Prosecutor: Accused Sex Offender Died While Fleeing Vigilante Gang

[Ed: The U.K. continues to lead the world in levels of unbridled hysteria over sex offenders with mob justice becoming increasingly more common.

I find it interesting that the English, renowned for their historically harsh mistreatment, both physical and psychological, of their children and, of course, their stoicism, can become so irrational when the topic turns to kids and sex.

The Queen herself and Prince Phillip are reported to have treated their own children with an icy coldness which would be almost unimaginable today. And this was a model loosely emulated down the ladder of class which, upon arriving at its bottom, frequently took the form of actual child-beating.

Of course, I must hasten to add that, over the last several decades, major cultural shifts have occurred in the British Isles and that parental treatment of children has vastly improved. That the froideur reserved for children in the past has become an anachronism in today's Britain, is certainly to the good and laudable.

But there are other characteristics, admirable qualities, which have diminished as well and I rather miss them. There was a rationalism and objectivity which seem to have completely vanished amongst the paroxysms of grief expressed in the aftermath of Princess Diana's death. And, as in the States, the freedom of children to roam about unchaperoned by fussing adults has virtually disappeared. And then there's the blind rage which we see now today when the subject turns to "paedophiles".

I wonder if these cultural shifts are somehow connected. One thing I am sure of: television has something to do with it. ]

A British man suspected of sexually abusing a teen fell to his death while trying to run from a group of five vigilantes, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Several individual showed up at the apartment of 44-year-old Scott Campbell in July 2008, hours after a 13-year-old boy claimed Campbell sexually assaulted him, the Manchester Evening News reported. Prosecutor Peter Cadwallader told a Manchester Crown Court that the group was armed with a variety of weapons, including a baseball bat, hammer and bicycle chain.

Campbell was able to close his door before the group could force their way in to his second floor apartment and tried to climb over his balcony in an attempt to escape as the gang banged on his front door, the Daily Mail newspaper reported. But he lost his grip on a rail and fell to the ground, dying instantly.

The five suspects allegedly tried to hide their weapons from CCTV cameras, which also captured Campbell's death.

"The only sensible conclusion is that they intended to give the man a beating,” the Manchester Evening News quoted Cadwallader as saying. “This was a vigilante group seeking revenge.”

The five suspects have been charged with manslaughter.