******TRIGGER WARNING Powerful message from a midwife (re. the murder of Natalie Connolly) TRIGGER WARNING ******

Isn't there something profundly disturbing about his choice of carpet cleaner and bleach - like she was somehow dirty?

I'm finding myself feel incredibly angry about this.

Women are murdered by partners with appalling frequency and I find it incredibly frustrating and sad that better protection is not made available and that so many cases go relatively "unnoticed" by the press.

That sad there's something so very, very insidious about this case.

The seeming willingness and collusion to end up with a sentence that's equatable with someone inflicting just one of her many injuries leaves me in a rage.

The decision not to prosecute for murder was reprehensible. The Judge's steering of the case was reprehensible. The victim blaming was reprehensible.

The fact her family could not read their statements leaves me furious.

She's a woman whose been silenced by drugs/booze, assault and death then abused further by having her reputation torn to shreds and her family banned from speaking on her behalf.

I honestly don't think I've ever felt so angry about a case before.

@Threewheeler1 - it is so hard to put into words how awful everything about this case is; from the way Natalie was murdered, to the outrageous sentencing and excuses made for the bastard that killed her. It's absolutely devastating.

Email sent.
I found it quite difficult to put into words how sick this sentence is.
I just don't understand how a man is shown any leniency for brutalising an unconscious woman. She did not consent to die. She was at her most vulnerable but it counts for nothing that she couldn't defend herself. He murdered her in the most horrific and intimate way possible.
I'll join you in lighting a candle for Natalie Brienne, and I'll be thinking of all the other women who lost their lives this year too.
And I'll be thinking of all of you too. Thanks for being such amazing women.

I've just seen an article on the local news about this, interviewing her devastated family. The defence barrister was also on, poo-poohing the idea that this was a '50 shades' defence, and still minimising the whole thing. I'm ill anyway today, but I actually felt nauseated hearing it.

Porn is definitely the factor here. Am I being naive in thinking men have reached the absolute extremes of porn that the only way is back to normality? Is that giving way too much credit to the male species? Fuck knows anymore what men ate capable of.

This is the first time I've read this case. It is horrific.

Horrific in every way. I have written to the Attorney General and cc'd my MP into the email.

I've emailed the attorney general and my MP as follows:

I am writing to you to reconsider both the charge (manslaughter by gross negligence, rather than murder) and the subsequent sentencing of only 40 months of John Broadhurstat Birrmingham Crown Court.

As a member of the public I have never before felt the need to make such a request, but am deeply horrified and concerned at both the leniency of this sentence and the decision not to prosecute for murder.

I did not know Natalie, I know only that she no longer has a voice and as a woman and mother I feel strongly that it’s vital to speak on her behalf and that of her daughter, so when older she will hopefully not have to face a future knowing how little value the British justice system placed on her mother’s life.

Her death was brutal. She received over 40 injuries and was callously left to die when medical intervention could have saved her life.

The so called mitigation of ‘rough sex gone wrong’ sets a dangerous precedent to excuse extreme violence against women in any circumstances, but especially so in cases where the victim has been doubly silenced (at the time due to extreme intoxication rendering her incapable of consent and during the trial through her subsequent death from the appalling injuries she sustained).

I ask that this case is referred to the court of appeal.

Thank you all for sharing your letters. It makes it so much easier for the rest of us to write to the attorney general.
I’ll be lighting a candle for Natalie this Christmas (and writing to the attorney general) and will be raising a glass to you guys for keeping up the good fight. Xx

This is just horrific. There are no words.

And the scum that did this deserves to die in prison.

Bittermints
Porn again. 20 years ago this would have been so extreme that nobody would have accepted this was consensual.
I think you're right.

So basically he's not being punished for committing abh and gbh, he's not being punished for having sex with someone to intoxicated to consent, and he's not being punished for inserting(ramming) a cleaning spray into her. They are not even questioning where her other injuries came from. He is only being punished for not calling for help and leaving her to bleed to death.

So if he had called an ambulance and her life had been saved, he would be guilty of nothing, his actions that night were fine?

And why are we taking his word for everything. I refuse to believe she wanted that spray ranmed in her and I refuse to believe he caused consentual injuries but didn't cause the more sever injuries. His actions show this was deliberate. You don't step over someone dying and go to bed unless you wanted them dead.

