One of Britain’s infamous “demon children” has revealed that a major contributor to his acting out as a child was the torment of hiding the fact that he is gay.
The term “demon child” isn’t thrown around loosely — you’ve got to really earn that one.
But two British lads, Danny (right) and Ricky Oakley (left), put in the work to gain the title. Together they racked up more than 40 arrests and a criminal record by the age of 12.
They also became Britain’s youngest recipients of anti-social behaviour orders.
How about we take this to the next level?
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They abused their neighbors, set fires and broke property. In 2006 they both suffered serious burns after a can of foam they threw into a bonfire exploded.
Danny, the elder brother and now 21-years-old, is working hard to right his wrongs. That includes opening up publicly about his difficult childhood and internalized homophobia.
“I knew I was gay but didn’t want to be,” he told the Sun. “I was a criminal and didn’t want to be.
“By the age of ten, I regularly smoked cannabis to blank out the sadness. It was a coping mechanism but I’ve given that up now.
“I don’t drink, either. The new me is sober, clean and on the right side of the law.
“I wish I could go back to our neighbours — everyone who was scared of us, everyone we hurt or whose property we damaged — and tell them I’m so sorry.
“What we did still haunts me to this day. I had a lot going on at home and I took it out on the streets. I have no happy memories of my childhood, at all.
“Being gay wasn’t something I could share with my brother Ricky, who is currently behind bars, so I kept it to myself.
“Dad would have hated me if he knew, so at 14 I tried to kill myself because the secret was torture. When you’re a thug on a council estate, being gay isn’t an option. I was living a lie.”
Danny adds: “At 16, an uncle caught me hooking up with a lad and frogmarched me to my dad.
“Dad was ashamed of me. He told me I was a poof and a queer. It was no wonder I’d kept it secret — as the day he found out, he said I was no longer his son.
“It was in my friends that I found acceptance some years later, when I had come to terms with losing my family.
“My new mates don’t judge me for being gay. To them, it’s just part of who I am. I disappoint my dad but I make my friends proud.
“I still struggle to fully accept I’m gay because, in my mind, I hear Dad’s voice, telling me I am a worthless f*****, that society hates me.
“I’m slowly realising that if I accept who I am, then I can be who I want to be.”
While Ricky is still in and out of prison, Danny is committed to turning his life around, one step at a time.
“I was naughty because I craved attention, but at some point you have to take responsibility for your own actions.
“I made mistakes but was crying out for help and support. I had no parental guidance. No one ever told me they loved me.
“But I’ve found love in each one of my friendships and will turn all my negative experiences into positive ones.
“I don’t want to be known as the Asbro kid any more. I’m sorry for what I did and am ready to be a better man.
“I want to be known as Danny, the guy who turned his life around and the guy who helped other kids turn theirs around.”
Kieran
I wonder if the British Press would have referred to Danny as a “Demon” if he were a black or Muslim boy? Doubtful. But he’s a poor white kid from a housing project so you’re allowed to call him whatever disparaging name you want.
Michael Miller
Is that Rosemary’s baby? Joking aside, it is really sad and unfortunate that children are all too often left to be raised in deplorable and neglectful conditions. I really do think this is a major root of the gun violence in the US.
Victor Barry
I think my advice to young gay boys substituting hooliganism for dick sucking would be: don’t.
ric
Kieran. You make a great point. Now let’s see what kind of response you get. Because i know someone gonna say why is this person trying to us the race card. Even though your not. Your just pointing something out witch happens to be true.
Captain Obvious
@Kieran: Are you serious right now? Black (and well I can’t even believe you included Muslims) people are instantly accused of being thugs off the bat. Muslims are being called terrorists off the bat no matter what.
One white child is called a demon rightfully so and you pity him despite all his crimes? You’re actually excusing and defending him? If he was black or Muslim would you be posting this? No. You would not. You’d be nodding that you knew that person was a thug or terrorist all along because of skin or religion. I can’t even believe you’re trying to make this argument right now.
White kids always have an excuse for their actions. They can slaughter a ton of people and there must be some mysterious reason.
A black kid was killed for holding a toy gun. A TOY gun. The officers who erased his life got off free because they’re white. A case was made against the 12 year old BOY because he was black. And you’re making THIS arguement? Really?
