Good Old British Justice!

Von Smallhausen said:
Yes.

It takes a man off the street who has killed a woman in a frenzied knife attack. The fact he was convicted on the grounds of diminished responsibility does not mean a thing.

Don't send him to prison, give him a suspended sentence. The possibility exists where he could get into another relationship and the same could happen again. While there is a risk, he must be in custody.
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Good answer, perhaps should be generalised to most violent crimes - regardless of severity.
 
Pinkeyes said:
I understand what you are saying.

The report could have been biased. The medical expert could say he will never do such a thing again. The court might have shown the whole case in a different light had we all sat there.

Forgetting all that. Some facts that I believe to be true:
He repeatedly stabbed his wife in the face 5 days after she told him she was leaving him.

He said he was really sorry after the verdict - not that the above was in fact a great big lie.

If he was a low class, poor, unemployed man, living on a rough estate - I believe he would have been locked up and the key thrown away. As it was he was a rich lawyer.

Answer me one question. (This is a little far fetched, but i hope you see my point).
Based on the fact that the best medical advice in the world says this guy would not commit this crime again.
Would you let him hold a big bloody kitchen knife in his hands and tell him a bit of bad news after he is released ?

me neither...
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Actually, all I'm saying is that it's dangerous to draw conclusions without all the evidence.

As for your question, I'd want to know a lot more than your question tells me about his medical condition and mental state before I could answer that, which is also kind of the point I was making earlier.
 
I read in the Times a couple of days ago that she laughed at him and called him a 'cripple' and so on because of his muscular atrophy disease.

Considering the other factors too, I can believe how it could be diminished responsibility.
 
Telescopi said:
If I hit you, you fall over cracking your head on the pavement and die - that is man slaughter, I killed you, there is no doubting my actions directly caused your death.

But I didn't mean to.

I wouldn't call a frenzied knife attack man slaughter though, certainly diminished responsibility, crime of passion and all that - I'm guessing the prosecution went for manslaughter though because they thought the jury might not go for murder, as in this country we do not have grades of murder, all murder is life.
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This is the exact reason why the law lords put forwad the proposal to create different scales of murder, along the lines of the american system.
Of course the Newspapers all pointed out about the percentage of downgraded cases there would be, without actually explaining why they would be done so. Oh, and they failed to mention the number of manslaughter cases that would be upgraded to murder too.

The sooner the law changes the better, but people still fail to understand that as things currently stand, Murder is for pre-meditated cases.
 
You lot do realise there's a good chance he'll be dead before eligible for release. He's dying from Muscular Dystrophy (sp) which was a major factor in him going off the deep end.
 
techmonkey said:
'He plunged a 12cm kitchen knife into his wife's back and continued to stab her repeatedly in the face and neck.'

Three and a bit years in prison for something like that is insane. :eek:
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Way to read the thread. Go you.
 
Personally from the bits and pieces of evidence i've read in the press, it seems perfectly plausible that hes was convicted on the grounds of diminshed responsibility. Personally I try never to judge a courts decision, as they hear much more evidence than you or I on the street, and I suspect news publications are always going to deliver the case in head line form, without necessairly paying attention to the legal details, that i'm sure such a case entailed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/4702092.stm

makes interesting reading, and in my mind makes it look like manslaughter on grounds of diminshed responsibility entirely plausible.
 
BUSH said:
Personally from the bits and pieces of evidence i've read in the press, it seems perfectly plausible that hes was convicted on the grounds of diminshed responsibility. Personally I try never to judge a courts decision, as they hear much more evidence than you or I on the street, and I suspect news publications are always going to deliver the case in head line form, without necessairly paying attention to the legal details, that i'm sure such a case entailed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/4702092.stm

makes interesting reading, and in my mind makes it look like manslaughter on grounds of diminshed responsibility entirely plausible.
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Nope - I read that, and still think he got off ridiculously lightly for the awful crime he committed.
I cannot see how the medical conditions described make what he did any more understandable.
I can see how his status, job and large bank account got him a lighter sentence though.
 
Pinkeyes said:
Nope - I read that, and still think he got off ridiculously lightly for the awful crime he committed.
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Maybe so. Do we know enough to judge.

Pinkeyes said:
I cannot see how the medical conditions described make what he did any more understandable.
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Murder requires intent. To have intent, you have to have the state of mind to understand what you are doing, to know that it is wrong, and to have some volition in the matter. If you have a medical condition that means you don't understand, or can't control. your actions you don't have the volition to commit murder. You still killed the person, but the severity of sentence for murder is precisely because of the volition involved. Hence, if you don't have it, the sentence will be lighter.

And whether for murder or manslaughter, the detail of the sentence depends on the circumstances. Is there a qualitative difference between someone who loses control and lashes out, resulting in a death, and someone who calmly and deliberately plans a whole series of cold-blooded stranger murders, taking great care to avoid detection? In my view, there certainly is and the legal establishment agrees.

Given that medical condition certainly affects culpability, both legally and logically, do you feel a few lines of newspaper reports qualifies you to second guess a judge who will have had the benefit of detailed reports (and probably testimony) from experts on the matter? Furthermore, are you a medical expert, capable of disputing the findings and recommendations of those that are?

Does your lack of understanding how medical conditions affected this sentence reflect that the sentence is wrong, or does it merely reflect your lack of proper evidence, expertise, and/or understanding of that evidence?

Pinkeyes said:
I can see how his status, job and large bank account got him a lighter sentence though.
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Do you have any evidence that that is the case, or is it just supposition and presumption.
 
Visage said:
It means that if the mental grounds for the killing were removed, there would be no need to incarcerate him on the grounds of risk of re-offence. Other grounds, yes, but not those. Your statement is predicated on the assumption that if he was on the outside he'd be a re-offending risk.



Diminished responsibility defenses arent a case of the defendant (or his defense) simply saying 'Sorry, I went a bit mental. Wont do it again....' They're based on an in depth psychological study of the defendant, along with a comprehensive risk assessment. But obviously you know better......
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I wouldn't say I know better Visage, but maybe I speak from experience ?

In depth psychological studies are also carried out on people who have gone on to be released and kill again as we have seen in the past. Care In The Community ring any bells ?

The man is a risk, even if he has shown no previous tendencies to commit such acts in the past. I split from a woman I used to live with, however I did not have tendencies to knife her to death despite it causing great upset.

I personally do not think the sentence is just for the gravity of the crime he committed. We are not talking that he flipped and stabbed her once are we ?

BBC News said:
He plunged a 12cm kitchen knife into his wife's back and continued to stab her repeatedly in the face and neck.
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He stabbed her once in the back then repeatedly in the face and neck. Are you suggesting that this man is not a danger V ? While I feel for him where his wife was having an affair and the deep mental trauma had a drastic effect, the fact remains that a woman was brutally killed and I know it's crazy to take the side of the victim in this day and age, but that is exactly where I stand.
 
I fail to see how a "depressive condition" covers the need to slaughter your wife just because shes leaving you. Mentally unstable seems to cover it better.

Another case of a sentence length being based on how full our prisons are rather than how long someone should be punished.

Just to clarify my position I am not in the "throw away the key then stone him" brigade, I just think it should have been a little longer time served say 5 years maybe.

Maybe there should be a new condition for cases like this though, like they should have to regularly see a psychiatrist after they get out for a certain length of time (paid for by the person not the taxpayer!).
 
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