Elderly retired boxing champ beats six kinds of crap out of drunken burglar neighbour
A British hard-partying 24-year-old bartender got upset that his elderly neighbour called the cops over all the noise he was making, so he got drunk and broke into the 72-year-old's house, wielding some kind of Mall Ninja knife that incorporated brass knuckles. What he didn't know was that the neighbour was a retired boxing champ, and the older man beat the everloving crap out of the would-be assailant. The judge in the case sentenced the burglar to four and a half years and said, of the beating, "You got what you deserved."
As Waxy notes, the inane Facebook photos make this story even more delicious.
24-year-old burglar Gregory McCalium beaten by 'victim' - elderly retired boxer Frank Corti (via Waxy)
A mug shot released by the Thames Valley Police reveals the results after Corti disarmed his attacker, let loose with two punches to the face and restrained McCalium until the police arrived on the scene...Corti, a veteran of the British armed forces, was at home with his wife during the mid-morning attack, according to testimony in the case. McCalium, a bartender, may have held a grudge over a noise complaint lodged by the Cortis earlier that morning, the Daily Mail reported.
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The problem seems to be that he was too drunk, other wise he never would of picked on some one older.
He broke in the old man´s house with a pink afro too?
That seems enough to me to beat his living crap.
And yet, the pink afro seems to have been his best feature...
According to the article, it wasn't the judge who said he got what he deserved. From the article:
"The jury might well have concluded you got what you deserved," prosecutor Angela Morris said to McCalium during sentencing, according to the Daily Mail.
Either way, it's a medieval and barbaric comment from a representative of the justice system.
Colour me and every other UK lawyer I know medieval and barbaric, then. Break into someone's house and wave a knife around because you're a dick, merit a couple of swift jabs 'round the chops.
Perhaps Mr. McCallum will sober up in prison. It's a good thing for him the older gent hit him just enough to subdue him, judging by the results. And I assume he's a little out of practice . . .
What a heart-warming story.
Sorry, JKSK, but he DID get what he deserved and it had nothing to do with the courts. It was justice.
I wouldn't say that I'm someone who is comfortable with violence, but this story makes me feel all warm inside. In my neighborhood too.
Well, I've gotten my smile for the day. Good on ya, Mr. C0rti!
My reading of the article is that both the judge and the prosecutor said the bartender got what he deserved.
It's worth noting that Corti (the retired boxer) was both terrified in the encounter and did not enjoy beating up McCallum:
'I was absolutely petrified.
'As I saw it, it was a matter of do or die so I let his wrists go. Fortunately the element of surprise was with me, so I adjusted my position and hit him with my right hand. It was just below the eye.
'I did not knock him out, but he was stunned. I heard the knife drop. We grappled. I was trying to drag him out of the back door. We both fell to the floor. I had to subdue him by punching him, which I did not take a great deal of pleasure in.”
Rule 1
Fair do's. Don't mess.
It's a shame they don't have the Second Amendment in Great Britain. Not everyone can be a retired boxing champion. How many times does this happen and the elderly person end up stabbed, beaten, or dead?
The photo on the linked article looks strangely photoshopped, as if they enhanced his black eye.
Hardie har har, yes he got what he deserved, in Texas he would have been shot by the Older gent, and then sodomized by the police. RESPECT Your Elders!
I have a lot of experience as the recipient of noise complaints, and I can truly understand this guy's frustration. The article doesn't fill in much backstory regarding their living situation - do they reside in adjacent apartments? Are they in neighboring houses? What is the makeup of the neighborhood? Who was there first? Regardless - breaking in and threatening an old man with a knife? Not the correct response (although at some base level.... eh, nevermind)
Maybe you never had a black eye... looks quite mild to me!
@ Demidan.
You are mistaken: gents don't shoot people.
I think as a private person it's reasonable to feel that the young man got what he deserved - but it is an abhorrent act of twattery for a representative of the legal sytem to go crowing about it. Also wondering whether it is then reasonable to bang him up afterwards - isn't that line of reasoning incompatible with the idea that his getting the suprise beating of the year constitutes some kind of natural justice?