Are you working with some sort of severe learning disability or what?
vanfanusa
@Kieran:
What the heck are you talking about? A Black boy would’ve been called a thug and a Muslim would’ve been called a terrorist.
vanfanusa
@Captain Obvious: Great minds …..
joeyty
@Kieran: True, and that’s because the journalists in the UK (and the U.S.) still come out of schools where their instructors were old fogies from the Civil Rights days, still hanging onto the idea that you don’t dare report anything negative about a racial or ethnic minority and drilling that into their students’ heads. There are a few sources in the UK/US media that bend over backward to be unfair the other way, but they’re not the majority. Either way it’s wrong.
joeyty
BTW : Not the greatest example of a gay guy to parade before the public. But, I think, most people by now know gays are truly everywhere.
Masc Pride
Yet another victim slamming down his victim card. How about all the straight pre-teens that commit crimes, where’s their excuse?
Captain Obvious
Must be troll day because I’m not about to believe anyone posting this mess actually believes whites have it harder than blacks and Muslims in America and Europe. Pathetic and screwy at best.
Even now he gets to tell this sob story in total freedom instead of from life in prison. Give me a break, r@cist trolls.
Captain Obvious
Some posters here are literally worse than Kim Davis while constantly crying about her.
Andrew Harvey
Hiding the fact that you are gay is No excuse for deplorable behavior.
Chris
Getting back to the original story, this is another example of how internalized homophobia results in gay kids doing all sorts of antisocial stuff. I’m glad this guy got through it okay and that he’s trying to make up for what he did as a youth. More power to him.
joeyty
@Captain Obvious: Aren’t we discussing how the press reports stories ? (And what they report and don’t..) rather than about who actually has it harder ?
joeyty
@Chris: It’s cool to be understanding, but you’re……..excusing bad behavior, don’t you think?
Captain Obvious
@joeyty: The press isn’t making life harder for white people. The press isn’t ruining the lives of white people. You’ll be comfortable no matter how they report a story about a white child.
Black people are being murdered by the people who are meant to serve and protect us all. Taxpayers are losing their children to people who they’re issuing paychecks to. Muslims are being swept with the same wide brush as terrorists for the actions of a few. Much like Nazi Germany the majority of the country seems to have no problem attacking ALL Muslims behind stereotypes and propaganda.
There is a problem in America and it doesn’t lie with the media. This problem is white people’s acceptance and tolerance for r@cism across the board. There has never been introspection into what white people do. It’s always what everyone else is doing to white people. The blacks are thugs, the blacks are the problem. The Muslims are terrorists, the Muslims are the problem. The Hispanics are here illegally, the Hispanics are the problem.
Everyone who’s too brown is somehow a big problem for white Americans. Why?
I couldn’t care less about the media when that remains unaddressed.
When you get scared of me because I put on a hoodie in the rain why should I focus on how the media perceives a white child who is terrorizing a neighborhood in the UK?
trell
Andrew Harvey nailed it – Usually persistent offenders don’t have the capability of accepting responsibility for their misdemeanours. It’s usually blaming on disruptive families, drugs, alcohol, domestic abuse, school bullying, peer pressure, right up to the devil making them do it.
Most probably, the only reason that this story made the papers is that it is a new spin on the same old story. I don’t think this guy’s long-suffering neighbours would be any less caring or forgiving about whether he was trying to come to terms with his sexuality or not.
Meanwhile, all over the rest of the UK, there are other youths who are also struggling to come to terms with their sexuality WITHOUT the need to commit arson or criminal damage.
charlie_jackpot
But he’s quite cute now, hope he got the ‘newly out’ memo of doing a nude shot in either Attitude or Gay Times and keeping his Instagram chock full of semi naked shots
Captain Obvious
@charlie_jackpot: If by cute you mean they both look like serial killers.
enlightenone
@Captain Obvious: “…Are you working with some sort of severe learning disability or what?…”
Evidently he is, and pathetically, he is not alone, right Kieran?
Ben Stimpson
Poorlads. It’s not easy… and in the UK on council estates it definitly isn’t easy. Good for him for wanting to turn his life around, but I hope he doesn’t try to use it as an excuse for what he did. It doesn’t sound like he is though.
bicurious
He is incredibly handsome. There are more pictures in the source article and elsewhere online if anyone cares to look. I’m sure he will do just fine with the gays and in the larger society and I wish him all the best.
Ed Chan
That explains a lot about the neurosis of hate-monger anti-gay pastors and politicians.
DerekR
Dear Ric,
You sir are very dumb. You really need to learn the difference between your and you’re and which and witch and I’m assuming to, two and too and probably their, there and they’re as well. These are homonyms that most 3rd graders can define for you….
