Last updated 11:48, Tuesday, 07 October 2008

Centuries ago, there used to be crowds of thousands of people just to see the public hangings at Tyburn in London.

Parents would take a picnic and their children and make a day of it.

Hangings were a big public festival and crowds of more than 100,000 would gather along the route from Newgate prison to Tyburn during the 1700s.

The rich rented upper-storey rooms in houses and pubs along the way so that they could get the best views.

Street hawkers and food vendors also lined the route and a grandstand was even erected at the gallows.

There were horrific echoes of those Tyburn scenes recently.

A crowd of around 300 people – some with children – gathered at the foot of multi-storey car park, goading and jeering at a young lad who stood teetering on the railings, 60ft above them.

One teenager even yelled: “How far can you bounce?”

It has been claimed that some photographed him, before he leapt to his death, and after...

This did not happen in some third world country ravaged by war where life has little or no value and where society is riven by centuries old tribal or religious traditions.

It happened in Derby.

Now, the people of Derby are not particularly nasty or bloodthirsty or callous.

They are just ordinary people, with everyday cares, hobbies and opinions.

It is not a deprived area it does not have a reputation as a suicide blackspot.

Derby is just an ordinary place like any other large town or small city – Northampton, Hull, Leicester, Carlisle...

Paul Kennedy, 36, a security guard who helped with crowd control during the incident, added: “There were horrible scenes that afternoon, with the crowd shouting some awful things at the poor young lad.

Shaun Dykes was not a vulnerable teenager with a ‘victim’ mentality, by all accounts he was a smiley, happy 17-year-old, according to his friends.

He was studying for AS levels and had ambitions to be a pilot or an accountant. He worked part-time in his local pub.

One schoolfriend said: “He was the best person anyone could have asked to meet. He always came in, in the morning with a smile on his face.”

Shaun was massively upset by the ending of a relationship.

He was depressed and at his wits end.

He walked to the top of the car park and stood on the edge.

Police negotiators spent three hours trying to talk him down.

But it was the will of the mob that won. Are we really a nation that is voyeuristic, sensationalist and desensitised?

Derby saw a drama played out in real life and people witnessing it wanted an exciting and gory ending.

They didn’t care about the person at the centre of the scene.

There was no connection. He could have been a character in a soap or a cartoon or a video game.

If he had been up there, on his own, without a jeering, heckling, goading crowd, would the day and his life, have ended the same way?

Shaun’s best friend Craig Doxey said: “He was always smiling and laughing about stuff. I think if it wasn’t for the crowd, Shaun would have got down and got some help from all his mates, work colleagues and the police.”

I’d like to think such a situation could never happen in Carlisle, or Whitehaven, or Workington.

But who would have thought it would happen in Derby?