I’d want to do the same - mother kills children’s abuser

[HermioneKipper]

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/sarah-sands-kill-sex-abuse-paedophile-b2231508.html

i think any parent would do the same if given the chance

I think we all know on a visceral level that she served him his comeuppance which by all accounts he would not have received otherwise. It's cruel that she and her boys were them robbed of family healing time, a great price she paid for dealing justice. But sometimes things need to be done no matter the cost.

The criminal justice system on the other hand is completely abhorrent.

She said he tried to grab the knife from her. A top lawyer could have got her off on self defence, or at least created enough doubt to avoid meeting the “beyond reasonable doubt” test required to convict her.

Yeah, good luck with that argument.

With the English justice system, he would have been out and abusing other children within a decade. She did what the court system refuses to do, protect victims. Fair play to her.

If we give her a medal, we're sending out a signal that it's open season for any fanatic go go out and kill people s/he thinks shouldn't be allowed to live.

We already give medals to plenty of people who decide who shouldn't be allowed to live.

This thread is going a bit awry

It's no longer about understanding her reasons , understandable or not

But that the fall out of her actions were huge and devastating for her children

@Idtotallybangdreamoftheendlessnotgonnalie talked earlier about ACE (adverse childhood experiences )

If you look up that research which is well tested & used. Losing your mum when vulnerable (and needed her most) was devastating for her sons

They lost a huge amount and so did Sarah. It is terribly terribly sad.

I'm angry at the awful decision the judge who agreed to bail him back to a flat so close it was in eye-line of his victims as that was cruel and ill -thought out (& annoyed they have remained in law 'alleged victims' rather than legally confirmed victims following a conviction)

Do we know that these children did actually accuse this man of rape? I can only see references to assault in the reports. I fully accept that sexual assault of children is a very serious offence but it's not the same thing.

No, I would never do something that hurt my children by abandoning them when they needed support.

Rape is always described as sexual assault in the media @Novum so I expect the poor kids were raped. Bastard.

I suspect you are confusing "apologists" with people who simply say that vigilantism is wrong. If you condone vigilante justice, can you explain to us how you guarantee that an innocent person will never be victimised by it?

Certainly the system failed in allowing this man to continue to live hear his victims, but the way to deal with that would have been to talk to the police about what could be done to protect them, including applying for bail conditions to be varied, not to go round there with a knife.

We just cannot condone people saying "I have no faith in the system so I'll take the law into my own hands" because the dangers are absolutely obvious.

I just watched it.

I think her sentence was fair. She broke the law and murdered a man. No one but her is responsible for that. And even though she was sentenced to 7 she only served 4.

The initial decision to send him home was appalling to say the least. Changing names without anyone knowing is horrifying. I don't know what the answer is, all scenarios have good/bad points.

But revenge killing isn't the answer.

I'm bothered by it because I want to live in a society where people are only punished in a regulated, controlled system after being convicted beyond reasonable doubt. Anything else leaves open not just the possibility, but the virtual certainty, that innocent people will be killed. Also because when we say "you must not kill, but it's OK for us to do so" we become hypocrites well below the level of the individuals in question.

It is still preferable to vigilante justice.

Does that make it OK to murder them?

They do. I assume that is factored into the figures.

The state should do it.

Child sexual abuse is worse than murder and should be punished worse than murder.

Life imprisonment for murder.

Death penalty for child sexual abuse.

Agreed.

That's not actually what her sons said.

Principally I agree that there can be no vigilantism else where do you draw the line.

I also principally agree with a criminal justice system that serves to keep the public safe and punishes criminals in an adequate way. In this country we police by consent.

However, it would seem the latter failed in this instance, on multiple occasions, and defending the right of a few (1 man here) has caused more harm to the majority (these 3 boys plus 24 prior convictions?).

Given failures of the criminal justice system in so many areas of life, it’s hard to argue it is fit for purpose. Police by consent means there is broad public support for it. Now whether it’s inadequacies to prosecute, or policing (mis)conduct generally this will only lead down one path if the belief is the ‘justice’ system doesn’t deliver justice.

They had to live with their grandmother in overcrowded accommodation. Unsurprisingly, they would have preferred to carry on living with their mother.

The regulated controlled system that you seem to think exists failed, many many times. Leaving this predator free to abuse more children.

It didn't just fail by allowing this monster bail, it had failed many times befoe that by allowing him to be free when he was a huge danger to children.

You are still being unrealistic. If you are going to assume reoffending in these circumstances, then you must also bring into your calculations all the costs of the parole system including rearresting people who don't keep to parole conditions, compensation for their victims, etc. Then there are all the costs of rehabilitating ex-prisoners back into the community and supervising them there. Costs of prison would still come out way ahead.

Completely?

Was it completely abhorrent when, say, it locked up Ian Huntley and Rose West?

He would have got an extra long sentence due to the extra factor of his deceitful conduct in changing his name. It's really unlikely that he would be out of prison in anything under 15 years, if he even survived that long. After all, he was 77 and there is no indication that he lived a healthy life.

Thank-you xx