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‘Safari Boy’ Mark Hook sent on a three-month holiday to steer him away from a …

July 13, 2012 by  
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  • Taxpayer-funded jaunt to Africa in 1993 was supposed to stop offending
  • Within a year he was back in court over 34 offences
  • Branded ‘perpetual villain’ by judge after a series of appearances since
  • Jailed for 18 months for mugging pensioner but he’ll be free within days
  • Crook claims to be descendant of Henry Hook, hero soldier of the Zulu Wars

By
Keith Gladdis


PUBLISHED:

04:53 EST, 12 July 2012

|

UPDATED:

20:05 EST, 12 July 2012

When teenage tearaway Mark Hook was treated to a three-month ‘character building’ trip to Africa it was supposed to deter him from a life of crime.

But just weeks after his £7,000 tour of Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Zambia ‘Safari Boy’ Hook was arrested for drink driving and carrying a knife.

Now, almost 20 years and 113 offences later, Hook has been branded a ‘perpetual villain’ by a judge tired of constantly seeing him in the dock.

Mark Hook

'Safari Boy': Lifelong crook Mark Hook has been jailed for his 111th offence - despite an attempt to change his ways with a taxpayer-funded holiday to Africa

Laughing: Hook in 1993, left, after going on the African safari and right, now aged 35 in his latest police mugshot. He may look back on his life and wish he had taken the opportunity to change his ways

Hook, 35, was in jail last night
after being sentenced at Gloucester Crown Court for his latest crimes –
mugging an elderly shopper and handling credit cards stolen from another
woman.

He was sentenced to
18 months in prison by Judge Jamie Tabor QC but because he has been in
custody on remand for nine months he will be free again within days.

In
his 32nd court appearance, Judge Tabor told career criminal Hook: ‘We
have been looking at each other across this court for many years.

‘There
have been many protestations from you that you are going to become an
honest citizen and behave yourself. So far you haven’t.’

He added: ‘You have an appalling record.’

Hook’s
88-day junket to Africa caused nationwide condemnation in 1993 and was
even criticised by the then prime minister John Major.

Junket: Hook, back row second from left, poses with a group in Egypt at the Temple of Karnak while enjoying the £7,000 safari to try and stop his offending in 1993

Junket: Hook, back row second from left, poses with a group in Egypt at the Temple of Karnak while enjoying the £7,000 safari to try and stop his offending in 1993

Expelled from school at 14, Hook had been sent to Bryn Melyn in North Wales, a therapy centre for unruly teenagers.

The
trip was supposed to take him out of the environment where he had been a
young offender and show him places where people were worse off than
him.

Hook claims he is a
direct ancestor of soldier Henry Hook who won the Victoria Cross
fighting Zulus at Rorke’s Drift in Natal, South Africa in 1879.

But the only thing the teenager brought back from his tour of Africa was a determination to continue his life of crime.

In
January 1994, just months after the trip, Hook appeared at Gloucester
Crown Court for 34 offences including burglary and taking a car without
consent and he was given a year’s supervision order.

That year he was back in court twice for burglary offences, handling stolen goods and driving while disqualified.

By the time he was an adult, Hook had blossomed into a lifelong criminal with a heroin and crack cocaine habit to feed.

Over the last 18 years he has served prison sentences for aggravated burglary, theft and wounding.
In
his most recent court appearance, Judge Tabor said Hook’s crimes were
exactly the same as when he was last jailed – for two years – in 2009
for mugging a frail 80-year-old man in the street.

He said: ‘Your latest offences were planned and you acted in concert with another person. You are a perpetual villain.’

Undated file photo of 'Safari Boy' Mark Hook

Smirking: Hook in 1994 having been to court for dozens more offences after the taxpayer-funded

Hook’s innocent smile as a child, left, gave little indication of the terror he would inflict on his victims over the years. Right, he laughs in in 1994 having been to court for dozens more offences after the taxpayer-funded trip

Hook
pleaded guilty to stealing a bag from an elderly shopper in an alleyway
near an Asda store in Gloucester in September last year. He also
admitted handling credit cards stolen on the same afternoon from another
elderly woman.

A second man, Jason Marshall, 23, was involved in the offences and has already been jailed for 18 months.

Marshall
had been arrested soon after the offence and the court heard how Hook
had called Crimestoppers claiming he had witnessed the robbery and tried
to stop the assailant.

