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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think American diplomatic immunity...

240 replies

MT2017 · 07/10/2019 16:02

...should not apply here.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-49961679

What's worse is that she was advised to leave by the American Embassy!

OP posts:
Passthecherrycoke · 07/10/2019 19:29

I’m afraid I’m really struggling to believe posters saying they would stay and face justice when they don’t have to so they can stay in a foreign prison as some kind of example to their children. Would your view change if that prison were in South Africa, or Saudi Arabia? Jamaica maybe?

Of course killing someone in a car would change and affect my entire life. Going to prison when I don’t have to would be really bizarre though

Passthecherrycoke · 07/10/2019 19:33

I should say my FIL hit someone in a car which caused them life long disability, when his children were very long. He was not imprisoned, although he was punished. My DH didn’t find out about it until he was in his 20s.

Had his dad been in prison for a few years of his childhood his life outcomes would’ve been much much worse. No good example in that I’m afraid.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 07/10/2019 19:33

Is it cowardice when people go to the British consul when they’re caught with cannabis in Thailand and they’re looking at five years? no, that’s just stupidity. You can’t not know the risks. But being involved in an accident and buggering off?

She would have had access to lawyers to represent her.

Yes I’m sure she was given a ‘way out’ and took it. But she knows this is wrong. She knows that if this was one of her kids she wouldn’t want the suspect to run away and not fact justice.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 19:33

Passthecherrycoke

Perhaps they’d stay initially, but I think when their kids started crying and begging for them not to take mummy away they’d regret it.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 19:44

She would have had access to lawyers to represent her.

The lawyers representing her would have been Embassy lawyers - their advice would have been to leave, because that is within the law.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 07/10/2019 19:45

I suppose it would - but morally...

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 19:47

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD

Morally she might as well decline representation as well. But nobody would really do that.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 07/10/2019 19:48

Why would anyone decline representation? She was involved in a fatal accident - anyone would want counsel.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 19:50

She was involved in a fatal accident - anyone would want counsel.

So she can have counsel, but just not do what they advise? That's a bit pointless, isn’t it? Any lawyer would have told her to go. She did what I would have done. Well done to you if you would have done something different, but I can’t lie about it.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 07/10/2019 19:56

Well a lawyer can advise a guilty person to plea innocent. Doesn’t make it ok for their conscience does it?

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 19:58

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD

I don’t think her conscience is going to be okay either way. But in the case of pleading innocent when you are guilty, you’re lying. She isn’t lying. She is doing exactly what the relevant law allows her to do.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 07/10/2019 20:02

I know - she is doing what she can do legally. What is right morally is, of course, another matter.

MockersthefeMANist · 07/10/2019 20:03

So now the wife of the 'diplomat' based at the top scret spy base has been named, so now (all) we know who the spy is...

This is what you get when you have a fuckwit amateur as ambassador because he gave a shedload of cash to the Trump campaign.

Passthecherrycoke · 07/10/2019 20:04

“Well a lawyer can advise a guilty person to plea innocent. Doesn’t make it ok for their conscience does it?”

They can’t really though

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 20:05

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD

Of course. Morally, when you commit a crime, you should admit everything, hold up your hands and let them take you to prison to the tune of the relevant country’s tariff. Obviously. But if you would do that in all circumstances, I would be (honestly) extremely impressed.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 07/10/2019 20:07

It’s not like a parking ticket. It’s not a country where you could be executed of flogged.

WeshMaGueule · 07/10/2019 20:07

seaweed I posted upthread about an extremely similar case where the diplomat waived his immunity, so it does happen.

MockersthefeMANist · 07/10/2019 20:09

Where she comes from, it would be second degree homicide and four hundred and fifty years without the possibility of parole.

Over here, it's causing death by dangerous driving and she'd probably avoid custody.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 20:09

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD

I don’t see what difference that makes. Morally, if you did it, you should hold up your hands. I can’t see why not. But you wouldn’t, of course. You would weigh the consequences. Like she did.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 20:11

WeshMaGueule

It does happen. Lots of things happen. But I think nearly all of us would take the legal advice and go, and some of us are more honest about that than others.

Horsemad · 07/10/2019 20:12

@SerendipityJane WPC Fletcher was murdered in 1984, not 1986.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 07/10/2019 20:12

You don’t see difference between a parking ticket and being in a fatal accident?

I won’t agonise over a parking ticket - i wouldn’t be loosing sleep over it. I might be pissed off with myself - but causing a death is beyond awful.

MumW · 07/10/2019 20:15

I also heard on the news that there has previously been a similar on US soil involving a foriegn diplomat (possibly Moroccan but can't remember exactly) in which the US requested and were granted the immunity to be removed.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 20:15

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD

I see the difference between the crimes. I see no difference in the morality of evading the consequences of one versus the other. If you are guilty of breaking the law and the ‘moral’ thing to do is to stay and face it (which it is, of course) then you should do so in all circumstances. But that’s not what most people would actually do if they had DI.

Passthecherrycoke · 07/10/2019 20:18

@WeshMaGueule are you referring to the Zairean ambassador? It looks like he was sacked, he didn’t voluntarily give up
Immunity and return