The Wicca Man
‘MYRA Hindley was a devoted Christian for most of her prison life, but that didn’t stop her from being treated as a wicked witch or even the devil incarnate by a sizeable proportion of the population, egged on by the newspapers.
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Indeed when she died, some people refused to have anything to do with the burial arrangements out of some kind of fear that evil spirits might interfere with them in some dastardly way.
Given this general attitude, it is perhaps not surprising to learn that Soham killer Ian Huntley – aka public enemy number one – has decided to cut out the middle man and assume the supernatural mantle himself.
‘HUNTLEY THE WITCH,’ declares the Mirror’s front page. ‘Soham killer ‘to join pagan sect’.’
Yes that’s right, Huntley has applied to join a boring old pagan sect where he can, the brochure promises, ‘learn how to weave spells, work magic, create Wiccan festivals’ and – best of all – ‘bring yourself into alignment with the deepest forces at work in this Universe and on this planet’.
Okay, so it’s not quite devil worship, but it’s the next best thing – political correctness gone mad.
These days, you see, prisons have chaplaincy teams that include all sorts of rum coves.
‘The Prison Service respects the rights of all prisoners to follow individual religions,’ says a spokesman, and that includes the Wiccan faith.
But tolerance is easier to preach than to practise. Some people in the prison community are not prepared to live and let live when it comes to Ian Huntley.
Indeed, the paper says that ‘two gangs have warned Huntley that they intend to kill him or disfigure him’.
Would it be far-fetched to suggest that one of these anti-pagan gangs carry knuckle-dusters fashioned from rosary beads and wield cross-shaped coshes?
Or that the other gang favour insidious psychological torture involving modern prayer books and tambourines?
Anorak’s deep respect for all religious opinion prevents us from saying any more.’
Posted: 12th, July 2004 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
