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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

I don't understand how this is manslaughter and not murder

221 replies

lifeonmars100 · 08/04/2025 15:15

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/08/two-teenagers-found-guilty- by of-manslaughter-of-80-year-old-man-in-leicestershire-park?CMP=sharebtnurl

I am sure I am not alone in being disturbed and upset by this awful case. I can't stop thinking about this poor man, setting off for a stroll with his dog and then to be the victim of a vicious unprovoked attack of such severity that he died as a result of it. I can't understand how the boy was found guilty of manslaughter and not murder. I appreciate that a murder conviction hinges on "intent" i.e what was in the defendant's mind when they committed the offence and of course I was not in court to hear all the evidence but as a layperson I just don't get it. Maybe things will be clearer when they are sentenced. I feel so sorry for the family, the details are so awful and will surely haunt them forever. The fact that the girl filmed the attack is truly sickening but seems par for the course these days. Mr Kohli must have been terrified and in so much pain, what a terrible end to his life

Two teenagers found guilty of manslaughter of 80-year-old man in Leicestershire park

Bhim Kohli, who was walking his dog, was racially abused, kicked and punched in ‘gratuitous’ attack

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/08/two-teenagers-found-guilty-of-manslaughter-of-80-year-old-man-in-leicestershire-park?CMP=share_btn_url

OP posts:
PassingStranger · 08/04/2025 15:17

Well done to the parents who obvs didn't raise their kids to have respect for their elders.
Name and shame them all.including the parents.
Countries fed up with the feral scum that are being churned out.

asrl78 · 08/04/2025 15:22

It comes down to what can be proved beyond reasonable doubt in court. To convict a defendant of murder requires proof of intent to kill. Without that manslaughter is the only option.

It is not about respect, or lack of, for elders, it is about respect for people and life in general. Elderly people do not automatically deserve more respect than others just because they have existed for longer.

caringcarer · 08/04/2025 15:24

Courts in the UK are always bending over backwards to let offenders off, give them shortest sentences possible and then if they go to jail sentences are reduced to half for so called good behaviour.

Genevieva · 08/04/2025 15:25

I agree. If they intended to harm then it’s murder, even if they didn’t intend to kill. What they did was sickening.

kidditsonyou · 08/04/2025 15:27

Voluntary manslaughter where the intent was to cause harm but not death
also diminished responsibility if his understanding or self control was impaired.

ilovesooty · 08/04/2025 15:28

However the law defines the offence, it's sickening. That poor man.

KrisAkabusi · 08/04/2025 15:29

Genevieva · 08/04/2025 15:25

I agree. If they intended to harm then it’s murder, even if they didn’t intend to kill. What they did was sickening.

No, that's quite literally the definition of manslaughter- intending to harm but not kill, but the victim is dead at the end of it. Murder requires intent to kill from the outset, something that would be very difficult to prove.

kidditsonyou · 08/04/2025 15:29

Genevieva · 08/04/2025 15:25

I agree. If they intended to harm then it’s murder, even if they didn’t intend to kill. What they did was sickening.

Its not. Murder is only when the intention is to kill, it’s manslaughter when the intention was just to harm.

JenniferBooth · 08/04/2025 15:32

asrl78 · 08/04/2025 15:22

It comes down to what can be proved beyond reasonable doubt in court. To convict a defendant of murder requires proof of intent to kill. Without that manslaughter is the only option.

It is not about respect, or lack of, for elders, it is about respect for people and life in general. Elderly people do not automatically deserve more respect than others just because they have existed for longer.

You would never see a comment like "parents are not entitled to more respect just because they have children" on a thread where a parent of young children has been the victim of manslaughter.

GeorgianaM · 08/04/2025 15:34

A boy who slapped an 80-year-old man with a slider shoe as he cowered on the ground before punching and kicking him is facing jail after being convicted of manslaughter.
The teenager was just 14 when he donned a balaclava and viciously attacked retired factory owner Bhim Kohli as he walked his dog Rocky in a park next to his home in September last year.
The baby-faced teen was acquitted of murder by a jury at Leicester Crown Court on Tuesday but found guilty of the lesser charge following a six-week trial.
A girl, who was just 12 at the time, filmed part of the attack and could be heard laughing in the video as the pensioner cowered on his knees was also found guilty of manslaughter after prosecutors said she 'encouraged the violence'.
The pair cannot be named because of their age.
The boy, now 15 showed no emotion while the girl, 13 cried in the dock as the verdicts were handed down after the jury deliberated for more than six hours.
Family members sobbed, with one walking out of the court in tears. The teenagers will be sentenced next month when a judge will consider lifting their anonymity.
Judge Mr Justice Turner granted the girl bail but said it was 'no indication' of what would be decided when she is sentenced. The boy was remanded in custody.
In an emotional statement delivered on the court steps Mr Kohli's daughter Susan paid tribute to her 'amazing' father who was 'brutally and cruelly' taken away.