You shouldn't be breaking in expecting to be beaten up, but you shouldn't be breaking into houses not expecting to be beaten up either.
I'd say it's a risk of the profession.
@Anony mouse:
There is nothing natural about justice-- it's a social construct of civil society that provides disincentives for breaking your side of the contract. Under any such system, someone who does break that pact deserves the actions necessary to ensure that others aren't harmed by their unwillingness to adhere to the bargain. In the vast majority of cases this is carried out by a police force, but most societies have provisions for self defense as well, and so considering that the elderly gentleman appears to have used a minimum of force to subdue and restrain a better-armed attacker, I would say that he did indeed get what he deserved: The exact amount of force necessary at that precise moment to protect those who accept their social contract.
#13 demidan
You're suggesting the Texan police sodomise corpses ??? Or perhaps that Texan oldies don't shoot straight ...
As far as I'm concerned, the prosecutor is guilty of nothing more than honesty. I would have sentenced this little twat to 60 hours community service as a human punching bag down at the local senior citizen's center.
The police aren't so much crowing about it as publicising the fact that they're not going to prosecute someone for defending themselves and their property. It's true - in the US, say Florida, you'd drag the fella onto your lawn from the road and shoot him dead. Here, we duff 'em up a bit and remind them how the Krays kept London's badlands semi-organised. Or something.
Anyhow - the cops are letting on they aren't going to be protecting burglar's rights. They did for a while, and it was fairly silly.
If someone enters my property unbidden and unwelcomed, they can expect a serious and fast response. And I won't be stopping to look for weapons - I shall simply assume they mean bad things for my family.
@14 - turn it down. Noisy neighbours annoy everyone. Why do you have to be so antisocial?
Two punches did that? Holy crap. That guy still knows how to hit hard.
@Stegodon: Why don't you, y'know, quiet down? Primacy of occupancy has nothing to do with noise complaints, that's a ridiculous thing to even mention. The only people I know that get noise complaints deserve it.
#19, WalterBillington:
Unbidden and unwelcome visitors to my property have included the local MP, lost kids, and an old lady who thought it was the post office. I'm glad to say I gave them a frivolous and considered response.
My read on this (and that of the Times UK commenters where I saw the article) was that "got what he deserved" referred to a five year jail sentence, which seems rather reasonable for assault with a deadly weapon.
You have it wrong. The judge didn't say that, he said that a jury may reach the conclusion that he got what he deserved. A judge isn't going to comment personally like that, not in the UK anyway.
Yes, he had it coming. British law is quite clear: if you believe that you're in physical danger from someone, you can do anything that seems reasonable at the time to defend yourself.
So if I burst into someone's house wielding a knife, I'd fully expect them to do whatever they felt necessary to stop me from being a threat. It's all about proportionality: seriously injuring someone who's threatening to seriously injure you is probably justified; seriously injuring someone purely in defence of your property (e.g. you see a burglar and he immediately tries to flee) probably isn't.
@0xdeadbeef, (11)
"It's a shame they don't have the Second Amendment in Great Britain. Not everyone can be a retired boxing champion. How many times does this happen and the elderly person end up stabbed, beaten, or dead?"
So instead of that knife, the drunk guy would've broken into his neighbour's house waving a gun instead? Because you can bet that the kind of person who owns -- and keeps handy -- a knife with knuckleduster attachment would own a gun if he had half a chance.
Let's say that the old guy happens to have his gun handy. Are you sure he would've won that fight? Not everyone can be a retired boxing champion, but not everyone can be a retired sharp-shooter, either.
LOL! Corti said he was petrefied and boxed him up like that?!?! Wow... Imagine if he wasn't petrefied. He'd beat the kid to a pulp. IMHO he should've hit the kid and had a photo of him like a fish trophy. That would be even funnier.