Signed,
The world
darian
Wait wait time out. Man commit arson unprovoked and we are supposed to say aww poor soul meanwhile a man hits a guy who started a fight with him with a chair and he’s a thug or criminal? Get the fuck out of here!
meghanada
@Kieran: You’re right, the media never uses bad words to describe Blacks or Muslims in contexts it wouldn’t use for White non-Muslims. The words “thug” and “terrorist”, for example, I invented just now.
1EqualityUSA
darian, I love you a little more each day.
Captain Obvious, “Serial killers” is right.
Kieran, mmmm, no.
bottom250
Ohhh Sweetheart don’t blame being gay on being a douche.
Stache
@bottom250: Allot of kids act out under those circumstances. Some even take their own lives.
Merv
Yesterday he was just a POS, and today is a gay POS. Either way, he’s still a POS.
bicurious
@darian: A big difference is that the so called “Demon Child” was just a kid in the midst of a difficult upbringing when he started the fire. The man who hit the guy with a chair was a full grown adult when he did that. As an adult it isn’t expecting too much of him to have been mature enough to walk away from the confrontation.
bottom250
@Stache: Sweetheart there is no excuse for hurting others because you are gay.
Captain Obvious
@bicurious: You mean like when tons of white gays put Don Belton on trial for his own murder claiming he must have raped a closeted “straight” white boy because he was somehow too attractive to be into Mr. Belton?
http://www.queerty.com/was-professor-don-belton-murdered-over-a-rape-or-regrets-over-a-consensual-relationship-20091230
martinbakman
Demon and gay go hand in hand, @ Queerty.
joeyty
@Captain Obvious: But if you look at some of the worst crimes involving black culprits and white victims (like the Wichita Massacre, and other rapes and murders- of both men and women- I can list here)…the mainstream press never even reported them. They just don’t want to go there.
joeyty
@Captain Obvious: BTW : Not everyone who is “too brown” is a problem as far as the press goes. The new Indian immigrants (and Indian-Americans) are praised in the press as high achievers (which really is basically true).
joeyty
@Captain Obvious: Then look at how the press crucified the Duke lacrosse guys as privileged classist white rapists when they were accused by one insane black prostitute of gang rape. And white gays joined right in with the crucifixion.
joeyty
@Captain Obvious: “When you get scared of me because I put on a hoodie in the rain why should I focus on how the media perceives a white child who is terrorizing a neighborhood in the UK?” Because you still have to take into account : what percentage of the population is that race, and what percentage of crime or terrorism is committed by that race. There’s never an escape from mathematics. We’ve seen who explodes bombs in London, who cut a soldier’s head off in public in London, who made up most of the London rioters, who were the rapists in Rotherham. The UK press tries and tries and tries to obscure the facts, but the public has eyes and the press can only hide from it so much. That’s why the public in the UK aren’t crazy about blacks or Muslims but love Hindus.
rand503
I’m rather shocked at the last of compassion or sympathy.
Look, i get it. I struggled with my sexuality and never resorted to crime. He should not have committed arson, or robbed or broken things or whatever. No question.
But who am i to judge? I did not have to walk in his shoes ever, and no one else did.
Juanjo
I am rather amazed at the nonsense being spewed here about how this kid somehow was treated differently by a press who never comment about the evil a minority youth does when one need only look at the press to see constant reminders of how that claim is completely false. Then there are those who claim this young man is excusing his behaviour. I did not hear a single excuse, simply an explanation.
A young man who said things like:
“I wish I could go back to our neighbours — everyone who was scared of us, everyone we hurt or whose property we damaged — and tell them I’m so sorry.”
“I was naughty because I craved attention, but at some point you have to take responsibility for your own actions.”
“I don’t want to be known as the Asbro kid any more. I’m sorry for what I did and am ready to be a better man.”
“I want to be known as Danny, the guy who turned his life around and the guy who helped other kids turn theirs around.”
Now that does not sound to me like someone who is excusing his behaviour but taking responsibility and attempting to make amends by going forward and living as a decent human being. Now maybe you think he should be nailed to a cross and left to die but unless and until his words indicate differently I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he is taking responsibility for his past actions.
joeyty
@Michael Miller: Rosemary’s kid ? LOL (Hope I never see him walking out of the Dakota).
Daggerman
…he’s so cute, needs his willy and balls licked!!!