A Highland News article which referred to an incident in Nairn of a 22 year old male “culpably and recklessly causing boiling water to pour from a kettle” (quote from Sheriff Court) onto a 19-year-old girl as “sprinkled boiling water …. to wake her up” and landing the attacker “in hot water” has provoked anger on Facebook.
The Highland News article focuses on quotes from the accused male with a notable lack of the victim’s point of view, so I thought I’d post something the victim herself said on the Facebook page:
“I am disgusted and let down that not a single newspaper so far has printed a word from my side of the story or the truth. How can they manage to get the story correct when they can’t even get the boys age right. I thought these boys were my friends but obviously I was wrong.
I was asleep in the bedroom which is a corridor and two rooms away from the kitchen. They boiled the kettle, put the water into a cup, came through to the bedroom and then poured it on me as one of them recorded it. There were five of them there and only one of them would help me even though I was screaming in pain, the others decided to stand round and laugh. I asked one of the boys to phone an ambulance and he told me he did even though one still never arrived 20 minutes later.
Once I managed to get myself up out the bed I started to walk home by myself as none of them could take time out of their jokes and phone calls to check if I was okay, let alone if I was still in the flat. When I managed to get home my brother and sister ran to my aid phoning the ambulance and police straight away. A sprinkle of water would not leave an entire area on my body without any skin left at all, it also wouldn’t leave the police, nurses and CID lost for words upon first seeing it and the only words they could utter afterwards were either ‘I have never seen anything like this’ or ‘I haven’t seen anything like this in a very long time’. My ‘friends’ planned to video me as they poured boiling water onto me while I slept and all found it hilarious – I seriously do not understand how that is an accident.”
I’m amazed that anyone would think this a funny thing to do. If it had been cold water, yes, that might have been an amusing prank typical of college-age kids. But boiling hot water? Really?? You don’t have to be a med student to appreciate the fact that boiling water can do a lot more damage than a cup of ice-cold water.
I thought pouring boiling water on people was a method of war (or defense) used by medieval soldiers against their enemies. Sheesh! With friends like these…!
As to the man’s apology: “It was a stupid prank. It went wrong…” In what sense did the prank of pouring boiling water on a sleeping girl “go wrong?” What did he expect would happen?!
And yes, the reporting on this was not one of the British Press’s finest moments, shall we say. :)