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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ask you all your thoughts on this?

28 replies

goforjoe · 12/05/2016 23:13

Genuinely just being nosey. Just watched a film with Dh about a woman who kills the man who brutally attacked and murders her 17yo daughter, and walks away on a technicality.

Dh and I have been discussing it further and wondering how extreme people will go to achieve their own ideas of justice.

OP posts:

TheDuchessOfArbroathsHat · 12/05/2016 23:18

You sound a bit like a researcher. Welcome to mumsnet anyway. I don't know the answer to your question I'm afraid.

gilmar · 12/05/2016 23:20

Regular with a name change actually. But cheers all the same

PlymouthMaid1 · 12/05/2016 23:22

Well done that woman. I am obviously not the forgiving sort.

HappyGirlNow · 12/05/2016 23:25

Why would you name change for this?

DonkeyOaty · 12/05/2016 23:28

So goforjoe and gilmar are the same poster?

TheNotoriousPMT · 12/05/2016 23:28

In that particular situation (as you described, I haven't seen the film) it sounds like the mother was driven to her actions by the failure of the criminal justice system. I dunno. You can discuss abstract ethics to your hearts content but you never know what you would do unless you were in that situation yourself.

TheDuchessOfArbroathsHat · 12/05/2016 23:33

So. Regular with 2 name changes? You've got another thread on the go under another name?

gilmar · 12/05/2016 23:39

No this is my usual name, don't post much though but I have been on for a bout a year and a half now.
Just enjoyed the film and thought it was pretty thought provoking.
Made me wonder how people would act in a similar situation.
Not a journo honestly.. More bored
SAHM having a rare film and wine
night lol.

AdjustableWench · 13/05/2016 00:09

What was the title of the film?

I doubt I could actually kill anyone in real life. Fantasies are a different matter.

gilmar · 13/05/2016 00:18

Eye for an eye. Good wee film. I could kill somebody that hurt my kid. I know that for a fact.

HerRoyalNotness · 13/05/2016 01:35

You can't know anything for a fact, unless you were in that position.

I'd like to think that I would not stoop to their level and commit an equally horrific crime in revenge. It's not my right to take the life of another, not matter what they did.

AerithEarling · 13/05/2016 01:37

The plot sounds kind of like a time to kill.
I think it's justified. Eye 4 eye isn't always the correct way to go but in these types of situations I think so.

Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost · 13/05/2016 01:49

Hold on. Her DD gets murdered. The twat gets away with it, so as a result of getting no justice. She murders him
Well I'm behind her
, and I very much.doubt I'm the only one.
What film was it

ExtraHotLatteToGo · 13/05/2016 02:30

Too many variables in life to say for sure, but broadly speaking...

If I was a single parent & she was my only child I think I could happily kill the fucker with my bare hands, but if I had other children or a DH I think I'd have to put their needs above that of my own and hire a hit man persue any legal avenue to get the verdict overturned and the bastard put inside with a bunch of Dads.

herecomethepotatoes · 13/05/2016 02:32

I think there are times I'd kill such as the situation in the film. Of course you never know.

I couldn't do a Strangers on a Train type murder even if I knew I and the other person were getting justice.

I'm often amazed by people's ability to forgive such extreme wrongs. Day-to-day I'm pretty forgiving (except of stupidity) but I'm fairly sure I wouldn't be in something like the film the OP described.

FastWindow · 13/05/2016 02:38

I'd kill in defence. But never murder. That must surely be the default position of any sane person.

Truffles04 · 13/05/2016 02:47

I think its a difficult question and hope that none of us ever have to be in the position to find out exactly how we'd feel in those types of circumstances.

I mean the anger you'd feel, not only towards the attacker but also towards the justice system, the world in general for your child being taken too soon - at the injustice of it all. I'm not sure what I'd do personally. But I can say I sympathise with people who do.

its also why I prefer the legal system in scotland - because of the third verdict - not only does it allow you to say "we know you did it, we just can't prove it", also allows for jurors to say "yeah technically you broke the law, but we think it was justified/you dont deserve to be punished for it"

GarlicShake · 13/05/2016 02:50

Good question! In real life, the people who come across as real heroes are the ones who accept what's happened wasn't fair but was legal. There's someone like this on the news every few weeks, and they are wonderful. I think everyone admires a bereaved parent or partner who truly can be the "bigger person".

Most people, me included, would have some sympathy for the mother who murdered in revenge. But it's murder. It makes her as bad as her victim.

GarlicShake · 13/05/2016 02:52

I like that bit about Scots law, Truffles. I don't know the legal repercussions of it, though.

ExtraHotLatteToGo · 13/05/2016 02:55

fastwindow if my daughter had been brutally attacked and killed & the killer had got away with it due to a technicality, I think I might not be quite as sane as I was before and I'd want to mske sure he wasn't able to do it to anyone else's daughter...and I'd want revenge. Killing him would still not be enough, but I don't think anything would be...but it woukd be a start.

MrsTerryPratchett · 13/05/2016 02:55

Having been in some very strange and stressful situations, I can tell you that you never know how you will behave. No one does. I separate the legal and the personal. The legal system should be fair reasonable and just. If someone hurts DD I don't have to be.

FastWindow · 13/05/2016 02:57

That's why we have the law. Isnt it?

If someone broke into my home and tried to do any violence whatsoever to my dc/dh then it would be the breaker ins fault if they fell on my recently sharpened Global.

If i found out who they were and subsequently popped round for a cuppa, conveniently armed with aforementioned Global, .... That's not ok. Even so.

herecomethepotatoes · 13/05/2016 03:27

fastwidow

I'd kill in defence. But never murder. That must surely be the default position of any sane person

But if your daughter (still talking about the film's plot) was brutally murdered you probably wouldn't be perfectly sane. I'm not saying revenge is the correct thing to do, but I'd understand why someone would / could.

FastWindow · 13/05/2016 03:37

potatoes if my daughters murderer was within easy reach of my perfectly legal tomato knife that i just happened to be holding by his head while i was dlicing tomatoes its his own fucking fault he gets sliced.

But murder? Too prosecutable. I was only slicing tomatoes, your honour.

FastWindow · 13/05/2016 03:43

Oops . I dont even have a tomato knife i hear they exist though.

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