Grr! Britain gets its first Web Rage attack
Flaming is a much-cherished internetweb tradition, involving as it does torrid abuse for any fellow messageboard or email-list member who doesn’t agree with you. It’s all a bit of fun, after all, it’s not as if the person you slag off is going to turn up on your doorstep with a machete…
Presumably that’s what internet user John Jones thought, when he got into an argument with a chap called Paul Gibbons on the Yahoo! Islam chatroom. Except then Gibbons turned up on his doorstep with a mate and, yes, a machete. BBC News has the story, and reports that Jones was beaten with a pickaxe handle and cut with the knife.
Gibbons has just admitted unlawful wounding in the ensuing court case, and the Metropolitan Police are describing the incident as “the first instance of a web-rage attack”. Crumbs.
