UK man strangles boy over Call of Duty: Black Ops feud

A 46-year-old UK man is facing jail time after tracking down and attacking a 13-year-old boy in revenge for taunting the unemployed father of three during a session of Call of Duty: Black Ops on PS3. According to UK's The Daily Mirror, Mark Bradford (no relation) snapped after a particularly frustrating day of online gaming, and proceeded to hunt down and strangle the young player who had been tormenting him from a local friend's house.

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Bradford left quickly after the attack, but was later picked up by police following a call from the boy's mom, who told press: “It’s pathetic that a grown man would attack a defenceless child like this. If you can’t handle losing to a child then you shouldn’t be playing games. I know Mark and went straight round when I found out what had happened. I was fuming. But rather than have it out with him I got the police involved.”

The unidentified boy admits to pushing Bradford's buttons in Call of Duty, but said he was completely taken by surprise when the grown man decided to exact his revenge in person, recalling, “I was just sat playing. We’d had a bit of a joke and then he stormed in and grabbed me. I didn’t know what was going on.”

Bradford has since apologized for the attack, which thankfully left little more than a scratch. He has also admitted assault to the courts, and is currently awaiting sentencing.

Sep 30, 2011

Matt Bradford wrote news and features here at GamesRadar+ until 2016. Since then he's gone on to work with the Guinness World Records, acting as writer and researcher for the annual Gamer's Edition series of books, and has worked as an editor, technical writer, and voice actor. Matt is now a freelance journalist and editor, generating copy across a multitude of industries.