To think Lucy Letby should be made to attend court for the sentencing

[Viviennemary]

I know there are other threads on this terrible case. But I just read she has refused to attend court for the sentencing which is to be on Monday morning. The judge said he does not have the power to force her to attend. Can't see she will ever be allowed out of prison. And rightly so.

I didn't realise that offenders refusing to attend court for their sentencing was a thing? Has it always been the case they can refuse??

If someone has a whole life term then the extra 5 years is meaningless. Prison officers would strongly resist any sort of "No privileges ever" punishment because it removes any incentive to behave in prison. If you're looking at the rest of your life in prison with nothing that will ever make it better but also nothing that can make it worse, you have nothing whatsoever to lose by being violent or homicidal.

You would rather force a defendant into court to possibly cause even more grief to the families by outbursts or other similar unpleasant behaviour for what reason. Prisoners do have rights and knee jerk reactions to horrendous acts helps no one

With the greatest respect, decisions on law shouldn’t be made based on the feelings of the families of victims. They are, naturally, emotionally charged and heavily biased opinions, whereas you need a balanced and impartial decision-making process. We wouldn’t allow a family member to be judge or jury for the same reasons and everyone understands and accepts that.

Why does it need to be a balanced and impartial decision-making process? So that the law is as robust as it can be and therefore we can bring these people to justice in the first place. If you want those people to be tried and punished, you need a functioning justice system.

Are the Daily Mail readers on here, they are calling for her to be dragged to court

What if they read their statements to her and she blatantly doesn't listen? Suppose she's sitting there with her hands in her ears shouting and singing? Indeed, some people can make themselves not mentally "present" so that none of what is going on around them penetrates. Will that make the families feel better?

Didnt an expert witness, a psychiatrist say she was born with a psychotic personality? My understanding is psychosis can be treated with drugs but never cured.

If an offender genuinely did not feel remorse about what they had done and were proud of it, the victim impact statement would either have no impact or make them feel even better knowing the pain that they have caused to someone. In that case, what would be the benefit of forcing them to attend? Or forcing them to listen to the judge saying that they have committed a ‘heinous crime’?
What benefit would there be for the families to see them smiling and laughing at them the whole time?

I’m not saying this is LL as none of us know what her thoughts are on it, however it is a wider discussion to be had. I agree with the PP that, with the greatest respect, we cannot allow family members to dictate how the law is enforced. If someone refuses to attend court for sentencing but the family wish to look them in the eye, even if that person will take pleasure in their pain, could this not be arranged as a prison visit?

Soffin I get you disagree with me fine.

But why quote something I've said and then out a bold sentence underneath that is not my words as evidence to disagree with me?

I read that the UK has become a more punitive society within the last decade. In terms of stiffer sentences, I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. But the mouth frothing and baying for blood and suggestions of brute force on here suggest we're becoming a much less rational society. I feel the mark of how we as a state treat our lowest, meanest members needs to be set higher than the level of those lowest, meanest members themselves. Emotion doesn't lend itself to this. It undermines it and twists it. There is a reason Justice is depicted as blind; she will be sentenced either way, life will go on, process will trundle on.

So no, don't force her or change the law. We should let her absence show her up for the coward she is. Let her cowardice and the statements of her victims be the headlines and the conclusion to the case. Then let her be forgotten. I personally think her absence puts her victims at the forefront anyway.

If she went on hunger strike and refused to eat or drink, noone could make her could they?

I still don’t get why she can’t be forced (within reason). Surely some prisoners are very obstructive to purposely be a nuisance, refusing to do anything they’re told? They’re still put in their cells at night, they’re still handcuffed when necessary, they’re still transferred to other prisons, etc. Letby is a normal-sized woman. Couldn’t two or three male officers put handcuffs on her and frogmarch her into court?

If she started shouting and disrupting proceedings, she could be removed back to the court cell, remain in cuffs and supervised, and be forced to listen to the proceedings via audio.

What if she or future prisoners then refuse to leave the prison to go to court? Broadcast the proceedings to their cell or a suitable prison room where they listen cuffed and supervised.

It can’t beyond the realms of imagination to ensure such people are made to listen. Although a tiny, tiny minority might shout and worse, I think the majority will comply grudgingly when they realise there’s no choice and they’ll be hearing it anyway, whether in the court or their cell. People like Letby shouldn’t be given the power of having the choice.

