Imagine going shopping and ending up dead after being caught by a stray bullet fired by one group of men intent on killing another man over a dispute about the sale of car tyres. Sadly you don’t have to imagine this, it really happened to an innocent young woman called Aya Hachem. Ms Hachem, a Muslim woman, was on her way to buy food so that the family could break their Ramadan fast when she had the utter misfortune to walk past a car wash that had been targeted by the owner of another shop over a business dispute. Shots were fired at the car wash by the associates of a disgruntled businessman because the car wash was competing with him over car tyre sales and Ms Hachem was struck by some of the bullets aimed at the car wash. Ms Hachem died of gunshot wounds in hospital shortly afterwards.
This is what Britain has become. It’s now a place where an innocent young woman can be murdered in a dispute over something as relatively minor as car tyre sales. Ms Hachem was in the wrong place at the wrong time and her death could happen to anyone of us should we have the misfortune to be caught in the crossfire of the increasing amount of violence that is afflicting Britain’s streets. Humans cannot avoid death. But surely we should be able to fashion a society where we prevent the death of innocents at the hands of people who are so morally bankrupt that they feel that killing someone over a dispute about tyre sales is acceptable?
There is a horrific irony in this case as Ms Hachem’s family had fled from the Lebanon, a place infested with religious and communal violence to be safer in the United Kingdom. Sadly she wasn’t safer here, the life of this promising Law Student was cut short by some idiot who was worried about business competition and for whom life was cheap.
Thankfully the murderers of Ms Hachem were caught, eventually, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms by a judge at Preston Crown Court. The gang were sentenced to prison terms of between 27 and 34 years and these are the minimum terms that they will hopefully serve to the full. There should be no early release for this lot not just because they have caused a death, but because they planned to kill. This was not just an attack to put the frighteners on a business rival, this was a deliberate attempt to kill him.
These thugs had no answer to any problem, including a business dispute, except by the use of violence. Violence was their first port of call when faced with a dispute and their violence has snuffed out an innocent life.
This sort of violence is becoming all too common in Britain. Whilst Ms Hachem’s murder is especially tragic as it was basically a ‘wrong place wrong time’ incident, it is not the only murder that has been committed over relatively trivial matters. Our cities are marred by murders committed by those who feel disrespected because a teenager from a different postcode has entered ‘their’ area and murders over drug debts that may only amount to a few hundred pounds.
Whilst it is true that those who pull the trigger of a firearm or who plunge a knife into someone are of course guilty of murder, there are others who should in fairness share the guilt. A great deal of the problems that have afflicted British streets are the result of politics and the unintended consequences of policies that might have looked good on paper but in reality have brought nothing but division and violence. Britain has always had criminals and gangsters but now we have gangs made up of people from incredibly violent and backward cultures which now stalk our streets. The violence of these gangs overwhelms the police and the courts and the guilty exploit laws designed to protect the innocent in order to too often evade justice. We have a fractured and violent society and the blame for that does not lie with us the British subject, no matter what our skin colour or origin, but with the politicians who have by their policies, created a situation where violence and gangsterism thrives.
May Aya Hachem’s memory be for a blessing.
