooms in on the defendant grabbing her young victim by the hair and dragging her to the floor while screaming and shouting abuse.

The mobile phone then pans to another girl lying across the tram lines after she had been thrown from the platform.

The 15-year-old attacker, who had no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to common assault on the platform girl.

She was given a ten month referral order and ordered to pay £150 compensation and £250 court costs.

The chairman of the bench, Mr James Hyndman, told the girl: "Having seen the video of this attack I have written down certain words: bully, thuggish, disgraceful. How do you like to be described as a bully and a thug? You must have felt confident having a large group around you."

The young defendant replied: "I am not pleased with my behaviour. I am sorry for what happened."

An application to make the girl the subject of an Anti-Social Behaviour Order, which would have banned her from using the Metrolink, was rejected by the magistrates.

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