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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

So if a man stabs his wife four times it's not actually murder if she's leaving him fir another man

128 replies

iPaid · 15/01/2016 20:39

It's manslaughter apparently. The poor husband snaps, reaches for a knife and sticks it into her 4 times but isn't found guilty of murder because y'know what's a man to do when he knows his missus has got another chap?

Daily Mail link because my iPad is crashing on other newspapers.

And he'll probably be out in less than 8 years

OP posts:

givepeasachance · 15/01/2016 21:17

It makes me sick to my stomach

Wtf is wrong with our culture to think that is ok.

ghostyslovesheep · 15/01/2016 21:19

if your sister is raped and murdered you wont get sent to prison for rape - because it would cause your family more heart break

despite your victim being 13 - and you doing it repeatedly

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-35328799 - women and girls - you aren't important

StealthPolarBear · 15/01/2016 21:21

Not getting away with it?
That's exactly what happened

IfItsGoodEnough4ShirleyBassey · 15/01/2016 21:21

Yes, googling has brought me up to date, and despite the fact that the House of Commons clearly intended to get rid of the classic wife murderer's get out of jail free card of provocation when they replaced it with "loss of control" the judiciary seems to have kept it out of nostalgia

Here's the BBC's report on the batch of cases in that Guardian article.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16592680

It's like the 1960s never ended.

jay55 · 15/01/2016 21:23

Fuck. So in the unlikely event a rapist is found guilty they still get off. Is it really 2016?

BarbarianMum · 15/01/2016 21:23

Course it's not murder. She was his property after all. No, wait....

Sophia1984 · 15/01/2016 21:26

Saw this earlier and was so sickened by it. How on earth is that a justifiable reason to kill someone?

venusinscorpio · 15/01/2016 21:28

Yes. Exactly this. It was a specific measure.

Osmiornica · 15/01/2016 21:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

iPaid · 15/01/2016 21:29

ghostly - the story in your link is terrible. I am so sick of men escaping proper punishment for brutalising women because it wasn't the man's fault, he couldn't help himself ...

OP posts:

ClashCityRocker · 15/01/2016 21:33

That's awful and I don't agree with it.

However, from a purely legal perspective, I thought that provocation was a partial defence to murder, ie it could get it reduced to manslaughter? I'm probably wrong - hazy memories from a level law but I think I recall discussing this in class and that say, if a man found his wife in bed and killed her 'in a fit of rage' he would have access to this as a defence? If that's correct then wouldn't a woman have the same defence in the same circumstances?

Either way, it's shite and should be just straight up murder.

ClashCityRocker · 15/01/2016 21:34

Ah sorry just reading through the links now

nocoolnamesleft · 15/01/2016 21:35

So, erm, stabbed her four times. So she bled to death. Didn't call for help for her. Hid the body. Pretended she'd gone missing.

Sounds rather like murder to me, too.

BitOutOfPractice · 15/01/2016 21:35

What the actual fuck?!?

Like the PP said "women and girls - you aren't important"

Farahilda · 15/01/2016 21:37

Is he getting away with it?

He got 15 years. And I bet for a murder where you are not judged a risk to anyone else, you'd be improsoned for no longer, and possibly less.

Anyone know if there has been a court report (or whatever the official record's called) yet? Because there was fleeing mention of her pushing him, and I was wondering about the strength of the evidence on this. The Jury must have found it convincing, but the press reporting is flimsy.

BitOutOfPractice · 15/01/2016 21:38

Pushing him? What do you mean? It was her fault he stabbed her in the chest 4 times? And hid the body? And lied, coolly?

steff13 · 15/01/2016 21:38

Isn't it the loss of control that makes is manslaughter vs murder?

ClashCityRocker · 15/01/2016 21:39

Ok - I think I understand a bit better - this was pre-2009 when I was at college.

Basically it isn't supposed to be a defence for infidelity per statute, but the judges are pretty much deciding it is?

I don't think there should be any defences against murder, bar insanity.

steff13 · 15/01/2016 21:40

His actions after the fact don't affect whether it's murder or manslaughter, it's his state of mind at the time he committed the act that count.

Lweji · 15/01/2016 21:48

Yes, but frankly his actions after would make me doubt his version of events for before.

Baressentials · 15/01/2016 21:48

Wow - things haven't moved on half as much as we like to think they have.
It is a disgrace.

BitOutOfPractice · 15/01/2016 21:48

I thought that murder was about intent - and someone who stabs someone four times in the chest surely intends them to die

nocoolnamesleft · 15/01/2016 21:51

What happened afterwards is relevant. Stabbed 4 times is not the same as killed instantly. It'd definitely not the same as certain she's definitely dead. So, if he had immediately called for help and tried to save her, manslaughter would sound a hell of a lot more plausible. But looking down at your blood soaked wife, and rather than trying to save her coldbloodedly deciding to cover things up? That sounds very deliberate. Unless there is proof she died instantly, that's murder.

Sairelou · 15/01/2016 21:52

See if you think about it, stabbing someone once in the chest could be construed as an accident. But FOUR times. He meant to kill her, no doubt.

Poor woman

Room101isWhereIUsedToLive · 15/01/2016 21:58

But apparently the need for feminism is dead.

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