Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To find this absolutely shocking...

94 replies

GnusSitOnCanoes · 03/01/2018 13:58

This man has just been jailed for murdering his partner - the third woman he has killed since the early 90s. How is it possible he's been allowed to kill three times, and released twice? I'm furious and so sad for the families involved, who have seen this happen three times now.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-42540995

OP posts:
hellsbellsmelons · 03/01/2018 14:02

Because DV is not viewed the same as other murders.
I've no idea why.
It absolutely baffles me.
You see it time and again how some men have almost killed women and subjected them to years of awful abuse but still get a 6 month or 18 month sentences.
And until the whole nation takes this seriously, it will never ever change.

Original poster
GnusSitOnCanoes · 03/01/2018 14:02

Trying the link again... www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-42540995

OP posts:
catgirl1976 · 03/01/2018 14:06

Shocking and appalling.

How he has been allowed to go free and marry and kill two more women after the first is beyond me.

I guess as hellsbells says DV murders don't 'count' as proper murders. We're only women after all :(

Original poster
GnusSitOnCanoes · 03/01/2018 14:09

Mistyped - he killed his first wife in the 1980s. So he's notching up one murder a decade. How disposable we are.

OP posts:
MrsPear · 03/01/2018 14:12

He was only convicted of manslaughter they is why ....

MaryMcCarthy · 03/01/2018 14:15

People are saying DV murders, but he was never found guilty of murder. Whether right or wrong, he was jailed for manslaughter.

BitOutOfPractice · 03/01/2018 14:23

Because women's lives count for less than men's.

I'm not usually so black and white as that but FFS this story is ludicrous. When will society start taking violence against women seriously? Angry

BashStreetKid · 03/01/2018 14:24

The clue lies in the fact that he was in a psychiatric unit, which also probably explains the fact that his convictions were for manslaughter and not murder. It looks like this is a serious failure of mental health services, combined with a lack of communication between them and the police. We're going to see more of this sort of thing unless and until mental health services are properly funded.

Original poster
GnusSitOnCanoes · 03/01/2018 14:25

Three times now. Perhaps he'll be out in a few years again and can make it a nice, round four. The poor families.

OP posts:
MycatsaPirate · 03/01/2018 14:28

How can smacking someone with a vase and then pushing them off a 9th floor balcony by manslaughter? And strangulation is also manslaughter?

Every time he's done it he's made a pathetic attempt to end his own life, managed to get away with the 'diminished responsibility' bollocks and claimed to have been depressed.

It's appalling. Absolutely fucking awful that three women have died at this man's hands because when it comes down to it, he cannot take rejection.

I hope he never gets out again.

hellsbellsmelons · 03/01/2018 14:28

Yep,
We are women
We married them
We are stupid
It's all our own fault
Basically!!!!!

CurryWorst · 03/01/2018 14:30

People are saying DV murders, but he was never found guilty of murder. Whether right or wrong, he was jailed for manslaughter

Because it was DV. If he killed anyone else in the same way, it would have been murder. Happens all the time.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 03/01/2018 14:32

So little has changed over my half-century on this planet. How fucking depressing.

BashStreetKid · 03/01/2018 14:35

I doubt that he was "claiming" to have been depressed: he was an in-patient at a psychiatric hospital. What he has done is awful, but let's not manipulate the facts.

CurryWorst · 03/01/2018 14:36

Perhaps he'll be out in a few years again and can make it a nice, round four. The poor families

Unlikely now that he is in a wheelchair and has no hands. Shame he didn't kill himself before he committed his first murder.

Hygge · 03/01/2018 14:43

What makes him different to serial killers?

He's killed three times over three decades, manslaughter shouldn't come into it by this point.

This is something he does, he kills women.

Original poster
GnusSitOnCanoes · 03/01/2018 14:44

If you look at the dates, he served two years for killing his second partner. Two years! It's a fucking travesty.

OP posts:
BitOutOfPractice · 03/01/2018 14:48

"Johnson was convicted of manslaughter on the basis of provocation following a murder trial at Stafford Crown Court" after killing his partner Yvonne Johnson in 1981.

"Provocation"? That means it was her fault he hit her over the head and pushed her over a 9th floor balcony?

The second killing was reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility ie not his fault again

So presumably it was only after the 3rd killing that they ran out of excuses for him

Original poster
GnusSitOnCanoes · 03/01/2018 14:49

Hygge The Times does refer to him as a serial killer (which he is).

OP posts:
yulefool · 03/01/2018 15:03

i'm hoping that provocation features less as a reason for reducing jail terms these days now it's not 1981 anymore...

This is appalling.

IwantedtobeEmmaPeel · 03/01/2018 15:04

Can't help but think if the first two victims had been men, he would have been sentenced for longer. It does make me feel that as a women I am more disposable than someone with a cock.

BitOutOfPractice · 03/01/2018 15:08

Yulefool it can no longer be used as mitigation

From wikipedia: It was abolished on 4 October 2010 by section 56(1) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, but replaced by a relatively similar defence of "loss of control".

So, same old same old.

Huskylover1 · 03/01/2018 15:15

Well, if we still had the death penalty, I'd be happy to see him receive that on Friday.

BarbarianMum · 03/01/2018 15:19

I think it is shocking but I don't support the death penalty for people with severe mental illness. He should have a one way pass to a secure hospital after he killed his second wife.

Finola1step · 03/01/2018 15:19

Because the powers that be decided that he should be charged with manslaughter rather than murder. Once that decision was made, then life imprisonment would have been pretty much off the table. Absolutely disgraceful.