Claire Parry’s killer found NOT GUILTY of Murder.

Your own partner’s infidelity is expressly not a trigger event for the loss of control defence. So I don’t understand how someone telling your spouse about your own infidelity can be. Plus this guy had cheated on his wife since they were married. He’d had a 10 year affair with Claire and was known as a womaniser who preyed on vulnerable women he worked with. If your spouse finding out the truth is so awful, maybe don’t cheat so openly and for such a long period of time. Creep.

If I wanted to get someone smaller and lighter than me out of the car, I’d get out, stand over them and pull them out by their arms or torso

Exactly. How would piggy-backing on them help in any way whatsoever? It made it sound like he was actually trying to pull her back in the car from behind.

I don’t understand the ‘trigger’ defence. If it was a really, really bad thing, I’d get it, but texting a partner about an affair isn’t a really bad thing. How can that be a defence?

It's actually hard to kill someone by strangulation, you have to exert a lot of force for a prolonged period of time. Not relevant I know, but it's not as easy as some would think.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-54716338

Judges comments as reported here make it clear the judge believed he murdered her irrespective of the jury decision.

Thank you to that judge. I'm very surprised but happy at the strength of his comments.

I read that he’d be considered for parole after two years

Nobody is considered for parole until at least a third of their sentence is served. The judge recommended two thirds, so six years eight months, which I believe is the maximum he could do. It is actually rare for prisoners to serve more than two thirds of a sentence in prison.

I understand that he didn't strangle her - apparently the pathology doesn't bear this out - and the use of strangled is a journalistic invention.

Maybe but he broke her neck in three places. If I wanted to get someone smaller and lighter than me out of the car, I’d get out, stand over them and pull them out by their arms or torso. No need to go anywhere near the neck and most people wouldn’t, even if they were in a violent altercation.
Amazing how so many men just accidentally kill women by placing their hands on a woman and then, whoops!, she’s dead and he has no idea how it happened. Ian Huntley, Vincent Tabak, Grace Millane’s killer and now this creep. Hope he rots.

I dislike the Secret Barrister's take on these kind of crimes, to be honest. He very patiently explains what the law is, like we are all dummies who don't know that it's up to a jury. But we are complaining that it SHOULD not have been the verdict. How on earth can a defendant who repeatedly lied get away with breaking a woman's neck? His story doesn't make any sense. A 'kerfuffle' accidentally killed her? Secret barrister also doesn't cover the scandal of the statutory loss of control defence being twisted to allow affairs as a trigger for loss of control.

Oh me too! I sometimes feel I’m the only person in the world to dislike SB. It’s always patronising mansplaining, often without even having all the facts (as was the case here where SB initially didn’t realise the def had raised loss of control defence). Smug as hell and 100% a man imo. But conveniently, SB always declares himself unable to comment on contentious issues such as trans prisoners because SB ‘just doesn’t have the expertise’. Doesn’t stop you in the case of literally every other topic, mate. The fawning drives me nuts.

This guy is a murdering bastard. Juries are ordinary people off the street and they get it wrong constantly. We only pretend they are this great bastion of justice due to tradition. In a group of 12, there will inevitably be dominant personalities and people who just want to go home and don’t give a crap and will go with the majority. Some will be prejudiced. I suspect that the fact that the victim was having an affair probably affected the outcome, plus this slimeball’s charming exterior. After all, women get much more of the blame for an affair than men do.

Also, his car was tiny. How the hell do you fall on someone in a small Citroen? How was she in a push-up position with him piggy-backing on her? If you want her out of the car, you get out of your side and then open her door and pull her out. He was clearly much stronger than her. Poor woman.

It is my understanding that it is very easy to kill someone via strangulation, even if the intent was not to kill them but to, say, stop them from shouting /screaming, to rob them".

When people lose their temper and fly into a violent rage I can imagine how this might feasibly happen.

However, in this case, the killer was a cop who surely would have received training in restraining non-compliant prisoners? Surely he would have received training about not putting pressure on the neck of a human being?

I struggle to understand how the jury could have reached this verdict. I found his account of what happened to be unimpressive and unconvicing in the extreme.

I feel horrified reading the news reports about this and the extended web of innocent people, including children, harmed by his actions.

Happy to be corrected however.

How could pushing somebody out of a car involve strangling them.

So if my husband's mistress calls me to tell me about the affair, he's allowed to stab her but I'm not allowed to stab anyone? Is that right?

He said Brehmer only just met the “qualifying trigger” for a loss of control defence in that he had a “justifiable sense of being wronged” because he should have been the one to tell his wife about the affair.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/28/dorset-police-officer-timothy-brehmer-jailed-for-10-years-claire-parry-manslaughter

I don't understand this reasoning at all. Apparently they had been having an affair for 10 years - he had plenty of time to tell his wife about the affair. How was he wronged? Again I feel as though I must be missing something.

Just awful, I'm too upset to talk about it and raging inside. He sounds like The Dominator. He only 'lost control' because he got found out. He lost control of a woman in his life and she paid for it. Scumbag abuser.

Loss of control my arse. That's called a violent temper most places.

"Does 10 years mean that he will be out in five"

Mr Justice Jacobs said Brehmer would serve two-thirds of his sentence in prison before he could apply for parole

This case is simply horrific. I read that he’d be considered for parole after two years.

I think to make accusations of misogyny we'd need to make comparisons with men killing men without necessarily having murderous intent.

This case seems to be more about loss of control and the circumstances in which you wouldn't be expected to exercise a normal level of judgement and self-control.

I think to make accusations of misogyny we'd need to make comparisons with men killing men without necessarily having murderous intent. Do courts press for the higher and harder to prove murder charge, or the lower and easier to prove manslaughter charge?

How else can one interpret the jury's finding of enough evidence to justify a loss of control and thus lowering from murder to manslaughter other than women should expect death as a consequence to defying a man?
Woman threatens to expose affair= oh well clearly that would provoke him= whoops, she died as a result of it. I would go further with what I really think it indicates but it would be in bad taste. Let's just say it stinks.

If there's one type of person who knows how to remove someone of any size and weight from a car (let alone a slim woman) it's a police officer, especially a traffic one.

If only the prosecuting counsel had thought of that and had put it to the jury!

From Secret Barrister
Certain things are automatically excluded - infidelity, for instance, does not count as a qualifying trigger.

But in this case, it seems that the trigger was not infidelity, but the fact that the victim had told Brehmer’s wife about it. Subtle but important distinction.

This is apalling. If you are committing adultery you must know and have factored in the likelihood of being found out.
So if his wife had found out and killed him she wouldn't have been able to run this defence.

Absolutely agree @Pertella. That's why this is a gendered crime and a bullshit law.

No woman's "loss of control" will result in "oops, I killed someone". This man's "loss of control" means he's literally got away with murder.

I'm not sure 'loss of control' is supposed to cover men who have had their affairs and misogyny exposed.

The sex comparator in the defence is odd. I think the aim was to help women, because at one point there was a crazy disparity where the vast majority of people succeeding on the defence were men and women hardly succeeded at all. It maybe recognises that women lose control for different reasons?

"Does 10 years mean that he will be out in five"

Mr Justice Jacobs said Brehmer would serve two-thirds of his sentence in prison before he could apply for parole