I would suggest that it would have been barbarism *not* to scold the assailant, telling him he received what he deserved. The society that does not meet violent attack with swift and real punishment, including violent response, is a society that will allow barbaric violent crime to flourish. My city has a catch-and-release program that has resulted in it being among the top few most violent cities in the US for the last several years. If our violent criminals more often "got what they deserved" and it was publicly applauded by the local government, I would expect a reduction in our crime problem.
He did get what he deserved. I have to wonder about anyone who says otherwise - what bizzare continuum do you live in, where drunken thugs get to beat up old men at 8AM without retaliation?
Weirdly enough, the Daily Mail has the best article. That might be a first. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196479/Pictured-The-battered-bruised-face-burglar-got-wrong-72-year-old-boxer.html
If he'd broken in my house, he'd have gotten a fair bit more than he deserved, if he didn't get me first that is. Darwin will have his say always...
Woo, only 23 comments and we already have two Concern Trolls who are Concerned about advocating beating the crap out of knife-wielding thugs intent on hurting persons in their own house.
I guess that makes the laws in both the UK and the US medieval and barbaric. FWIW in NYC there is no duty to warn before using deadly force if one is surprised by an intruder in one's house. In other words, if you hear him sneaking around and you get the drop on him first, and can manage to shoot first, you're fine.
And that's the way it should be.
The old man should have hit that stupid twat harder and more. Also still surprised to see that he got away with his lip-ring in; there's a reason why visible piercings aren't allowed in the NYPD; it's because they can act like convenient ripcords. Too bad he still has a lower lip.
"The jury might well have concluded you got what you deserved." I would say that is a very fair assessment of the situation. That is almost certainly what the jury concluded. I find nothing barbaric and medieval about a prosecutor noting this very obvious fact. And as WALTERBILLINGTON notes, the prosecutor is simply publicizing the fact that they are not about to go after people for defending themselves, their loved ones, or their property. I don't see anything wrong with making that well known.
I doubt the old guy is a retired boxing ''champion.'' If so, both sides of the mook's head would be rearranged. One never forgets how to throw a 1-2 combination. He's a swatter though; note that he says, ''I adjusted my position....'' Lights out.
I notice that the Daily Mail thoughtfully awards Copyright in those photos to Facebook. In other words, everything uploaded to Facebook belongs to Facebook.
@mcmrbt (27)
Yep, that's true. They explicitly say so in the terms and conditions when you join the site. Although and astonishingly small proportion of my facebook-using friends know it.
Santa's Knee here.
OK, I guess that I have to be the one to say it:
"Chav!!!"
More descriptive side of the story:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6613225.ece
@ #15 Anony mouse:
There is nothing natural about justice-- it's a social construct of civil society that provides disincentives for breaking your side of the contract. Under any such system, someone who does break that pact deserves the actions necessary to ensure that others aren't harmed by their unwillingness to adhere to the bargain. In the vast majority of cases this is carried out by a police force, but most societies have provisions for self defense as well, and so considering that the elderly gentleman appears to have used a minimum of force to subdue and restrain a better-armed attacker, I would say that he did indeed get what he deserved: The exact amount of force necessary at that precise moment to protect those who accept their social contract.
Attack old man with a knife, get fat lip and jail time.
I'd say that when it goes that way, the world is working quite as it should. I have no problem with any member of the court letting the guy know he got what he deserved as well, particularly if he was complaining or stunned by the result. If nothing else, he needs to learn that you simply don't behave that way in a civilized society.
I'm glad the judge called it exactly how it is. There is nothing medieval about self-defense. The barbarian in this story is the guy who broke into someone else's home with the intention to bully and/or hurt him. There is simply no excuse for that.
We still have a basic right to protect our own selves in our own homes. I bet this idiot will think twice before terrorizing neighbours again.
@9 Takuan
This rule 1? "Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men!"
