Penelope jackson guilty of murder

[Thomasina79]

I’ve been following this news item with interest. She is the woman who stabbed her violent and coercive and bullying husband to death after 20 years of torment. She denied murder, but admitted manslaughter.

Am I being unreasonable in thinking the jury should have not found her guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. Murder carries a life sentence in prison and I cannot see that that there is anything to gain by locking her away.

@CounsellorTroi

The majority of murders of both men and women don’t make national headlines.

This is very true ,there is currently a trial going on near me ,which I'm following,its in the local paper and the killing happened round the corner from me ,but it's not even been on the local news yet , certainly not national.

Completely agree antigardener

@FourteenSixteenTwentyTwo

This is a side tangent, and not necessarily about this case, but I find the ‘lack of evidence about domestic abuse’ comments really troubling.

I don’t think I’m unique in this, but no one person could attest to abuse from my ex as it was always behind closed doors. In fact I’m fairly certain some probably don’t believe that he could have done it. I remember finally telling a couple of my friends after an incident and one of them made a joke how she would probably do something similar if she had to live with me. I didn’t talk about it again until I was ready to leave.

I’m also amazed that a knife to a throat several years ago is discounted as ‘historic’ without a single thought that just because it hasn’t been witnessed since, doesn’t mean it’s not still going on.

I don’t think it’s up to anyone else to suggest this is not murder if that’s what the jury agreed, but nor does a judgement (or even the action of murder) mean domestic abuse did not occur.

I agree. There's no evidence my ex abused me either. I agree she murdered him, but don't think she's a psychopath. I think she hated him.

@x2boys

People need to stop minimising this and making stories up in their minds about what they believe happened ,the Jury believe she murdered him ,despite how people try and twist this

Could you stop trying to stop people debating? Yours is not the only opinion.

Agree and so much abuse can happen without children knowing, how can historic abuse be discounted? I doubt she forgot what it was like to have a knife held to her throat

@TheAntiGardener

Some of the issues I have with this thread:

Posters concluding a stranger is a ‘psycho’ based on one video.

Posters who suggest there is no way she can have been abused because victims don’t act like that / she had money so could leave / she wasn’t a pleasant character either.

Posters who come out with simplistic statements - the jury (not unanimously) agreed it was murder in this case, but abuse CAN reduce a murder charge to manslaughter. And it has been a long-running debate as to whether this should be expanded to include abuse victims who did not lose control at the time of killing. This is a complex area.

Posters who are happy to dismiss evidence that suggests she was subjected to abuse herself by saying it happened years ago. Again, this cast-iron certainty in ascribing to the individuals involved the roles of villain and hapless victim.

If that makes me ‘dreadful’, then fine. But I’m not someone who has heard about this case and instantly concluded ‘she’s definitely evil, throw away the key’.

Agreed 💯. So many handmaidens on this thread.

X2boys, I know from experience juries can get it wrong, it's not an infallible system

@Felix125

They will be other incidents of of women killing men - they just do not make headline news for some reason.

93% of murderes in the UK are men.

But what happened in this judgment is best understood by those who were part of it.

This is something people need to remember.

You can't assign your own personal experiences to Penelopes because it sits better with you about how this panned out.

As pointed out very well earlier - we get to see bias reports. The facts came out in court. I'm court a jury of 8 woman and 4 men found her guilty of murder.

*murderers

@itsgettingwierd

But what happened in this judgment is best understood by those who were part of it.

This is something people need to remember.

You can't assign your own personal experiences to Penelopes because it sits better with you about how this panned out.

As pointed out very well earlier - we get to see bias reports. The facts came out in court. I'm court a jury of 8 woman and 4 men found her guilty of murder.

“Many studies suggest women are more likely to judge female rape complainants harshly and to acquit men accused of rape. In 2009, Irish academics who studied 108 rape trials found that male-dominated juries had the highest conviction rate. There was not a single conviction in the 17 cases which had female-dominated juries”

www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/women-under-represented-on-juries-in-serious-criminal-trials-1.3156886

She murdered him so it's correct she's found guilty of murder. She went back to stab him some more and showed no remorse, she's a murderer. The judgement is correct.

The irony @mountbattenbergcake 🙄
You are determined this women despite not knowing her is somehow the abused one ,I disagree , it's not all about your opinion

I think it's the right verdict (because there doesn't appear to have been any finished responsibility) but my sympathies lie with Valerie. DV is a horrid beast that has a permanent impact on a person's psychology. I hope she appeals and gets a lesser sentence.

My mum suffered mental abuse and coercive control from my dad throughout her married life. It was heartbreaking.

She used to tell me that she sometimes fantasised about killing him to make it stop. Had she done this I would have testified in court but my evidence would have been 10 years old- the last time I personally observed it rather than hearing about it.

The psychology of why women don't leave is complex. My mum hated my dad, her life was miserable but she 'felt sorry for him' and wouldn't throw him out. I saw her life just gradually drain away through misery and loneliness. My dad was evil and when he died I very calmly said I wished I could dance on his grave and was glad he died.

[quote mountbattenbergcake]@Felix125

They will be other incidents of of women killing men - they just do not make headline news for some reason.

93% of murderes in the UK are men.[/quote]
Thanks for that link.

It make very interesting reading.

