Man "snaps' and kills wife, sentenced to 5 years

[snowballer]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56109330

This is just so depressing. I understand it couldn't be shown to be premeditated and therefore murder, but how can it be such a short sentence in view of the fact she was found with keys in hand trying to escape and it wasn't therefore something that happened in the space of a few seconds? Manslaughter sentences can still be hefty - I just can't understand this. Just another devastating end of a life for a woman at the hands of a man, with another miserably short sentence for the perpetrator. Awful. Just awful.

Sick of the "diminished responsibility" excuse. If he was determined to be of sound enough mind to go to jail rather than a mental facility, it should be tried as murder.

There has been a long debate defences of “snapping” favouring men rather than women. This was particularly the case with provocation.
Are murder laws sexist? www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29612916

This makes me so sad, my ex strangled me once, he has mental health issues. I thought he was going to kill me, the fact he could have and only get 5 years makes me feel sick

@Brefugee
Oh here we go with the whataboutdamenz. The point is that, yes, men are more likely to kill other men. But that women are more likely to be killed by men, and the men they are more likely to be killed by are known to them and often a partner or ex-partner. That is the point.

No, that wasn’t the point I responded to. Look at the pp I quoted. Their point was saying men only snap to kill women. You are bringing up a completely different point altogether.

@CoronaIsWatching

Sick of the "diminished responsibility" excuse. If he was determined to be of sound enough mind to go to jail rather than a mental facility, it should be tried as murder.

Yes that’s my view, if he’s so ill he snaps and kills and the judge believed that, then why wasn’t he sent to a secure mental institute? Why did the judge send him to jail?

It spells the judge didn’t believe it. Not for one moment. And gave him an unduly lenient sentence,

I do wonder if the judge was a man,

@Bluntness100
if he is so ill he kills then he should Have a life in a high security mental institute.

Yes, I somewhat agree. If he was that ill, I think he should have gotten a hospital order and been detained there indefinitely (no set term) because maybe he is dangerous and could reoffend? Who knows? Glad it is being reviewed too.

Just to reiterate. I don't agree with the sentence he received at all, and have no doubt if he was younger, had it now been his spouse he would have got longer.
My post was to highlight what people are saying locally, which is effectively 'he seemed like a nice guy, was paranoid byt he virus and his family support him'.
The main issue with this is that the sentence is a joke, but most are.
I was horrified by the undercover peadophile police show that just aired of channel 4. People caught with child images etc who didn't even get a custodial sentence.

Francesca sadly that is an oft trotted out line in these cases “he was a good bloke/family man/never said boo to a goose.”, and all too often this is proved to be false.

Take the tragic case of Clodagh Hawe and her three sons in Ireland in 2016. After the initial murder everyone was proclaiming what a great bloke her husband was, deputy head of the school and how he was so involved with the church, etc and how he must have just snapped one day. It later all came spilling out that he was a secret cross dresser who had been caught accessing porn on a work laptop and had been caught masturbating on school premises.

For balance it is important to note that Sally Challen was eventually allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-47407204
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-48554239

However, the comparison between how she was treated by the legal system and her 9 yr sentence and this case is depressing. Her son David has been tweeting his concern. (Her sons always supported her).

DR can be a justified defence but this sentence seems low. I would like to read the sentencing remarks.

I don't for a second believe that someone who "snapped" would follow his partner from upstairs to downstairs, see her try to leave with keys in her hand and continue to strangle her. Clearly a person for whom such behaviour would be shocking and out of character would have realised very swiftly that they need to stop. IMO his behaviour was premeditated and cold, he knew exactly why he followed her and what he wanted to do to hurt, either seriously hurt her or kill her.

Sally Challen was abused for many years, subjected to coercive control and gaslighted. These are completely different circumstances. Here we have a man who was acting strange since January 2020, supposedly had unreasonable financial concerns and suddenly "snapped" 5 days into the first lockdown and killed his wife. None of it makes any sense. And if they tried to say that he was unwell for 2.5 months at that point, well then - he had enough time and money pre-pandemic to seek help. There is no justification for killing his wife.

Five years that’s disgusting

Poor woman. Poor family, I wonder if there was a history of DV and they wanted it hidden.
If he truly snapped that day he needs to be on a very psychiatric ward until the day he dies.

@Francescaisstressed

I actually live locally to them and have heard some things (which may or may not be true). His daughter was a character witness is trying to get him off, I suppose that helped him. He had never been violent before and they were in a loving marriage and it was quite clear lockdown was getting to him. He's an old man, in 5 years he may be very frail and ultimately he has to live with the guilt of killing his wife.

That’s just what you know and think of him. We have no idea of his daughter’s motives. He’s certainly not an old man. An 82 year old man overpowered me when I was 16 and tried to kiss me and I have no doubt that this was a precursor to sexually abuse me. I was totally incapacitated. I managed to fight him off by screaming at him to get off me and to fuck off. He was not particularly tall. But oh my god was he strong. And had clearly done this before.

Just don’t go there.

