The UK seems to have become an international hotbed of gamers going wild on society. Last week a British Navy sailor killed his superior officer, which parts of the tabloid media blamed on Grand Theft Auto. Today, a more concretely video game related tale of real life violence comes to us from The Daily Mail.
Mark Bradford (pictured here), a 46-year old unemployed father of three from Plymouth, Devon, was apparently engaged in some serious Playstation 3 Call of Duty: Black Ops multilplayer with a 13-year old neighbor boy and family acquaintance. Predictably, the boy was pwning the middle-aged man and rubbing it in his face viciously via their chat headsets. Eventually, Bradford lost it. He stomped out of his home and over to the house where the boy was playing and began choking him until the boy's irate mother pulled him off. The choking was bad enough to scratch the boy and redden his neck. Bradford then left the house without saying a word.
He has since confessed to one count of assault and is awaiting sentencing. He reportedly has suffered from mental health issues in the past, and his comments about his actions seem to reflect that: "'I'd been playing the whole day and he was baiting me and baiting me and just would not shut up.'
'He went on and on and I just lost it. I hold my hands up, I lost the plot. In a moment of madness I went round to his house. I didn't know what I was going to do.
'It wasn't malice. I just grabbed him. I've seen him since and apologised. We've played online too. He's actually a decent kid.''
Obviously this man has issues that go beyond video games. It is refreshing that the journalist who broke the story didn't blame video games for the incident, only reported CoD's factual role in it. The same cannot be said for a number of US news outlets that have reprinted the story.
I think the mother involved summed up what happened best: "'It's pathetic that a grown man would attack a defenseless child like this.'
'If you can't handle losing to a child then you shouldn't be playing games.'"
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9 Comments
Nothing against the mother or child and i'm certainly not condoning what that 46 year old bully did, but isn't C.O.D. an 18 years and over game??our clan had a similar encounter when we were getting beat and one member swore at an opposing team member whose father promptly jumped on the headset complaining about the language saying his child was only 12 and he was going to complain to Microsoft...i promptly reminded him the game was for over 18's and that he must have knowingly purchased the game for a minor, which is illegal......we then just heard the father shout at the kid and then they disconnected..
In the US it is legal for parents to purchase games for their children, the same way they can permit a child to see a rated R movie.
@Travis Gafford Not coming from the USA i don't really understand the ratings system of games there, but i'm more than certain that ESRB have rated COD as an M game which is for age 17 and older..nothing about a parents allowed to purchase the game for their underage children....plus it would be quite immoral for them to do so....imho...
Illegal? That's some horse shit.
He should have been detained for being under the influence of being 46, unemployed, with 3 kids, and still playing video games. Nothing wrong with older gamers, but that's like a strikeout in responsibility.
I know plenty of 40 year old gamers, but none as stupid as this guy, but they all seem to have the same lifestyle. Unemployed and playing games in tighty whities with chip crumbs all over their stomach. Anyone playing Call of Duty in their tighty whities should go to jail. Did this guy strangle the kid in tighty whities? If so, maybe he should get a molestation charge too. I don't know why but I like saying tighty whities.
Ha Ha Ha is this a personal fantasy of yours?? being choked out by a man in tighty whites...or Budgie Smugglers as they are known in the U.K.....nice post mate, the vision alone brought a smile to my face...
Budgie smugglers? I like that. But it's definitely not a fantasy of mine!
I laughed so hard. That little kid deserves it. Although its even funnier that a grown man would lose his temper like that over a game.
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