Woman gets 17 years in jail for killing a man as he was sexually assaulting her!

Murder does not require premeditatuon in the UK.It simply requires the intent to kill, and plunging a knife right through someone's heart is pretty clearly that!

Oh wow @GlidingSquirrels you must have missed the crucial word 'most' in my post before you went off on one.

She took a knife with her! She could have just not met up with him but instead she went armed.

I can see why the jury convicted and why the appeal failed, sadly. She is clearly a vulnerable young woman with limited intelligence who has experienced multiple traumas. I am sorry she killed him because it means she is losing a huge chunk of her youth in our horrific prison system. I’m not sorry that the POS who attacked her is dead. She did the world a favour.

If you believe her defence claim:

She did not phone her mum, the ex the police nor a taxi when things "calmed down" after escaping the car and the assault.

She told her friend he intended to kidnap her and her friend and then took a knife off the friend and got back into the car and decided to sit in the front.

After the stabbing she called her ex and a taxi while he was bleeding out and left him to be found by a passerby.

But here is a question :

Do you believe that her friend came to her house with her boyfriend for a birthday party and after drinking for a while but before they left to go clubbing went into her friends kitchen and stole a long blade knife?

Seems like the judge minimised the rape fallout

No. However, the days when judges used to sum up for the prosecution or for the defence are long gone. The summing up these days consists of any directions as to the relevant law, a summary of the prosecution and defence cases, and giving the jury a structure to use in their decision-making process - in essence, telling them what they need to decide and whether those decisions lead to a guilty or not guilty verdict.

We know that the summing up in this case included the standard direction on self-defence as that was mentioned in her appeal against conviction. Beyond that, the main matter in contention was who brought the knife to the scene, so I would have expected the evidence on that to be part of the summing up as it was relevant to the charge of carrying a knife. I would also have expected the judge to have made it clear that the jury were to consider the two charges separately - that a guilty verdict on carrying the knife did not automatically mean a guilty verdict on murder - and to have reminded the jury that they needed to be certain of her guilt in order to convict.

There doesn't have to be an intention to kill. An intention to cause grievous bodily harm is enough. She stabbed him with a knife. That clearly shows intent to cause grievous bodily harm, even if there was no intent to kill.

There are women who are just bad people too. And some men who become who they are because of neglectful and abusive mothers shaping them.
There are plenty of cases where men are the influence, but there are plenty of cases of women who are just evil by themselves too. I think it's doing a disservice to people who have suffered abusive childhoods at the hands of their mother's to give all women an excuse that their behaviour is due to a man rather than due to their own choices and personality.

Wow, how fucking disgusting 😡

My heart goes out to her - when you've survived rape, you become determined for it to never happen again. That's why she was carrying a knife.

Fucking simple.

Hopefully the publicity will raise awareness and someone will be able to get her out of there.

😡😡🥺

I don't see anyone defending the men who sexually assaulted her. I certainly am not. However, saying she was sexually assaulted does not automatically make her not guilty of murder.

When he grabbed her by the throat (which sounds bad enough) was he trying to rape her? Presumably? Otherwise why?

If yes, who knows what be might have done in the future? But murder is always wrong, full stop.

But if it was consensual why did she have ptsd?

Is there any report of the Judge's directions to the jury?

What you mean is that you trust the report from JfW more than you trust the jury who actually heard the evidence and decided to convict.

As one of the reasons the very few rape cases that get to court and are then dismissed is because Juries have less faith in women than men, I have no reason to believe this jury is any different.

That is why many have campaigned for rape cases to be tried only by judges because "ordinary" people, including women, do not believe women who report rape.

Men who've been found guilty of abuse, and having CSA images walk free every day. So clearly plenty of judges/the legal system thinks they should get away with it.

I honestly believe some have no idea how they would react in the same situation.

Women do get into cars with their attackers. It is not willingly but it is not a fight. Just an internal struggle. We just don't know how else to get home... especially when peer pressure is making him seem reasonable.

Most of us would do exactly what she did at the next sign of his aggression

(P.s sorry I got the ages mixed up)

Nobody believes that they should though, and they wouldn’t if they got to court, which is the point.

she can’t reasonably claim she felt her life was in danger or she was under duress

I think she absolutely can claim that. But nobody can really know what was going through her mind at that time.

Previous abuse does not excuse current abuse, especially murder. If that were the case, it would be likely that most abusers, rapists, paedophiles and murderers would deserve to walk free.

Most rapists, abusers, and paedophiles do walk free.

@ArabellaScott legally the interval does make a difference because if she didn’t react when he grabbed her throat and was comfortable enough to get into the front seat of a car with him afterwards (with her friends in the back) - she can’t reasonably claim she felt her life was in danger or she was under duress. He had no weapon and wasn’t forced into the car. I don’t doubt she had PTSD and can understand why she swung at him, but legally she could have swung at him without a knife. That’s why I strongly believe if she had stabbed him when on the floor with his hands around her neck that would have been viewed by the jury as self defence as he’s overpowered her and she’s about to be raped. Danger to life. However, in the later incident, he puts his hand on her breast/thigh while sitting at an angle - she pushes it away, then stabs him. As horrid and invasive as it is and no doubt triggering for her PTSD, it was a disproportionate use of force. You have to stab someone pretty hard in the chest to kill them at the angle where they’re sat next to you in a stationary car, this is why it’s seen by the jury as a deliberate attempt to kill rather than loss of control/self defence.

Also the fact she says her friend gave her the knife before she got back in the car would make her aware there was an idea she would be using it on him (or why take a knife out instead of just not sitting next to him in the car?). If she’d sat at the back and had the male friend sit in the front all this would have been avoided - so it’s not so clear cut.

Her own lawyers thought she deserved a prison sentence, albeit a lower one.

This woman undoubtedly deserves compassion and understanding along with her prison sentence, but she did deserve a prison sentence. We don’t have the death penalty for a reason.

Previous abuse does not excuse current abuse, especially murder. If that were the case, it would be likely that most abusers, rapists, paedophiles and murderers would deserve to walk free.

She had been on a date with him a few days earlier. He approached her in the carpak and touched her breasts. She stuck the whole knife into his heart.
Yes, he was very wrong to touch her breasts but to stab a knife into his heart was totally disproportionate.