I emailed the AG about this. I hope it achieves something. This is absolutely unacceptable. This poor woman can't speak for herself and her so called partner's words about what she liked and wanted appear to have been accepted unquestioningly.

I know nothing about BDSM and have no desire to, but it worries me that so many young women are genuinely or allegedly telling their partners that they derive sexual pleasure from being hurt so badly that it causes lasting physical damage. Porn again. 20 years ago this would have been so extreme that nobody would have accepted this was consensual.

This case is utterly fucking sickening.
How many more times are we going to see murderers of women getting away with it? I can't believe the state of the system sometimes.
Will email, thanks for the link.
She deserves justice.

I’m just not up for reading the news anymore! I think 2019 I’m going to avoid the news for the entire year and see if my mood is any better than the end of 2018!!

What's the deal with this judge?? How can someone so misogynistic and malignant be allowed to stand over a trial like this?

It says it all when even the usual suspects of the Daily Mail who insist men get harsh sentences, are disgusted at this sentence. I don't think it has ever been made clearer just how biased the courts are towards men. Something has to happen...between this and the rugby trial I don't know how people can keep ignoring this evil attitude to women in court.

The judge also accepted that Natalie fractured her own eye socket by bumping into something. A door, perhaps?

Of all the truly disgusting things about this case, I'd like to highlight that his phone showed him walking up and down the stairs at 6am. So he stepped over her dead body but didn't call an ambulance until 9. The judge suggested the defendant had recalled the time he went to bed wrongly (3am).

I have written today. I have read the sentencing remarks and I am totally unclear as to what proof the defendant offered that natalie enjoyed being beaten, other than his word, which the judge meekly accepted.

I have written to the AG today

Here’s the letter I sent the attorney general today.

Mr Cox,

I am writing to express my horror and disgust at the inexplicably lenient sentence that John Broadhurst received for killing Natalie Connolly. And I respectfully ask that you review his sentence.

Even if intent couldn't be sufficiently proven for murder, the defence's implication that this was somehow 'consensual activity gone wrong' is offensive and ludicrous.

The idea that Natalie Connolly consented to the injuries done to her is contradicted by the evidence. Any woman with blood alcohol levels as high as Natalie's, by default, cannot be assumed to be able to consent. Broadhurst inflicted external and internal injuries to Natalie that went way beyond anything the law recognises as acts that can be consented to.

It is obvious on the facts that John Broadhurst brutally beat and raped Natalie Connolly for his own sexual satisfaction and that he left her to die without any regard for her wellbeing. At the point he realised she was unconscious, he should have called an ambulance. Instead his course of action was to use lubricant to remove the spray bottle he had inserted into her vagina, supposedly with her 'consent'. Then after causing her what would ultimately be fatal internal bleeding, he left her at the bottom of the stairs and went to bed.

As I said, I understand there may not be sufficient evidence to prove intent. But the sentence should reflect the brutality inflicted on Natalie by John Broadhurst and the callousness with which he did it. I don't think that the current sentence does.

This year, 127 women died as a result of male violence (source www.kareningalasmith.com2018/03/10/2018/). That's one dead woman every 2.5 days. And women are far more likely to be raped or killed by men they know, than strangers.

When men like John Broadhurst rape and brutalise women like Natalie Connolly and receive a negligible sentence as a consequence, it sends a message to men everywhere that they can terrorise women with relative impunity. And not only that, that the woman will be held partially responsible for it, because being drunk and/or sexually inhibited is somehow 'asking for it'.

Nobody asks to be sexually tortured to death.

And when men like John Broadhurst learn they can rape and kill with relative impunity, they almost certainly will do it again at the earliest opportunity.

We've seen with recent high profile sexual abuse cases like Weinstein and Savile, that money and power grooms those around it to minimise and turn a blind eye. I hope that justice and reason will ultimately refute the lethal charm of John Broadhurst's millions.

I am copying my MP, into this email and I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

As someone said above, the initial email address given isn't the right one, I don't think.
www.gov.uk/ask-crown-court-sentence-review

So. Does that now give anyone the freedom to torture and kill as long as they say the dead person wanted it?

Yeah. So if in doubt, whether she'll go to police, just finish her off and say it was consenual kink gone wrong. You can leave a black latex mask beside the dead body, to drive the point home.