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.

She has a better understanding about how she feels.

But the way we conduct ourselves as a society and how law and the criminal justice system works shouldn't be based on feelings or vengeance.

It should be based on objective, rational analysis of all aspects of the case, and all individuals and aspects of society that it effects.

I'm not being callous but if we had a system that was based on the feelings of victims or some members of the public, we would not be a society that I would want to be part of.

The jury isn't in court unless they want to be, as their function is completed. She has already faced the families.

Exactly. If we put victims in charge of the punishment, we'd find ourselves hanging burglars and burglars. That can't be right.

I was suggesting that the only motivation for someone who refuses to attend sentencing ( where they have nothing to gain or lose as in LL's case ) may agree to attend, IF they felt any future appeal etc could be affected.

Its clear that public opinion, and importantly, the bereaved families, would very much wish that she does attend sentencing. But there is no law that compels her to, or that there is any disadvantage for her, in not doing so. And compared to suggestions of strapping her to a board and being wheeled screaming into court to 'face the music' I was of the view that my suggestion wasn't that thoughtless@thedancingbear

FWIW in This case, based on what we know, I fully expect there to be an appeal of some type.

This. Couldn't agree more.

It's not so much 'can they refuse?' as 'does it happen because the alternative is not practical.

A Judge can say that a defendant must appear but that ruling is then passed to the Prison governor who has to make a decision about whether they think they can practically direct their staff to force an inmate which carries risks to the inmate and the staff. So most Prison governors will say no, the risks are too high.

Hannibal Lecter didn't exist. Courts aren't built to accommodate wheeled carts.

You could do all of that, but you still couldn't make her listen. So what would you achieve apart from a bit of cheap sadism and voyeurism?

There are multiple families involved in this. What if some of them don't want to witness a person being dragged into court? Olivia Korbel-Pratt's Mum reacted completely different to her Dad over the court proceedings, Cashman's sentencing and him not attending. Sorting all this out could add weeks to the trial.

If we make this law would it apply to every case? There was a case of a hit and run by teens, on a teen and the teens were doing constant thumbs up to the victim's Mum. People rarely get the sense of closure that they think they will from the final day in court.

Indeed.

Which and I'm really trying not to be that poster but means in most cases, the women get dragged out of their cells and the big, scary men don't. And often, it'll be big male prison staff that drag the women out of their cells.

I can't be the only one that sees a problem with that.

@5128gap do you think that Andrew Malkinson doing a 17 year sentence is just unfortunate then? What if it was you or yours?

That was for @Claricethecat45

You should try. Because it was neither word salad nor nonsense, but very reasoned.

This sort of post in a way proves the point made. You're taking part in a thread but you have mentally blocked the post you don't want to read because the points made are so valid. In just the same way, Letby could be physically forced into court but she could completely block out everything that is happening. It won't help anyone.

I think you're right about this.

Somewhat tangential but it seems the inspectors on my regular train route (SouthEastern, I'm looking at you) can only be arsed to fine lone women for not having the right ticket. I wonder why that is?

I'm lovingthe responses here from people who have clearly never restrained another human being in their lives, bandying about like it's easy and a bit of excitement in the day so we should be dragging people about willy nilly.

Just stupid. Stop commenting on something you don't understand or have any experience of at all.

I agree. Noted it at the time but didn't post. @melj1213 made perfect sense.

It's not sanctimonious claptrap to see the bigger picture beyond just this case and want the law to be upheld for everyone, in every circumstance and not have it changed based on the wishes of victims families.

I have been impacted by crime, I have sat in court and watched the person who killed a family member receive a sentence and even though he say there passively it affected me seeing him; I have been to court to watch the rapist who attacked me at university be sentenced, all the while he was sat there grinning and smirking at the courtroom, waving at his supporters who were in the public gallery; I also have friends and family who work in the criminal justice system and would be the ones having to drag unwilling prisoners from prison cells, prison vans, holding cells, courts and deal with all the consequences of doing so.

I shouldn't have to write it all out on here for you to make a decision about whether I have been affected enough to pass judgement. Regardless of whether you think I should be allowed to post my opinion, I will do so anyway as I have the right to. I am a staunch supporter of the law being applied to everyone. The justice system should be based on rationality and not on emotion - just because a victims family wants something doesn't mean it should be implemented.