Describing the day of the attack she told how they were alerted to what had happened and went to the park to help.
'He was screaming out; he was in that much pain - it was horrendous, we have never seen him like that before,' she said. 'We all thought he would go to hospital to be treated and he would then be fine. We never imagined he wouldn't return home.'
She said listening to trial and being shown the videos of their father being attacked would never leave them.
'We feel anger and disgust towards the teenagers who took dad away from us,' she said.
'They humiliated an 80-year-old man, assaulted him, filmed it and laughed at him.
'The boy, who told witnesses he had anger problems and couldn't stop, used violence so severe that he broke three of dad's ribs and neck which caused trauma to his spinal column.
'Videos of the incident were filmed and shockingly found on the girl's phone. Dad did not deserve this, and we wouldn't wish this pain on anyone else.
'One of the videos showed dad on his knees being hit over the head with the boy's slider.

'A loud horrible slapping sound is heard when the boy struck dad. Hearing the girl laugh at this assault on dad is utterly disgusting. This sound plays over and over in our heads.
'Also captured on video is dad's attempt to call for help as he shouted out for his grandson. We didn't hear his call for help and this upsets us deeply. We can't put into words the pain we feel every day, and this has magnified during the trial.'
She said he was an 'amazing' man who loved life and who never took himself seriously, and despite his age and how frail he looked, was healthy and very active. He had three allotment plots where he grew lots of fruit and vegetables which he would share them with the family, friends and neighbours.
She added: 'He was the person who knitted our family together and we miss him every second of every day.
'Our house feels so empty without him and will never be the same. The area we have loved for so many years and called 'home' feels so different now and we will never feel safe.
'Having happened only a minute's walk of where we live is something we cannot get away from and it is a constant reminder. Every time my mum opens the front door she thinks about what happened to her husband.'
Detective Chief Inspector Mark Sinski, from the East Midlands Special Operations Unit Murder Investigation Team, said: 'Bhim Kohli was simply doing what he did every day, walking his dog on the park that was just yards from his own front door.
'But instead of being able to enjoy an evening stroll with Rocky on a warm summer's day, he was confronted by a teenage boy, who was encouraged by a teenage girl, attacked him and left him in agony on the floor.'
Kelly Matthews from the Crown Prosecution Service said the incident shocked the community of Leicester and beyond.
She said: 'We have shown in this trial that these young defendants were responsible for Mr Kohli's death - in an unprovoked attack on an innocent man. They filmed the incident and laughed and bragged about it afterwards.'

