To be amazed they've released Mairead Philpott?

[MarylinMonrue]

After serving half her sentence for the arson attack? Apparently even a source from the prison was a shocked at the leniency and the fact she's going to get a new identity and protection. Six children in that fire - is there such a thing as justice in this country anymore?

People's understanding of our justice system is actually quite worrying.

On this 'evidence' alone, previous crimes not withstanding, their crimes are the same.

They’re not, because he actually did it. She knew about it and allowed it. That is very different. He should never leave prison as he is clearly very, very dangerous.

@PrawnofthePatriarchy

Mairead was in my opinion abused and worn down over years and years to accept what he said and did and told her to say and do. Many many women sadly do the same, and while she should take some personal responsibility too, mental and emotional abuse is a funny thing.

That's my take on it too, MarthaWashingtonsFeralTomcat.

Yes.

On one hand, I think they should all be in jail for life (and life means life) but on the other hand, I think she is the least culpable. I think she has low intelligence (not sure if it is low enough to be considered a learning disability) and was abused for a long period of time. And she will have to live with her actions for the rest of her life.

@sashh

I can understand the down trodden groomed wife to a certain extent.

But then there is the behaviour when Duwayne was in intensive care. She was surrounded by family and medical staff, she could have had Mick removed from the hospital, she didn't.

She could have spent time at her child's bedside, instead she had a food fight.

A food fight? I haven’t heard this before - what was supposed to have happened?

I haven't heard about the food fight either,but I have watched several documentaries and they were both reported to have been in the pub a few days after the fire drinking and singing on Karaoke .

A good thing to come out of Brexit is that the UK will now have a chance to bring the death penalty

Yes that'll be about right. Lets round up all the nasties and kill them.

@WattleOn boo hoo. The fact the documentary shows her not giving a toss days later aside , at least she has a life to live .

As I said, I don’t know anything about a food fight, or their behaviour afterwards.

On the basic facts, I can understand why she isn’t serving a life sentence. I do think that half sentences are too short though and I don’t know the reasoning behind them.

Sentencing report - www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/JCO/Documents/Judgments/r-v-philpott-philpott-and-mosley-sentencing-remarks.pdf

@GurpsAgain

It’s funny how nobody ever sympathises with rapists, although many have suffered sexual abuse whilst young and their crimes generally aren’t as severe as killing six children.

This really sent a good comparison

She wasn't in the position of the rapist - she, and the other accomplice who was sentenced to 17 years (half in prison, half on licence), were not found (see the sentencing remarks) as the ones who came up with the idea of it, or carried out the crime. Or indeed wanted to frame/punish the woman who had just had the temerity to leave him.

Mick may well have been abused as a child. You will note I am not commenting on the cycle of abuse nor saying that any (hypothetical) abuse agaist him excused his 30+ years of violent crime (indeed I wish he'd had a longer sentence for his 1978 attacks, and that his police record had been properly put together in total (rather than bits being lost during transfer between systems from paper systems)

Mairead - from the sentencing remarks - was living an abusive controlling man at the time this was happening. She still got 17 years - same as the male conspirator (who was not in the household)

Coercive control was under a different legal regime at the time

(PS: this is the first time I have ever been branded as an 'apologist' taking a completely different view on a number of the other cases/scenarios mentioned on the thread - it's been really revealing to see the 'if you think X you must also be Y' from the position of X who does not think Y)

Must cost a fortune keeping scumbags like this in Jail.

Shudder at the thought she'll start producing loads of kids again once out.

On the basic facts, I can understand why she isn’t serving a life sentence. I do think that half sentences are too short though and I don’t know the reasoning behind them

It's the law as it stands and it applies to all sentences where time in custody is specified. Similar to life sentences when the tariff of minimum time to be served is specified. I linked the judge's sentencing remarks yesterday, and the length of time in prison that each of the three was likely to serve was clearly laid out.

If you think custodial sentences generally should be mean longer in prison, then that's a whole separate issue and I'm not sure if there are any organisations calling for this that you could support (though I dare say google will turn some up)

A good thing to come out of Brexit is that the UK will now have a chance to bring the death penalty back now their hands arnt tied by Europe. ALL murders, rapists, paedophiles, child abusers, automatic death penalty!

Bollocks

I am rarely so strident, but this post is utter rubbish

UK's obligations on the abolition of the death penalty come from the UN (similar for human rights)

England/Wales/Scotland all abolished the death penalty in 1965 (eight years before joining EEC - not even EU at that stage) though not until 1973 in NI

She wasn't in the position of the rapist - she, and the other accomplice who was sentenced to 17 years (half in prison, half on licence), were not found (see the sentencing remarks) as the ones who came up with the idea of it, or carried out the crime. Or indeed wanted to frame/punish the woman who had just had the temerity to leave him.*

It doesn’t matter who came up with the idea or who carried it out. Nobody is saying she did. What people are excusing here is that she went along with it, because, they say, she was under his control. But the trial showed otherwise. She could - and should - have sought help rather than let her babies be burnt to death. This shouldn’t be in dispute.

It doesn’t help anyone to keep her locked up. It doesn’t bring back her children. She did a shockingly stupid, awful thing but no one thinks she intended to kill them. More likely she is several marbles short.

She did a shockingly stupid, awful thing but no one thinks she intended to kill them.

Shockingly stupid is leaving your kids alone thinking they will probably be fine and something happening to one of them. Negligence is stupid. This is outright criminality. She had the capacity to understand the outcome, so she is responsible for the outcome.

