To be appalled that this isn’t murder?

[Bex5490]

Possible the worst headline I’ve read since the woman in France whose husband drugged her and had her raped by strangers…

But what I don’t understand is why it is manslaughter not murder. A violent act is considered murder if the perpetrator intended to do GBH but the person dies in the process.

Is violently raping a woman not intending to do enough harm?

The world is broken. There are rightly or wrongly teenagers on murder charges under joint enterprise laws for being there when spmeone they know has killed someone. If they go somewhere with the intention of beating someone up, even if it isn’t them that turns it into a murder, they can be prosecuted for it. Yet raping a woman isn’t seen as intending to do enough damage?

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/37-year-old-mum-raped-33808196

I agree that very often an act which includes rape likely also includes GBH. I only disagree that rape is in its essence is a form of GBH. They're separate crimes. That is not to say that I think rape is a less serious crime than GBH or should carry a lesser sentence, quite the opposite. As I said above I think the law would be improved by "intention to commit rape" being as valid as "intention to commit GBH" as a grounds for a murder charge.

I can see why it would be difficult to prove an intention to commit GBH to a jury in this case. The man could claim that he did not intend any physical or emotional harm to the woman, that he believed she was unaware of his actions and would remain so. Of course, he'd have to be ignorant and/or stupid to believe that but many people are. I don't find it at all hard to believe he was not aware that he could actually kill her through his actions. Extreme violence, choking etc is normalised through porn and many people are extremely ignorant about a great many things. If she was intoxicated she would not have able to protect her airway by coughing / spluttering and so forth. A parallel that comes to mind is an occasion where I was a bystander to a person having had a seizure. They were in a state of deep unconsciousness yet other people were trying to place them flat on their back and give them water to drink - actions which could literally have caused them to choke and/or die. What I'm trying to say is that people are fucking stupid.

What I think we risk losing sight of however is that he made a choice to take advantage of her situation and to rape her. For that there can be no such defence of ignorance and it's awful in and of itself, just as awful as an intent to commit GBH. Does what I'm saying make sense?

I hope we all agree that if you orally rape someone unconscious you are depraved - if you do such an act that ends that persons life - you should not be roaming society free again. End of.

Yes

so you are not just nasty, you are also either dim, a gaslighter, or unskilled enough to hide either

the query was about legal interpretation, not leniency
no one brought your assertion up, but you

some advice:

watch your language, and use your eyes and brain to actually read posts.

I'm a lawyer and this is not correct

I've done poppers, many years ago. Women especially, FFS, don't ever do that when you're out and about. You don't know what the fuck you are doing, you are staggering about all over the place... I look back now with the advantage of hindsight, and remember that time I was staggering about on a Tube station platform, could just as easily have fallen in front of a train.

Obviously, nothing excuses this despicable behaviour.

You don’t have to prove premeditation. You have to prove intention to at least cause GBH (not necessarily to kill).

I've only read some of this thread, I'm pretty sure I'll have nightmares tonight.

I feel sick.

It's just fucking appalling whether it's murder or manslaughter. He sees an unconscious woman on a bench and decides to stick his dick in her mouth. I don't have the words to explain how disgusted and outraged I feel at his behaviour.

Well having read lots of very intelligent contributions, I now think that intent to rape should be considered on par with intent to commit GBH.

Anyone that goes out with the intention of raping someone and their victim dies during the process should be charged with murder and be subjected to the mandatory life sentence you get with a murder charge.

I understand that a judge can give a life sentence for manslaughter but that is at their discretion. For me it should be without question that killing someone in the process of raping them is murder.

My thoughts are with that poor woman’s family. 🌺

Doesn't need to have premeditation to kill. For instance, if you just wanted to hurt someone by smacking them over the head with an obje as cut and dried. ct, you might not be intending to kill but you're showing 'wicked recklessness' to whether that one hit might end up killing them. It's not as cut an dried. You don't even need to be the one who does the actual killing to be charged with murder.

This was a horrific crime and the man who did this is utter scum. But, the charge was probably correct, he probably wasn’t trying or intending to kill her. He should burn in hell for all eternity anyway.

Just read your post@grisen,and I am so, so sorry this happened to you.
It's incredibly important that we hear from survivors about the long term impact of such appalling crimes, and the ordeal they go through in an attempt to get justice. Thank you for sharing this with us, it can't have been easy to write.
Sending you love and support x

Aren't they just.

This world is becoming increasingly awful by the day.

Any normal person would know that obstructing an unconscious person's airway totally will lead to their death but as it's a dick, the owner of the dick is somehow getting away with a lesser charge. WTF!

Any normal person would have called an ambulance and maybe saved her life.

Murder is harder to prove than manslaughter and the sentence can be the same.

Mick Philpott is serving life for the manslaughter of his children.

His and his codefendants actions were premeditated but the intent to kill would have been difficult to prove.

It's hard to choke someone with your hands hands round the neck is strangulation. That would probably be "rough sex gone wrong" and men really can't be expected to know if a woman doesn't want that. And then you have lots of men popping up to give irrelevant information like "their girlfriend in uni always asked to be choked so this comes from women blah blah blah"

Ah yes, because when you force your dick down a woman’s throat so that she can’t breath and so she dies, its not the man’s fault, he didn’t mean any harm, he just didn’t realise women are actual living humans who need oxygen to survive, just like men.

Sorry, not angry at you, just this case. It’s been a horrific year for male violence against women and girls.

I completely agree with this. The law needs to be updated in this way. Killing someone with your penis should be treated the same as killing someone with a crowbar, it should be murder.
And I also agree with @Naunet that this has been a horrific year for male violence against women and girls. In 2024, it feels as bad as it has ever been.

Same could be said for rape cases. In fact I'm pretty much of the mind that the jury system has had its day. Most democratic countries function fine without it. We already got rid of coroner's juries and grand juries, trial juries need to go next.

I'll be honest, I am not entirely sure how rape can lead to death

I can’t be the only one who really wishes you hadn’t asked that question.

It wasn't a question. It was an admission of ignorance because, thankfully, I have never been assaulted and I didn't know the mechanism of the rape so it hadn't occurred to me that this poor lady's death was consequential. But if we don't admit when we're ignorant, we stay ignorant, don't we?

I don't think he's been charged as yet

He’s been charged, he’s pled not guilty, I guess he’s going to try and claim she consented, or that he was having some mental health problems, or sleep walking or some other bullshit.