Mr Kohli was discovered lying in agony in Leicester's Franklin Park- just yards from his home - by neighbours and his son and daughter.
He had been racially abused and struck around the face with the plastic sandal as he cowered on his knees before being kicked and punched.
He was taken to hospital where he died the next day. A post-mortem examination revealed the cause of Mr Kohli's death to be a neck injury 'causing trauma to the spinal cord'. He also suffered broken ribs.
Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu KC told jurors the boy had used 'gratuitous' and 'intense' violence before leaving his victim for dead.
He said he had no reason to hit the 'defenceless' elderly man who, because he was on the ground, was in a vulnerable position but his 'instinct' was to use violence.
Mr Sandhu said the girl knew what would happen when she pointed the elderly man out to the boy. 'She knew there would be violence and she had a desire to capture it - and capturing it provided encouragement for the violence to be meted out,' he said.
The trial heard the boy carried out the racist attack after his girlfriend broke up with him and he needed 'anger releasing'.
He went on the run and later tried to claim Mr Kohli had pulled a knife in an attempt to justify the violence. But Mr Kohli's family said he never carried a knife, and no knife was found at the scene.
The girl had a picture of Mr Kohli on her phone, taken a week before the attack, and pointed him out to the boy when they saw him in the park following previous run ins with him.
The photograph of Mr Kohli was at around the same time of day as he was attacked, with prosecutors accusing her of keeping the image on her phone so she could 'target him'.
The court heard the girl regularly 'recorded violence' on her mobile phone, and had dozens of other recordings showing children fighting each other and another where an unidentified victim was called a 'P' and had something thrown over him.
The three video clips of the attack on Mr Kohli were recovered from the girl's mobile phone in a section of Snapchat called 'my eyes only' which requires a code for access, which the prosecution said was an attempt to hide the evidence.
She was accused of 'egging' on the boy, and remained with him during the attack to 'support' him when other teenagers they were with ran away.
In a police interview she was asked if the video showing Mr Kohli being slapped with the shoe had given her enjoyment. She replied: 'Not really but it was a bit funny at the time'.
The girl, who was dressed in black trousers, white shirt and black jumper with her hair tied up and was supported by her mother in court, showed no emotion as she was found guilty.
The boy, who looked at his mother in the public gallery as the verdicts were delivered, wore a pale blue tracksuit.
He had admitted to having 'anger issues' but claimed he slapped Mr Kohli in the face with his slider out of 'instinct' after they tussled over the shoe and 'ran at him' before pushing him as he believed the elderly man was going to hit his friend.
But the court heard the boy sent messages admitting to the attack including one which read: 'I didn't mean to batter him.'
In reply to a message saying an 80-year-old had been 'smacked up' in the park, the boy wrote: 'I did that. ...I didn't mean to batter him. It was one hit and then my anger turned in.'
Before the attack on Mr Kohli, the boy had taken a balaclava out of his Gucci bag and put it on 'in preparation for violence'. Asked why he had a balaclava or 'bally' as he called it, he replied simply, 'fashion'.
The court heard that after the attack he searched for news stories about it and then, ten seconds later, for Adele tickets. When asked by one friend in a message if he was 'sing it' - slang for worrying about something - he replied with two laughing emojis and wrote 'Nah, chilling bro'.
At 8.21pm on September 2, about 25 minutes before Kohli died, he sent a laughing emoji to friends and said: 'Feds know it is me. Got my name and picture.'
The court was told that after his arrest, he wrote a letter to a support worker, in which he said he regretted what he had done. In it he wrote: 'My ex broke up with me and I was struggling with that so I kind of just needed anger etc releasing'.
He went on to say: 'I'm so nervous well scared and worried. I accept I did it and I am doing time. I am just scared about how long I have to do.'
When told the letter would have to be disclosed he replied: 'That's my manslaughter plea gone'.
Due to prior police contact with Mr Kohli, the Leicestershire police made a mandatory referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). The IOPC decided this investigation should be carried out locally by the force. The investigation report has been submitted to the IOPC for them to review.
...........

If I had my way, a rope would be involved for both of them, but the chances are they will serve a paltry amount of time in a youth detention centre and be free to walk the streets again.

SummerHouse · 08/04/2025 15:34

Murder requires the internet to kill or cause grievous bodily harm to be proven.

Hoppinggreen · 08/04/2025 15:34

It probably couldn't be proved that they intended to kill him and to be fair they probably didn't
They behaved so recklessly that it was a possibility given his age but if they didn't set out to kill then it may well be manslaughter in a legal sense - although IANAL
Either way it was a disgusting, cowardly and horrific thing to do and I hope the scum rot in hell for it

Genevieva · 08/04/2025 15:36

kidditsonyou · 08/04/2025 15:29

Its not. Murder is only when the intention is to kill, it’s manslaughter when the intention was just to harm.

That’s not correct. GBH leads to murder. What they did would inescapably cause GBH, but there must have been a decision that they didn’t realise it would. They have been treated leniently.

WilfredsPies · 08/04/2025 15:36

My understanding is that if he’d taken out a gun and shot Mr Kohli then it could have been murder because it’s a reasonable assumption that a gun would be enough to kill someone. But this creature’s argument would have been that he beat Mr Kohli without using a weapon, and was only intending to hurt him, not kill him. He could be said to have had a reasonable expectation that this would have been insufficient to kill Mr Kohli, hence making it very, very difficult to prove that his intent was to kill.