Prosecutor
Andrew Wilkins said: ‘He was aware the robber had been arrested and he
was worried he might be implicated because his fingerprints might be
found on the stolen property.’

Judge Tabor was unimpressed by Hook’s actions saying: ‘It was a pre-emptive strike by him to try to explain his fingerprints.’

Hook denied any involvement in the offences but was arrested and charged.

Giraffes walk across a plain in the kind of scene that Hook was treated to when he was a teenager. Unfortunately having the kind of holiday that most people dream of did little to temper his offending

Safari: Giraffes walk across a plain in the kind of scene that Hook was treated to when he was a teenager. Unfortunately having the kind of holiday that most people dream of did little to temper his offending

Undeterred
by his arrest, Hook went into Debenham’s in Gloucester two weeks later
with credit cards taken from both women and tried to use them.

Dermot Clarke, defending, said: ‘He knows you well, your honour, and he doesn’t want to shilly-shally with you.

‘He
is 35 and he has got a four-year-old daughter. He has not seen her
since he was remanded in custody because her mother will not take her to
prison.

Illustrious ancestor: Hook claims he is a direct descendant of soldier Henry Hook who won the Victoria Cross fighting Zulus at Rorke¿s Drift in Natal, South Africa in 1879

Illustrious ancestor: Hook claims he is a direct descendant of soldier Henry Hook who won the Victoria Cross fighting Zulus at Rorke¿s Drift in Natal, South Africa in 1879

‘You may have heard it before but I have no doubt of his sincerity when he says he never wants to be here again.’

Judge Tabor responded: ‘I don’t want him here again.’

Mr
Clarke said that while on remand Hook had been treated for his drug
addiction and had become the jail’s race relations representative.

But the judge said the only factor in Hook’s favour was that he had pleaded guilty.

He sentenced him to 18 months for theft and six months for handling stolen goods. The sentences will run concurrently.

Hook’s
mother, Rita Dolan, has blamed her son’s continued life of crime on the
fact that social services lavished money on him instead of punishing
him.

She has said previously: ‘They spoilt him rotten and did not prepare him for real life.’

But Hook has been adept at manipulating the system.

In 2001 he admitted sending a forged doctor’s note to court so he could spend Christmas at home.

Then
in 2009 he pledged to work with the Prince’s Trust on a scheme where
experienced burglars helped householders to improve their home security.

And guess what happened to Canal Boy and friends

Mark Hook was one of a host of young offenders pampered by the justice system in the 1990s in a misguided attempt to put them on the straight and narrow.

In previous years, the delinquents would have been locked up in borstals or sent to approved schools.

Burglar: Clinton Bowen, also known as Canal Boy, grew up to be a drug addict who targeted the elderly

Burglar: Clinton Bowen, also known as Canal Boy, grew up to be a drug addict who targeted the elderly

But in the mid-1990s they had become ‘disadvantaged young persons’ who were given all the help the taxpayer could afford.

Clinton Bowen was treated to a three-month £12,000 barge holiday in 1997 in an effort to deter him from crime.

The 15-year-old became known as ‘Canal Boy’. He grew up to be a drug addict who specialised in raiding the homes of the elderly.

In 2001 he was jailed for three years for stealing from a 91-year-old great-grandmother and in 2009 he got five years for carrying out 22 burglaries while on parole.

His brother Casey earned the name ‘Pocket Money Boy’ when he was paid £60 a week after 37 arrests between 1992 and 1994.

After paying out £1,560, social services stopped the money because his offending increased.

Jason Cooper was branded ‘World Tour Boy’ after going on holidays costing the taxpayer £50,000 to ‘instil feelings of self-worth by broadening his horizons’.

But Cooper, now 39, progressed to a life in and out of jail for crimes including conspiracy to rob a post office, burglary, fraud and car crime.

He even tried to sue social services claiming he had not been taught basic life skills such as how to  claim benefits.

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
or debate this issue live on our message boards.

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It’s all a farce. That judge doesn’t care about the frail, elderly people being preyed on by this thug. Disgusting.

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Keep him in jail for life. After all, what good is he to society?

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Which party was in government at the time? The party of law and order the Tory party!