@26 Well, frankly, I didn't "quiet down" because I didn't feel that I was being innapropriately noisy. My charges were dismissed, after a prolonged pain-in-the-ass process, and the curdmudgeons eventually moved out - hopefully back under their original rock. Constantly calling the police on a neighbor that you don't like for whatever reason is a pretty popular method of harassment. Granted, in this case, the guy with the pink afro wig who brandished the knife probably was a noisy douche bag. I don't feel that I was. This has nothing to do with anything - I'm personally bitter about noise complains.
And yet, the pink afro seems to have been his best feature...
Nah. I'd hit it
It's not about your feelings: noise limits are generally set by communities.
Unlike that far-less-common method of harassment that involves making inappropriate noise at at inappropriate levels at inappropriate times? Puhleez.
@46 Whoa there Gran Turino, pump the brakes. I'll bet you're a blast at parties.
Isn't it Gran Torino?
The point is that your loud party may be unacceptably loud: deal with it. Most communities have set levels for this: it's not about my curmudgeonicity, if it's over the limit it's over, your joy in making noise be damned. That you feel the need to party does not translate into my need to hear said party at certain times and at certain volume levels. It's that simple.
Amazingly sensible judicial ruling from the UK for a change.
I've gotten so used to reading the victim getting railroaded for defending himself, while the choir boy perp gets off with a slap on the wrist.
@ BUGS #29
In response to if GB had a US-style 2nd Amd
"So instead of that knife, the drunk guy would've broken into his neighbour's house waving a gun instead?"
1) US felons are barred from owning guns, stripped of their 2A rights. It doesn't stop them from acquiring them anyway and using them to commit further crimes.
... Because you can bet that the kind of person who owns -- and keeps handy -- a knife with knuckleduster attachment would own a gun if he had half a chance.
2) not necessarily.
Let's say that the old guy happens to have his gun handy. Are you sure he would've won that fight? Not everyone can be a retired boxing champion, but not everyone can be a retired sharp-shooter, either.
3) you don't have to be a "sharp shooter" to hit center of body mass. A 12 ga shotgun makes for excellent home defense, and at close quarters it's hard to MISS. Suggest you read the Armed Citzen column in any of the publications of the US National Rifle Association, which compiles news accounts of successful home defense by the law abiding against criminal assault, including the elderly, even elderly females, fending off much larger, younger, stronger attackers because they had a gun handy.
WOW!~
I am rather surprised the UK judge didn't let the ickle little thief go and throw the dangerous boxer in jail. That's normally the way home defense cases go in Britain now.
Of course, around where I live, the knife wielding thug would have been shot, saving the state $100k+ in room and board. But then we don't seem to have such a problem with petty thugs attacking us in our homes...
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Got a job one summer in a *dry* college town (except for private clubs), tending bar weekends at the local VFW. When I invited a friend to drop by and I'd set him up a few on the house, he said: ''No way I'm gonna drink in a bar full of stone killers.''
For all the two-fisted drinking, there were never any fights.
My 74 year old great grandfather beat the piss out of a knife weilding 22 year old punk who was trying to mug him on his front lawn.
Attribute it to the strict diet of canadien whiskey and chocholate covered cherries. Maybe thats why he died less than 6 months later.
He may have not been a boxing champ, but that's all i could think of reading this story.
The punk did not get what he deserved. When you attack a person nearly half a century older than yourself with a deadly weapon, what you deserve to get is shot in the face.
The punk is fortunate that he lives in a country where only ex-boxers have the right to effective self defense, and other geriatrics have the right to dial 999 and put on some tea.
@ deculberson
While I agree with the sentiment, I was the target of unfair noise complaints when I was rooming at my college way back when. We were in apartments, and the students above us complained at any noise, even the slightest. We were trying to comply in good faith, tried to talk to them about it, but we couldn't be quiet enough for them no matter what we did. It wasn't even music - just us talking during the afternoon got complaints. It got to the point where we were being threatened with losing our housing.
Finally, thank goodness, Student Housing sent over a representative to talk to us. He asked us to play our music at what we thought was a reasonable volume, and we did. Immediately the upstairs neighbor started pounding on the floor. The charges were dismissed, and the jerks upstairs got a talking to.
