To be sick of the sympathy being directed at women who commit the most despicable acts imagineable?

[wannaBe]

So the Philpotts will be sentenced today for killing their six children.

Both convicted of the same crime, no mitigating factors involved. both led a pretty depraved lifestyle. Both beyond contempt as far as I'm concerned.

Yet read mn and various other sources and while the man is rightly being slated as being the scum of the earth there is actual sympathy being directed towards the woman. Oh she was abused, oh she was a victim, oh poor woman under his control yada yada yada.

She is a murderer as is he. She knowingly went along with setting their house on fire with her six children in it and did nothing. She did not sit with her dying child. She played the victim at the press conference.

She had choices and she made them. She chose to start a fire which killed her children and she chose to do nothing about it.

Do any of these sympathisers ever consider that one of the reason why people are so hard on women who commit these horrific crimes is because people like you are ready to stand by and excuse them on the basis abuse must have been involved.

There are real victims of abuse out there and they don't go round killing their children.

Someone being a woman or being a victim of previous abuse (assuming she was, she lied about so many other things it's IMO unlikely) does not excuse or justify the choices they make which end up hurting others.

People need to stop justifying behaviors purely because someone is a woman. She is a murderer. no amount of previous abuse justifies or excuses that.

The thing with abusive relationships is that is a slowly slowly catch monkey thing. For me I only realised the extend of it all years after I left. That said I spent too long exposing my daughters to terrifying situations which allowed by oldest to see me being strangled and beaten by her Father. I let this go on. My Ex was very convincing, most people have been staggered by the truth about him actually as he was very nice and good Father, on the outside at least.

Whilst it is true that I have never participated in anything as risky as setting a fire, I have exposed my dds to terrible things, I found my older dd lying on top of her baby sister to protect her. My DD was shouted at by her Father until she wet herself until I talked to him and let him hold me. Yes all very fucked up isn't it and I allowed that to go on by being unable to leave. I have an almost 12 year old who is sometimes afraid to let me out of her sight despite now being in a loving relationship and the girls having no contact with their Father for 5 years.

Yes I got out, but I thought I might die in the process. It is only the good grace and love of my new partner that has enabled me to be in a relationship as I have no idea even in my 40's of how that really works as all my relationships since early childhood have been blighted by emotional neglect and sexual abuse. I have made poor choices because fundamentally there is a part of me that is very broken. For me it started I think because I felt unloved and was seeking love at any price. Again it does not make it OK but there was fucked up method in my madness. Worst of all I have dragged my DDs into harm's way.

No it is not an excuse but it is a reason. Good people can do bad things and I will be surprised if that woman does not take her own life as soon as she gets a chance. I have the most terrible regret for what I have allowed to happen to my children and I cannot imagine how she can live with herself.

And for the record I only got out because he allowed it. He moved on, he would have never let me leave. Despite being his choice he waged a campaign through the courts at me for 6 years.... It only stopped because he gave up not because I won because I would never have won, he would have always had 'rights'..... Death was actually my only way out (never would have because of my DDs) I am happy now but honestly a few years ago I couldn't even imagine making it alive to the end of the week.

Oh pansy I am so sorry you have all had to live through this becaue of you cruel ex

What a brave post you made me cry I wish you and your family all the happiness and that you in time will not be so hard on yourself

I hope others reading this it will give them an insight to how so many suffer and no matter how much they want to they find it impossible to leave there is only one person to blame when they choose to abuse others

I know someone who was at the Brady/Hindley trial as a journalist. Apparently all the press felt that Hindley was a cold manipulative woman who was as culpable as Brady. Remember the Hindley did everything she could to get out of prison from lesbian affair with the governor to religious reformation. She was an evil woman. Brady was obviously a psychopath and mentally I'll. He has never once appealed for any sort of release. Neither of them would tell poor Winnie Johnson where her son's body was.
I can never listen to The Little Drummer Boy without remembering the tape of Lesley Anne's murder and Hindley's gleeful participation.
As for the Philpotts they are both wicked people. She is stupid and wicked and is just flesh creepingly nasty. He should never be released from prison.

Those not differentiating between men and women: do you know of many cases like the ones being mentioned where there was no male involvement? Plenty where men act alone.

I agree with you op. am sick to the back teeth of apologists.

I find it hard to understand why anyone would attempt to defend her actions. They both did this, and both are equally responsible.

Fwiw, I've been in an abusive relationship and ended up in a "safe house". At no point did I consider murdering anyone but him . Actually that was what prompted me to call women's aid - I decided I wasn't going to go to prison for killing him.

That's great for you Dolom

sadly there are just not enough safe houses and tragically 2 woman every week are killed by their partner or ex partner. This so very nearly happened to one of phillpot's ex's

Suffering domestic abuse is not an excuse for going along with such a dangerous plan, or not sitting with your dying child, or then in the wake of the aftermath milking public sympathy for all its worth. YANBU.

Yadnbu. She did the crime with him, she is as much to blame as him.
She cannot be excused due to owning a vagina fgs.

A murderer is just that, a murderer regardless of sex

I felt sorry for her initially because she was so obviously under his control.

I don't feel sympathy for her anymore. I still think she was a victim of domestic abuse. However it's hard to feel sympathy for someone who hasn't shown an ounce of remorse for her actions. Her behaviour after the children died is bizarre she allegedly was more interested in her outfit and the "party" (wake) than she was in the death of her children.

She seems completely devoid of any emotion and I wonder what awful things must have happened to her in order for her to be like this. I don't think she loved her children in the way that a normal person does. The children were just there and now they are not. It's almost as if the Philpotts viewed their family life as one big drama and this is just another chapter in the show.

It is very sad.

The judge at the trial was very clear in her view of Mairead's culpability in what had happened. She noted that Mairead was capable of sticking up for herself when she needed/ wanted to. Mairead loved Lisa as it has been documented that they had threesomes too and Mairead said they were very close. I think that is why she tried to kill herself, not because she was desperately unhappy about the DV, but because Lisa had left her.

She did seem to provide some care for the DC as both schools have said there was no cause for concern over the treatment of the DC so presumably they were turning up for school appropriately dressed etc. But then you hear that only one of the DC was in his PJs and the others were in their school uniform.

But the other women decided to leave when they realised their DC were at risk (not themselves as that's what DV does to you). There was a story about the mother of two of Mick's DC who finally left when her DS1 (then 3) was told to punch her in the face and he did. But this vile woman stayed and risked her DC's life by being complicit in the plan to bring Lisa back to the house. Even on the 999 phone call she's going along with it.

My sympathy is for Lisa as she has to live with the fact that her leaving and protecting her own DC was the catalyst for this horrific chain of events. She'll have loved Mairead's DC like her own and will now be grieving them like Mairead should have done. I think that's desperately sad that in protecting her own DC, as she should have done, she'll feel an amount of responsibility for Mairead's having died.