Mick didn't intend to kill them either though so I'm not sure that can be used as an excuse .

She could - and should - have sought help rather than let her babies be burnt to death. This shouldn’t be in dispute

I don't think anyone is disputing that

No excusing any of those three.

If she was capable of raising those poor children without the social workers taking them off her for her low intelligence and deemed fit to stand trial then she is intelligent enough to know the dangers of fire.

She has obviously had a messed up life in a lot of ways but I can’t believe a normal loving mother, no matter how abused, wouldn’t have risked her life to call 999 before the fire was lit rather than risk carrying out this awful plan. There comes a point where no matter what an adult has been through they need to stand up for their dc who are innocent minors and protect them, this wasn’t a dad who suddenly snapped, this was planned, no excuses.

AuntieStella I missed your post yesterday with the sentencing remarks or wouldn’t have reposted them.

I understand that people are released on licenses as part of official procedures but what I am curious about is why those procedures were introduced. Was it to reduce prison numbers or over crowding at one stage? We’re sentencing guidelines thought to be too harsh but couldn’t be reduced without political backlash?

I have a very vague recollection of this being in the papers about 30 years ago but it obviously wasn’t very interesting to me at the time or I would have remembered more about it.

You sound knowledgable and reasonable so if you could shed some light, I’d appreciate it.

@Foxinthechickencoop

I’ve only read the first page I’m afraid. But I’m saddened.

Mariad was a victim of the most serious and terrifying coercive and violent control and abuse , she had mild learning difficulties and was extremely vulnerable and mick philpott was the worst kind of abuser both mentally and emotionally. She was younger than him, reliant on him for money, and had been groomed and conditioned by him for years. She was terrified of him and yes he probably would have killed her if she spoke up.
The original plan wasn’t to kill the children, but to make it look like someone who Phil was issue with subjected them to an arson attack. It went horribly wrong. Do you think that she had much say or choice in what happened then or next. She lost her children. She is a victim of domestic abuse and coercive control. And she was repeatedly failed by mental health services, and acute care in the hospital. After several suicide attempts and trips to emergency department over many years before these awful events of the fire, no one bothered to explore the reason behind them. Or picked up on the many many red flags.

Obviously as a mother she should have left and protected her children. To what... hand them over to Mick for sole unsupervised care half the time? You only have to read a few threads in relationships here to see that well educated women with their own money and lots of support and men much less scary, have trouble trying to leave abusive relationships. Mentally and practically. Add mental health issue, learning difficulties, no money, limited education and no emotional or practical support and you are pretty trapped.

I’ve read the review, as part of the multi agency domestic abuse awareness groups I attend. It’s terrifying and unbelievably sad. And could happen to anyone, really.

This.

I was a victim of coercive control (no violence or sexual violence), I'm intelligent with no learning disabilities and I couldn't tell left from right by the time my cunt of a husband was done with me. Its taken me 5 years to recover and even now the PTSD kicks my ass occasionally.

I dread to think what she went through and I don't doubt for a second she believed the children would not be harmed.

Mick should have been doing life in prison from the age of 21 after stabbing his girlfriend 15 times, not free to continue his reign of terror.

I don't think anyone is disputing that

But there is the criminal element. That’s what makes her not the victim here. She didn’t do what any caring person would do.

I don't think anyone is disputing that Plenty of people on this thread are disputing that though.

She was so ground down that she was fearful and felt she had no choice according to some.

She couldn’t get help because she needed to protect her children....

She knew that if she left he would kill her as well as the children.

And so the excuses keep coming.

Fact is that if she was afraid of being killed herself then she was prepared to sacrifice her children to save herself. it doesn’t matter that neither of them intended to kill the children. They did.

he wasn’t intending to kill the children either, but he did.

It’s irrelevant what the intention is if the possibility is there. Setting fire to the house always meant that there was a chance the children would die. There are well documented cases of children dying in house fires, so it wasn’t a first here. And yet they both still did it, knowing that, while they didn’t intend to kill the children, there was a chance that they would.

If you drink and get into a car you may do so not intending to hit someone and kill them, but the fact you’re under the influence of alcohol makes that possibility considerably higher. Do we say of a drink driver who has killed someone “they didn’t intend to do it.”?

It was an extremely upsetting case. But this man was extremely controlling and abusive. The family appeared on Jeremy Vile, part of this was shown in a programme after the trial. Lisa Marie left with her dcs but sadly Mairead didn't.

I hope that he is kept in custody for longer than the 15 years minimum. But I do think she just blindly followed his plan, most of us wouldn't even think of putting our dcs at risk of smoke inhalation. Would justice be served by keeping her in custody any longer? She's a very damaged woman of low intelligence and I doubt she'll ever find peace of mind. God help her if she's ever tracked down though.

[quote Foxinthechickencoop]@lovelovelove2020 and it was the other wife that life who Mick was trying to frame for the fire! That was the reason behind it! So no it wasn’t ‘easy’ for any of them to leave.[/quote]
I have never said it was 'easy' for any of them. She was abused, raped and beaten in this relationship. It was horrendous for her. The relevant authorities really need to look into why they didn't help her and the children earlier. Instead her situation was ridiculed and used for entertainment - Jeremy Kyle show, Ann Widecome documentary.

According to the judge she was strong enough to refuse him a divorce so she could stand up to him on that count but not starting a fire in the hallway when her children were in the house.