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In 1992 when these wasters were sent on these expensive holidays I was in my late teens, had come from a working class family where no one stepped out of line and was in my first year at university- the first of my family to go and I had worked hard to get there. I was diagnosed with Cancer and received no help from anyone. I had to quit my course and begin gruelling chemotherapy and radiotherapy- all the while these idiots were on their jollies but there was no money for someone like me who needed help at home. I do know how lucky I am because I started my own self help group as there was nothing for teenagers with cancer then. I paid for it with my own money (because there was none for projects like mine) and advertised it myself- I could not continue when we lost a couple of members. It was very hard on my heart, but I am still here 20 years later, still doing my best Bitter? Me? Remember these were the Tory days…

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3 strikes?

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well what did they expect? Behave badly and you get rewarded with a luxury holiday. Give him a dozen lashes for each offence and I guarantee he won’t offend again.

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Send them to Afghanistan to clean toilets and do other chores, if they do it properly they can earn their meal for the day.

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The only holiday they should have is one where they are abandoned on some remote island with no luxuries and forced to look after themselves for a few months.

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I am honest, always worked my socks off, never taken a penny from the state, at 53 I face financial ruin despite everything I’ve done and do you know I still wouldn’t swap places with this man whose been given everything, you’re a taker or a giver in this life I’m glad I’m the latter.

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£7000 spent in the ” Hope ” that one Villain will make good !!!.
Why not £7000 spent on ” Do-Gooders ” to make them feel Appreciated !!!.
And they say ” Crime doesn’t Pay ” !!!.
Well it does NOW.

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Eight-year-old boy killed by flying debris from a passing truck that also …

July 13, 2012 by  
Filed under Choosing Lingerie

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By
James Nye


PUBLISHED:

01:12 EST, 13 July 2012

|

UPDATED:

01:13 EST, 13 July 2012

An eight-year old boy in Atlanta has been killed by debris that fell from a passing truck and crashed through the windscreen of his mothers car as she was driving.

Transmission parts the size of a football hit Cameron McIlwain near to his collarbone, severing an artery causing him to bleed to death.

The errant parts first struck the boys mother, Jameka Malone, 29,  slicing through her left arm and causing it to eventually be amputated below the elbow by doctors at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.

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Eight-year-old Cameron McIlwain was struck by a piece of debris while sitting in the back seat of his mothers car in Atlanta and was killed

Eight-year-old Cameron McIlwain was struck by a piece of debris while sitting in the back seat of his mothers car in Atlanta and was killed

‘She said it happened so fast she doesn’t even remember,’ said Quantaine Malone, Jameka’s husband and Cameron’s stepfather.

Even though the debris caused Jameka to suffer a serious injury, she managed to pull her Chevrolet Trailblazer to the side of the road to a stop.

Fellow drivers pulled over to assist the stricken vehicle and found Jameka to be profusely bleeding in the front seat.

Telling members of the public to ‘Check my kids in the back seat’ Jameka witnessed one man fail to find her son’s pulse.

Jameka Malone lost her arm in the accident which claimed the life of her eight-year-old boy

Jameka Malone lost her arm in the accident which claimed the life of her eight-year-old boy

Emergency workers quickly arrived, but could not save Cameron.

The Georgia State Patrol said that the incident which occurred at 7 p.m. on Wednesday is still under investigation and that no charges have been brought against, David Washington, the driver of the truck.

Speaking to the media about the freak accident on I-20 on the Westside of Atlanta, Quantain Malone was distraught.

The wrecked Chevrolet Trailblazer lies on the side of the road on I-20 in Atlanta

The wrecked Chevrolet Trailblazer lies on the side of the road on I-20 in Atlanta

‘I don’t really believe he’s gone yet,’ said Malone.

‘He loved to play. He loved to be the big brother to his little sisters.

‘He was like an old man in a little kid’s body.’

He relayed his wife’s vague recollections of the accident.

‘She had her hand by her face and it came through the windshield, went through her arm, hit Cameron and went out the back window in the truck,’ said Malone.

Quantaine Malone, Jameka's husband and Cameron's stepfather rushed to be with his wife after the accident

Quantaine Malone, Jameka’s husband and Cameron’s stepfather rushed to be with his wife after the accident

CBS Atlanta News spoke with the driver of the truck to ask him what happened.

‘My transmission fell out of my truck,’ said David Washington.

‘I didn’t have any warning, I just it when it came off and two of my brake lines went out so I didn’t have any brakes.’

The registrar at Hawthorne Elementary which Cameron attended at kindergarten and first grade was emotional.

‘He was one of the sweetest little kids I knew,’ said Teri Noble.

Atlanta News, Weather, Traffic, and Sports | FOX 5

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