Darn it. Wish I'd read about this yesterday so I could put it in the government survey about violence against women.

I don't agree with the sentence he received at all, and have no doubt if he was younger, had it now been his spouse he would have got longer

One hundred percent, if he was 25 and killed a bloke his own age, he’d have got life. Even if he didn’t own his own home and have 150k in savings ans said he was so stressed after five days of lock down he couldn’t help it. He’d still have got life.

But because he is seventy and it was “only” his wife he killed, then he got a lenient term.

But not an indefinite mental health facility until deemed to be well enough to be released into society. Nope. He’s not that ill. He’s not so ill he can’t go to jail for a short term. Not so ill he can’t be released back into society in a couple of years. But just ill enough it’s not his fault he killed his wife.

I really want the judge held accountable for this. Publicly so. I want them to have to explain themselves publicly. Under questioning. They should not be able to hide from public scrutiny. The hold public office and need to be held publicly responsible.

Cracking down on domestic violence? What a joke this makes of it. Now any abuser can kill and use lock down as the reason and expect to be out in short order. What message does it send, to victims, abusers, the police, lawyers, barristers. Now you can brutally kill your wife. And get five years for it if you’re stressed from lockdown,

No, that wasn’t the point I responded to. Look at the pp I quoted. Their point was saying men only snap to kill women. You are bringing up a completely different point altogether
If a man said he snapped and killed another man, a respected man, then the court would not be so quick to believe it was a momentary lapse that should be treated leniently. It would be taken more seriously and sentencing would be more likely to reflect the nature of the crime. Imagine if this same man had snapped and strangled his doctor.

@Mummyoflittledragon
As I've said. I don't agree with the sentence at all. I'm trying to explain what generally the locals are saying. I don't know the family.
My point is that you get the general 'he's a nice man, his daughter didn't want a harsh sentence etc' trotted out and that people think it's harsh because he's old.
My point is, had he been younger and it not been his wife I'm sure that he would have less support.

I wouldn't go as far as pinning the blame on the judge, I don't think enough information has been made public and maybe it's the prosecution who didn't do a good job? Maybe it is the judge? Maybe the jury? Maybe the whole "system"? This clearly needs to be reviewed and fast, and then more facts will come to light.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

If he wanted to go down the insanity route then life in a psychiatric hospital should have been the minimum sentence given.

This.

He snapped.

She ran away. He chased her and killed her with his bare hands by snapping her neck.

If he honestly had such diminished responsibility he was out of control for that length of time then he needs intense and secure psychiatric care IMO.

5 years is disgusting.

What annoys me is the double think just living in the world involves:

1. Not all men. It is a tiny minority etc etc
2. He was a good person who just snapped in the moment (and so was the one who killed his wife last week, and the one three days before that, and the one a week before that). Any one could snap in the moment and do something terrible. Because if that is the case, and "even good men" are capable of this, then the first point is blatantly untrue.

The prosecution do appear, on the limited facts we have, to have pushed hard against the DR plea - they brought their own psychologist out to argue strongly against the defence case, but it seems that the jury didn’t believe them.

@PurplePansy05

Sally Challen was abused for many years, subjected to coercive control and gaslighted. These are completely different circumstances. Here we have a man who was acting strange since January 2020, supposedly had unreasonable financial concerns and suddenly "snapped" 5 days into the first lockdown and killed his wife. None of it makes any sense. And if they tried to say that he was unwell for 2.5 months at that point, well then - he had enough time and money pre-pandemic to seek help. There is no justification for killing his wife.

That was the point I was making. The defence of diminished responsibility isn’t the problem - there are valid cases. The issue is how it is being used in this case. As I linked above provocation/loss of control as a partial defence has not been applied equally between men and women. When you compare this case to Sally Challen it seems amazing that they both could use DR and that she got a much higher sentence. Her treatment by her husband was horrific.

[quote Francescaisstressed]@Mummyoflittledragon
As I've said. I don't agree with the sentence at all. I'm trying to explain what generally the locals are saying. I don't know the family.
My point is that you get the general 'he's a nice man, his daughter didn't want a harsh sentence etc' trotted out and that people think it's harsh because he's old.
My point is, had he been younger and it not been his wife I'm sure that he would have less support.[/quote]
It is much easier for the daughter to believe that her father was ill and snapped, that he wasn’t responsible than it will be for her to believe, and for everyone to publicly know her father brutally killed her mother and knew exactly what he was doing, and for her to loose both of them, and to live with the knowledge that’s what your father is.

It ultimately doesn’t matter though how “nice” a man he is. If he is so mentally diminished he kills and can’t stop himself then he should be in a secure mental facility. Until he is deemed to be safe to return to society. If he is not that ill, then he doesn’t have diminished responsibility and he should have got life. That’s it.

He’s either so ill he has diminished responsibility and doesn’t belong in a prison. Or he’s not so ill and he should be properly sentenced.

What he can’t be is just ill enough to kill but not ill enough for hospital

Bloody hell. This is so terribly sad ☹️