Mostly that the highest number of people committing murders are make but also males are 73% of the total homicides. White British are less than 2/3rds.

The highest incidence in children under 1 and then 16-24yo.

But it also states that homicides of woman from partners/ex partners has decreased this year. That is something I'd like to explore further. How and why?

It's a huge document that you could take and spin most figures to any agenda you have. But there is certainly some data that makes some interesting questions arise.

@dottypencilcase

I think it's the right verdict (because there doesn't appear to have been any finished responsibility) but my sympathies lie with Valerie. DV is a horrid beast that has a permanent impact on a person's psychology. I hope she appeals and gets a lesser sentence.

Valerie ??

Mount what has stats of rape cases got to do with Oenelope being found guilty of murder by the people who sat through the evidence

@Movinghouseatlast

That is so sad, I'm so sorry for what you and your mum have been through.

None of us can know the reality of what happened in that marriage. Was he abusive? Was she abusive? None of us can know for sure. The jury was better placed than any of us but even they don't know for sure. Even if he did abuse her throughout the marriage as she claimed, that isn't an automatic "get out of jail free" card on a murder charge. Her defence was loss of control. For this to succeed, she needed to prove that she lost control, that there was a qualifying trigger and that a person of her age and sex, with a normal degree of tolerance and self-restraint, might have reacted in the same way or a similar way in the same circumstances. The qualifying trigger must be a fear of serious violence (which appears to be what she attempted to claim) and/or things said and/or done which "constituted circumstances of an extremely grave character" and caused her to have a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged. The judge allowed this defence to go to the jury, so clearly the defence had done enough to raise this as an issue. However, the jury rejected it, so clearly they thought the prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt that it was not loss of control.

A number of posters have compared this case with that of Anthony Williams. His case was rather different in that he ran a defence of diminished responsibility. There was expert evidence from a psychologist to supported his defence and there was also evidence of strange behaviour in the weeks leading up to the killing. There was no suggestion of domestic abuse in this case. Apart from the fact he was charged with murder and pleaded guilty to manslaughter, it has little in common with this case.

Note that I am not saying either jury was correct in their verdict. It is quite possible that one or both juries were wrong. But they heard all the evidence before making their decision. We only have the bits of evidence that the press chose to report - 5-minute summaries of cases that lasted for days.

On the wider point, there don't appear to be any statistics that tell us whether men are more likely to succeed with "loss of control" or "diminished responsibility" defences than women. There are only a handful of cases a year in which one of these defences is advanced and the accused are overwhelmingly men, so it would be difficult to get reliable statistics.

@FourteenSixteenTwentyTwo

This is a side tangent, and not necessarily about this case, but I find the ‘lack of evidence about domestic abuse’ comments really troubling.

I don’t think I’m unique in this, but no one person could attest to abuse from my ex as it was always behind closed doors. In fact I’m fairly certain some probably don’t believe that he could have done it. I remember finally telling a couple of my friends after an incident and one of them made a joke how she would probably do something similar if she had to live with me. I didn’t talk about it again until I was ready to leave.

I’m also amazed that a knife to a throat several years ago is discounted as ‘historic’ without a single thought that just because it hasn’t been witnessed since, doesn’t mean it’s not still going on.

I don’t think it’s up to anyone else to suggest this is not murder if that’s what the jury agreed, but nor does a judgement (or even the action of murder) mean domestic abuse did not occur.

It goes both ways though and I think it is even less likely that there would be evidence of him being abused by her. No one knows what really goes on behind closed doors.

I'm pretty sure no one would believe my exDIL abused my son, she is so sweet so thoughtful so kind, so blonde and pretty. He is a big rugby playing bloke, no one would imagine he would be attacked in a bar or on the street and take it so who is going to believe he wouldn't hit back at a woman or even be the aggressor. Apart from the fact I know him and believe him my GC knew how to phone me and when she started I would get a phone call, child wouldn't speak but I'd hear what was going on. It was a cry for help and I would jump in the car to remove child from the situation. I'd arrive and see the state son was in and she'd look at me and deny everything. She was so convincing and I think that was because when she flipped she didn't even know what she did so when she denied it she was telling the truth as she believed it.

It is very very difficult to know the rights and wrongs. Even with the knife was that him on the point of flipping from the abuse but managing to stop? Or was that him being a violent bully?

I agree with you that we don't know if domestic abuse occurred or who was the abuser.

I found the interview and footage of her chilling .

[quote mountbattenbergcake]@Felix125

They will be other incidents of of women killing men - they just do not make headline news for some reason.

93% of murderes in the UK are men.[/quote]
I completely agree

Men are by far (93%) the major issue here.

Did Penelope go for diminished responsibility? Did she have psychological assessment before trial?

One would assume she would have had some psychoanalysis arranged by her defence if she claimed loss of control? Did any psychologists give evidence? For the defence or prosecution? The prosecution can ask for separate witness reports if they dispute the original or to raise questions to ask about the original report.

@wheresmymojo thats an absolutely shocking thing to say. This is real life, not a TV program. How you could laugh at that I don’t know.

I’m sick of mumsnet & the ‘all menz are bad’ brigade. This woman is a sick murderer & has been sentenced within the law. If you think you know better than the jury & judge you need to give your head a wobble, oh & watch the video of her on camera!