The fact that so many people are suggesting essentially torture - forcing someone to be physically restrained/gagged/put on a board, have audio/video forced on them so they have no choice but to listen etc - just because they believe they should be made to experience something shows why these things should be decided without emotion and by impartial people, not families and people whipped up by emotive headlines and cherry picked cases.

Looking at the practicalities is also not sanctimonious claptrap - it's all well and good volunteering other people to have to force prisoners into court but unless you're volunteering to be the front of the line to be spat on, kicked, bitten, punched, defecated on, sworn at, threatened and abused on a daily basis just for doing your job, and risking your personal safety for, then you are in no position to tell others that important practical concerns should be ignored just because of some misguided idea of "justice".

The world doesn't get to look at her whilst being sentenced.

She knows the effect of her actions. She was there at the time. She probably enjoyed it. Do you think her reactions will suddenly change? Does it help to show her that she still has power over the families? Whatever you do, nothing can force her to look at them or listen to anything that happens in court.

Put this demon on a wheeled cart like Hannibal Lector & force her to face the moment of reckoning

This is disturbing, isn’t it? This poster is like those vicious thugs in prisons who harm fellow prisoners in particularly nasty ways because they deem them to be further down the moral pecking order than themselves and therefore fair game.

Or perhaps, when it came down to it, they wouldn’t actually commit acts of violence themselves, just enjoy the spectacle if some hired minions could do it for them.

Come on now, we need to be better than this, as a society, as decent humans.

I'm not even implying misogyny to be honest. I'm just stating biological facts. Most men are stronger than most women.

In the course of my work-life I've had to, as a woman be involved in restraints. The strength difference between men and women is extreme.

So I think in summary women are to be strapped to a board, gagged, dragged by their hair and tased to make them appear in court and men just get to listen to the sentencing from their cells.

So we torture women because they are smaller and more defenseless because apparently that makes society better

Yep!

And it's all very well people blithely saying oh well we already force people to do this and that... but actually, we already have a significant problem with getting sufficient staff to transport even willing prisoners to courts. Also with recruitment to prison work in general, of course. Not enough people are willing to do it.

Nobody has explained where these extra workers are going to come from. People never do, when it comes to actually resourcing their bright ideas in a labour shortage. As a pp pointed out upthread, Serco probably won't touch it if someone's going to be sufficiently dangerous anyway.

I don't think anyone has commented about how LL actually stalked her victims families on social media and checked out their responses and grieving posts on birthdays and Christmas.
For whatever reason, she had some kind of interest in their reactions and possibly got a thrill from it. What could possibly be achieved by forcing her to listen to the victim statements if that is the case?

With absolute respect to the victims and their families in this horrific case, there have been many miscarriages of justice and we should always treat prisoners with humanity. The punishment administered by the court is the loss of liberty. In usual cases there is a rehabilitation element to a sentence, but the whole life sentence LL is being given shows that isn't being considered possible.

However, if someone turns out to be innocent of a crime, and we have dragged them to court gagged on a wheel like Hannibal Lecter, as some have suggested, how do we ever make amends for that as a society? How do we apologise?

The victims parents really do deserve to be heard and have their statements listened too.
I'm unsure if they'd remotely affect her negatively, since she enjoyed bathing in their grief anyway, but I hope they can still tell the world what this has done to them. I keep thinking of them all, how amazing they've been.

They will be heard and their statements will undoubtedly be listened to and fully reported. The primary purpose of victim impact statements is for the judge to hear them, not the convicted accused.

I think you're right that she may well enjoy listening to them, given the way she Facebook stalked the victims' parents on anniversaries of their deaths etc. That may be a good reason for not even allowing her to have copies.

I saw a clip of a US prisoner listening to an impact statement from a berieved parent and what he said, I'm not going to type but it was vile.

Waves to someone else who knows the reality.

I broke a bone in my hand during a restraint which was small fry. A colleague had their leg broken, left with chronic pain and disability which ended their career and damaged the rest of their life.

Let alone all the mental health impacts on staff.

Prison officers have been killed trying to move prisoners. Many more inmates have been killed during restraints.

It should be an absolute last resort to try to protect safety and security. Not done just to satisfy the demands of individuals or the public.