Those wanting her to hear the effect on those poor families seem to be missing a key point:

When she murdered each baby, she saw the effects on the family up close and personal. She saw them collapse to the floor, heard them howl in unimaginable agony, watched their faces collapse. She stood there and watched it all first-hand, while pretending to care and to console them. She watched them cuddle their dead baby, heard their conversations, even made memory boxes for them.

Then she did it again and again and again.

She presumably gets some sort of self-gratification from their grief. Listening to them relive it at sentencing isn’t going to get the reaction you’re all hoping for.

She has a legal right not to attend. Even people who have committed such awful crimes as this still have legal rights and so they should.
We can’t pick and choose who is worthy of our legal system and it’s protections

She wasn't forced to attend. It was her one and only chance to defend herself, she obviously wanted to attend.

The thing is that, as much as they may want it, there is still nothing that can make a defendant listen if they don't want to. Why promise something that can't be delivered?

It's not a soap opera; really can't see the point of frogmarching her in there.

The damage is done and the verdict has been reached.

The criminal is convicted.

Sentencing, to my mind, is for the Judge to be accountable to the public in what the sentence is and why. It is between the Judge and society, the judge telling the people what s/he will do on their behalf.

The prison term is the sentence. We may want to look at her with contempt, bang on the van as she arrives, yell at her, and see her stand in shame in court, but that isn’t actually part of the sentence.

Don't be silly.

What do guards do when a prisoner refuses to leave the court cells to be transferred to prison? or wont return to their cells in a prison? let them stay there??? violent prisoners have always had to be restrained, often using sprays....

As far as i am concerned, its most victims families that want the guilty there.. & if they do, then their wishes are paramount, not what you or i think.

Yeah I've seen that from some of the other responses, they've opened my eyes

Because if you change a law for one you change it for everyone. Its all very well saying that Letby is a normal sized woman but unless you are suggesting laws that only apply to normal sized women you cannot just think of her.

The largest man to be convicted in recent history in the UK was 43 stone. Whatever you suggest can be applied to Letby would also need to be applied to him.

And what about the rights of the staff that would have to be involved in this? What about their families?

Do you know about the statistics for physical injury and PTSD in prison and police staff?

Do you know how having a disabled parent can do to children? Having to live on the poverty line because they can't work anymore? What it's like living with a partner or partner with PTSD? How it can destroy families relationships and tear families apart? Cause alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide.

And the wider costs. There are already recruitment problems in those areas. What do we do when we no longer have Police to actually ya know, protect the public. Or prison officers?

Have you seen what's happening in some states of the USA where crime is literally out of control, contributed to by the fact there is an inadequate Police force. Wallmart one of the biggest supermarket chain has shut down multiple superstores with one reason being, the insane level of theft. People literally filling trollies and walking out and filming it for Facebook. And these tend to be higher-crime areas which equals - poverty stricken areas. What are poor families going to do when they no longer have a relatively cheap supermarket available to them?

And please nobody say, that won't happen here. We're already on the way to it. Police forces already saying they don't have the resources to attend burglaries for instance.

Thus isn't about defending LL or her rights. There are many more issues to be considered.

Well no, it isn't. They lose their freedom. It's not the same.

I'm a bit bemused by this idea that you can "force" someone to listen to the proceedings while in a holding cell.

A lot of people are perfectly capable of compartmentalising thoughts and blocking out external stimuli, so you could have it blaring at 100 db on a 70 inch screen, and they'd still look straight through it and fill their heads with enough white noise to block out the auditory part.

It's clearly for no other reason that to slake some sort of vindictive thirst, which rightly has no place whatsoever in criminal justice.

I might be out of date here, but I believe there are two circumstances in which force-feeding can happen in UK prisons.

In the first, a patient detained under the Mental Health Act can be force-fed if it is believed feeding is necessary to treat their underlying mental disorder.

In the second, which is governed by case law, doctors can force-feed patients if they have become mentally incapacitated and they believe it is in their best interests and will save their life. Doctors hate doing this, and the Secretary of State for Justice (used to be the Home Secretary) is normally advised to obtain a specific court order in the High Court.

Otherwise a prisoner can make an advance declaration to refuse food and water while they have capacity, and force-feeding is thereafter unlawful, even if the prisoner dies.

It's a thorny case-by-case issue.