Again, happy to be corrected but I think it’s different from GBH leading to murder because of the degree of harm inflicted and the age and vulnerability of the victim. If you beat a young or middle aged man to the extent that they die, you’ve really given them a vicious beating or it has been one of those ‘one punch’ cases. He could have claimed ‘I’m just a kid, I didn’t have any expectations of harming him enough to cause his death and his vulnerability increased his risk of death, not me’.

I’m not saying it’s right, but I think that’s the reasoning behind it.

Nn9011 · 08/04/2025 15:36

Where someone has been killed it's very hard to get a conviction of murder, you either need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they went to the person with preplanned intent to murder or have some evidence that in the moment they chose to commit murder. It's a bit easier with the second type of the weapon or way the person is harmed will obviously cause death due to the level of harm but where they are beaten or stabbed this is not always easy to prove. However what you may be able to prove is that the actions the person took resulted in the death of the victim. Sometimes it's offered if the perpetrator agrees to plead guilty for a lesser sentence, usually when it's obvious there was no intent to kill but it's also used to prevent the person from walking away with no conviction.
Our legal system is designed that the burden of proof is extremely heavy on the prosecution and that is a good thing most of the time but the trade off unfortunately is that sometimes someone will be found guilty of a 'lesser crime' than the one we'd as a society consider it to be.
It's not perfect but it at least means that in this case, if the jury felt the prosecutor didn't prove the teenagers walked into the park and had an intention to kill them they don't have to find them innocent because the charge is causing death not intending to cause it.

jellyfishperiwinkle · 08/04/2025 15:46

KrisAkabusi · 08/04/2025 15:29

No, that's quite literally the definition of manslaughter- intending to harm but not kill, but the victim is dead at the end of it. Murder requires intent to kill from the outset, something that would be very difficult to prove.

Intent to kill or cause serious harm, IIRC (it was a long time ago that I studied criminal law). For manslaughter it is much easier to get a conviction, as others have said.

jellyfishperiwinkle · 08/04/2025 15:48

JenniferBooth · 08/04/2025 15:32

You would never see a comment like "parents are not entitled to more respect just because they have children" on a thread where a parent of young children has been the victim of manslaughter.

Edited

You would never see a comment saying that a younger person is entitled to more respect purely by virtue of their age.

steff13 · 08/04/2025 15:51

It says the jury found him not guilty of murder; without knowing what they heard, there's no way to know why they didn't think murder was an appropriate conviction. It could be as simple as they felt bad convicting a 15-year-old child with murder.

JandamiHash · 08/04/2025 15:52

caringcarer · 08/04/2025 15:24

Courts in the UK are always bending over backwards to let offenders off, give them shortest sentences possible and then if they go to jail sentences are reduced to half for so called good behaviour.

Unless they put out an unpleasant tweet then the book is thrown at them

QuirkInTheMatrix · 08/04/2025 15:52

Murder does not require intent to kill. There’s someone local to me who has been changed with murder after pushing someone over, one push, and they fell and banged their head and died. There is no argument even from the prosecution that there was any intent to kill. Murder can also be that there was an intent to cause grievous bodily harm (which then led to the death) which in this case is what the CPS decided there was. That if you shove someone over hard enough that he intended to cause GBH.

i am amazed that the case in the OP wasn’t murder.

MelonElla · 08/04/2025 15:53

Murder requires intent to kill or do serious harm. In my experience, when faced with murder and manslaughter charges, juries will often choose manslaughter. Finding someone guilty of murder is a huge responsibility and they'll often feel more comfortable with the 'compromise'.

JandamiHash · 08/04/2025 15:56

God that’s a really upsetting read. What is happening to our country that a 12yo girl is filming and laughing her 15yo mate killing a man?

Ilikewinter · 08/04/2025 15:57

It wouldn't have taken me 6 hours to find the shits guilty. Wonder which jury members continued to deliberate for that amount of time. Name both of them, and I hope the judge throws the book at the pair of them.

Womanofcustard · 08/04/2025 15:57

Would I be alone in thinking that the age of defendants shouldn’t stop their names being given in cases of extreme violence/murder?

animalculous · 08/04/2025 16:02

No doubt they'll spend a few years in some cushy institution where they'll be given lots of help, support and counselling before being nursemaided through their exams and released back into the community as supposedly reformed characters before resuming their nasty, toxic lives knowing they got away with it. They'll never be able to work with children or vulnerable people, but I doubt they'll be the type to do that anyway.

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