That being said, it has nothing to do with this guy's case. The old man was definitely in the right here, and I'm glad he gave that jerk a good thumping.
Noisy people do deserve to get beaten up.
I agree with #52. And I'm also rather glad to see that the correct person was brought to justice in this case. From recent U.K. news reports, the U.K. justice system often punishes the person who was just defending himself. This was the correct result, with no coddling of the bad guy.
Adding to #58, it is very true that the reason why these stories are so rare in the UK is because it is far more common for the invader to be a teenager (or even worse, a tween), and it is also FAR more common for the only person to get punished is the person defending themself.
In some areas of London, the police won't even show up if an assault is in progress because they don't want to get in trouble for beating up on children. (I wish I was kidding!)
A Gran Torino moment?
"wielding some kind of Mall Ninja knife." Yeah, there are a lot of ridiculous (although undoubtedly sharp) weapons out there. A drug dealer the next street over from me was busted with a ton of this type of cutlery. For the record, I'm on the side of assailing a home invader. Of course when I'm 70, I'll have my cane that turns into a sword. Ha!
He made out far better than an instance I know of. Some idiot broke into a woman's house here and attacked her with a hammer. In the adrenaline rush and terror after having her cheekbone shattered, she ripped it out of his grasp, turned it around and gave his brain some needed oxygenation. She's alive and he isn't. Funny thing how the wish to stay alive can do that.
I'm with Wylkyn and Stegodon.
A while ago I lived in a detached house (as in no walls were attached to anyone else's walls) where I'd get noise complaints at 5.30 PM for putting music on in the kitchen whilst I did my dishes. It wasn't particularly loud music and it certainly was not 'illegally' loud by any noise restriction laws in Victoria, Australia. I know this because there were a number of times the police arrived to the house when the music was still at the exact same volume and they told me it was an unreasonable complaint.
I've also lived in a college while I was working. I'd get home at about 8.30pm, put some cartoons on my laptop (no speakers plugged in) and then get complaint about the volume of my T.V. We're talking laptop speakers with 2 doorways and a hallway away from where the complaints were being made how fucking loud can the sound possibly be? The fact that none of my other neighbours above, below or directly either side ever made a complaint I think reflects the sort of person who was making the complaints.
This also got to the point where it was investigated by external sources and the idiot making the complaints was told to be reasonable. Meanwhile I got in trouble for smoking pot in my room because when they came to investigate they noticed the smell.
I think that was the assholes intention all along.
yes Akbar, that rule one.
Lucky for the fool he was only a boxer. Reflexes once made part of you are hard to control. Someone who grew up on self-defense against lethal force might very well have turned the blade into the idiot's stomach without even thinking.
Karma > justice
#62, Itsumishi:
Me too. I used to live two doors along from a serial noise complainer. He would complain about the noise from people talking, and playing the acoustic guitar, but would himself play Wagner recordings at high volume. He eventually admitted that one noise he complained about could only be heard when he pressed his ear to the shared wall.
To his credit, he always complained directly to the people involved, rather than calling the police.
#17, #25
From the Daily Mail article:
"McCalium, a barman, was having a rowdy party at his house on August 18 last year when police turned up after a complaint from a neighbour.
McCalium assumed it had been made by Mr Corti - who won the National Association of Boys' Clubs Championship in Birmingham when he was 16 - and broke into his neighbour's home at 8am the following day."
So in fact Corti may not have made the complaint.
I have been in that situation myself. The complaint came from the single mother over the road. Her thug neighbours took it out on me, which was fine by me. I didn't want to point the finger.
That Corti admitted to being scared while taking him out is what makes him a real man, not the punches.
I lived next to (as in house next door) an idiot who complained incessantly about our noise. Not because the noise, which he couldn't even hear bothered him, but because his dog could hear it and kept barking. We offered to call the police and have them resolve the dispute. He declined.