Recently I took a walk up the landing to a fellow prisoner’s cell. I had my cup of tea and my tobacco with me as I didn’t plan on leaving too soon. As is the norm, he was busy shooting things with his trusty X-Box fingers; he plays the guitar too, so he must be naturally good with his hands.

 

He had recently purchased a new game; this had just arrived so he was giving it full gusto. The game was Call of Duty: Ghosts. It’s a shooter game where you basically kill everything that moves, including heavily armoured Alsatians, which goes into animal cruelty, another story for another day.

 

Whilst playing a particular section of the game my friend picked up a blue folder which had appeared on the screen. There are numerous folders to be collected. These give you filed orders for which you have to complete in order to gain the bonus of a care package. You may have to kill three people in a row, you may have to kill whilst lying on the ground, or you may have to kill whilst jumping.

 

When it was my turn to play I played a ‘free for all’, in a place named ‘Flooded’, the length of which was ‘20mins’ and in a battle against 7 enemy ‘bots’ I’m sure some of you can empathise.

 

11 or 12 deaths in (and me too of course) I came across a fo0lder, which in order to gain my bonus of a care package, I have to humiliate my next kill. I said to my mate, ‘how do you ‘humiliate’ your enemy? Sneak up behind him?’ He says, ‘No, teabag him!’.

 

Now of all the answers I expected this was not one of them. Being in prison you grow accustomed to the sexual innuendoes as a way of life, from both prisoners and officers alike. Plus my mate isn’t too well known for his lack of sarcasm- so I decided to let that one slide (pardon the pun). It wasn’t until later that evening that I realised he was serious. I watched him squat three times over the next person that he killed and sure enough he got his bonus of a care package.

 

Was the creator of this game convicted of a sexual offence or just born with a sick sense of humour? Some may find this hilarious, but if they were to do this in real life they would receive a life sentence for sexual activity with a corpse, and plenty of newspaper coverage with a large spread of public condemnation and retribution to endure that he was never to live a normal life again.

 

The age limit of this game is 16. Some may say that ‘its’ only a computer game’, but so many times I have read in the media recently about people being assaulted over Virtual Pokemon, or having trespassed on someone’s property to pick up a VP they have faced criminal conviction; or a rise in pupil age sexual assaults, the list goes on ad infinitum.

 

On 12 October last year BBC News reported ‘Robberies thefts, assaults and driving offences were among 290 incidents recorded across England and Wales throughout July’

 

BBC continues ‘Other incidents were less clear. West Midlands Police referred to someone being ‘offered sexual favours’ but provided no further detail.

 

The BBC continues, ‘West Mercia police recorded 32 incidents, the second highest total, while the forces with the joint lowest were Thames Valley and North Yorkshire, which each logged two incidents. BBC news concludes, ‘Sergeant Neil Dewson-Smyth, of Cheshire police said the figures were worrying.’

 

Police advice in this situation was ‘to avoid dangerous situations.’ Can you elaborate more officer?

 

Truth be told there are wiser serving sentences for less. It’s time the world grew up to the subliminal messages that are poisoning the younger generation of today.