Ian Huntley has died

[Viviennemary]

That's according to BBC news. Can't say I'm sorry.

Did you actually read the post?

Winston Churchill wrote that the infallible test of a civilised society is the state of its prisons. How we treat and manage our outcast and unpopular citizens is a challenge to human nature. Murderers like Ian Huntley are the extreme example and it takes a lot of character to show care as well as control to men like him
Wow WC and his male view.

the infallible test of a civilised society imo is how it protects and empowers children, women, people with disabilities, the poor and so on and the quality of health acre and education people can access. How well schools cater to their children's needs. How healthy the food is. How cohesive yet inclusive communities are.

^this

Yes it’s not women chatting that’s the main problem. It’s the violence by men.

Exactly!

Interesting point, @OtterlyAstounding, but I'm struggling to think of a country where the prisons are not a refection of what that society values.

There isn't a "point" in whole life sentences, it's just that they're better than the alternatives of either giving the state the legal power to kill its citizens or potential releasing someone from that small minority of persons that the court and psychiatrists have judged cannot ever safely be at liberty. Whole life sentences are shit for everyone involved and extremely expensive. But for those few that recieve them, nobody has yet come up with a better alternative.

Can you give an example of a country that has decent prisons but the rest of the place is a hotbed of corruption, misogyny, racism etc?

And lo and behold, this morning social media is full of news stories about Maxine, with people chipping in saying she's been seen in this that and the other place, working here there and everywhere, calling for her to now tell the truth now Huntley's out of the way, saying she's conned her husband as to who she is, the children need to know the truth about their mum, she's evil as bad as him.

I'm sure the usual vigilantes will do their best to destroy another innocent mistaken identity

I think you're misrepresenting what he said. He wasn't saying that those things are unimportant in testing how civilised a society is, he was simply saying that, if you want an infallible test then the way we treat the lowest of the low is the best test. I think he was right.

I hate the way Maxine Carr was demonised. It's ridiculous to say she should have suffered the death penalty. Everything that @WildMintPanda says is correct, and it also has to be borne in mind that when she realised the truth she gave evidence which was highly instrumental in leading to Huntley's conviction. In many ways it's down to lazy journalism - reporters wanted to equate her with Myra Hindley and were and are happy to ignore the facts.

I think you misunderstood me. I don't think the murder of Huntley should be applauded or seen as anything positive. I'm agog that anyone thinks 'vigilante justice' has any place in prison or otherwise

It's disgusting the way Maxine Carr was demonised and continues to be hounded in this way.

What she did was wrong, and she served time for it. But as noted she was a victim of abuse, with all that entails, and does not deserve the witchhunts perpetrated against her.

And she was already 'in trouble' with him as on the day he murdered the girls she was away in Grimsby spending time with her family. He didn't like her going out and drinking or being with her family so called her in the morning and she didn't pick up. Speculation on my part but probably because she knew he'd be pissed off and angry and ruin her day.

She phoned him back in the evening and he blew up at her because she hadn't called him back earlier and because she said she would be going out drinking with her family. He then put the 'phone down on her after a few minutes. She texted him saying 'don't make me feel bad because i'm with my family' and he didn't reply.

It was shorty after that he murdered the girls. The call ended at 6.23pm. The girls were last seen alive at 6.05pm leaving Hollys house. Given the girls route, and Huntleys initial statements, that he 'saw' the girls around 6.30pm passing by his house while he was outside washing his dog, it was around that time he lured the girls into the house. Jessicas mobile phone was switched off at 6.46, presumably by Huntley.

Huntleys own Mother speculated that he killed the girls because he was angry at Maxine Carr.

So Maxine gets home from being away, already frightened because she knows he's angry she didn't call him back quick enough the previous day and has been out drinking with her family when he said she shouldn't. And 2 girls are missing that she knows and he's telling her that because of a past false rape accusation (it wasn't false but he wouldn't say that), the Police will try and pin it on him and she needs to give him an alibi.

Like she said in court, she was scared and felt backed into a corner but she also didn't think at that time that he'd killed them.

Agree with all these points. What Maxine did was wrong and she rightly served time for it but she genuinely believed he was innocent. She didn’t have a role in the girls’ deaths, she wasn’t even there. She was vulnerable and very naive. She’ll spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder, she needs to be left alone.

This is so true. The way she’s been singled out for abuse has been so out of order. I should think she must have had a very difficult time of it in prison.

At least, when she came out, she was free of that monster.

Maxine Carr was a bit dim. She was terrified of Huntley and was keen not to incur his wrath. I daresay she’d been his punch bag for years. She made a mistake without knowing she’d made a mistake

@Allisnotlost1
Norway has wonderful prisons, apparently but the son of the Crown Princess is on trial for serial rape, and the rates of rape and domestic violence are still troubling, Norway's former PM has just been charged with corruption over Epstein links, discrimination against the Sámi people is still a serious issue, as is racism against other ethnic minorities, including Black people, and the country is experiencing increases in poverty and wealth disparity.

In fact, Norway doesn't even define rape as a 'lack of consent', requiring the victim to prove they physically resisted, creating "endemic impunity for rapists".

And that's just from a quick google. So, nice prisons, but society is still not great, particularly for women and children.

ETA: If Britain suddenly, magically, had wonderful prisons, it wouldn't change the rest of British society either. I think the change in society probably has to come before the change in prisons, frankly.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/04/the-scandal-of-women-handcuffed-while-in-labour-i-was-so-shocked-when-the-restraints-werent-removed

What sort a society does this? All the women had non violent sentences.

@LostInSpaceNK thank you - it's so refreshing to read your words. With the exception of a handful of contributors, this thread has been absolutely appalling, with a near total disregard for the comments of those with experience and knowledge of the prison estate.

I'm not sure what Churchill has done here to irritate you- the reference to men was mine, not his.
There are women in prison too, some of whom are serving whole life tariff sentences. Does someone like Joanna Denehy deserve more or less empathy than her male counterparts? In reality, the public and criminal justice agencies are much quicker to supply mitigations for female offenders- quicker to recognise the impact of childhood trauma, abusive relationships and exploitation, for example.
I'm absolutely not making an Ian Huntley point here- I didn't know him or anything really about his past. But I've been engaged with therapy for many lifers who were violent or sexual offenders, and often both. Most had fairly extreme abuse histories themselves- the abused child growing up to repeat patterns of abuse they had learned through experience. That doesn't excuse their future behaviour- plenty of abused youngsters don't go on to harm others so we have to assert their agency in choosing to perpetrate these crimes. It doesnt preclude severe punishment. But I do see a double standard at work where female offenders often receive public sympathy for their exploitation and abuse histories whereas men don't.

As @IdentityCris said earlier, the 'civilised society tests' you gave are all perfectly valid and important. But they aren't difficult to subscribe to. You'd have to be a pretty low quality human not to want good outcomes for children, protection for the vulnerable and disabled and good quality health and education for all according to need. Determination also to treat the lowest and least regarded with justice and fairness, to preserve their rights and protect them from harm is much harder. That's why it is such an important test of a society.

There is a point to whole life sentences, and it's not about preventing reoffending. Whole life tariffs are about punishment alone. The tariff portion of the life sentence is set by the trial Judge to reflect the gravity of the offence- the term required to satisfy the need for punishment and retribution. Any time served beyond that minimum term is for public protection, i.e. until there's good enough evidence that reoffending risk has reduced and can be managed.
A whole life tariff is imposed when the trial Judge considers a crime can never be adequately punished and there can be no point at which the public need for retribution could be satisfied. A person could in theory pose no further offending risk but still receive a whole life tariff. Conversely, a lifer could have a short tariff and still never be released if their risk did not reduce to manageable levels.

It’s true that Norwegian prisons are often held up as exemplary, and they are much less violent, fewer drugs etc, and more effective - Norway’s reoffending rate is less than half the UK’s broadly speaking.

And of course all crimes of sexual violence and IPV are horrible. But they’re about 3x higher here in the UK than in Norway. Which could have course be partly explained by differences in defining sexual violence. ETA: I looked this up and Norway changed the law on rape last year www.reuters.com/world/norway-outlaws-sex-without-consent-europe-strengthens-rape-laws-2025-06-06/

Homicide is about twice as high here.

Assault, robbery and gun and knife crime are also significantly higher in the UK than in Norway. And arguably that’s because we have about twice as many people living in relative poverty (ie on less than 60% of median income). Income inequality - measured by the Gini coefficient - for the UK is .36, for Norway .27 (I did have to look this up, and UK is more unequal than Sweden, Germany, Canada, and just 0.5 behind the US).

It used to be that drug crimes were more common in Norway than UK, but traditionally this was because more energy went into enforcement and prevention.

I do agree that suddenly having better prisons wouldn’t change society, but I don’t think anyone is making that argument in isolation.

we could adapt some prisons to have car races like in the film death race gives them mechancs training and other skills