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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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11
SummerEve · 25/07/2025 00:27

elm26 · 25/07/2025 00:20

As soon as I saw the title to your thread, I knew what this was about. I stupidly read the article earlier whilst waiting on maternity ward for bloods, had tears rolling down my face. I’m 33 weeks pregnant with my second child and I just cannot fathom how you’d ever hurt a child at all. I hope he is tortured every single day of his sad, pathetic life in that prison.

(My Mum is good friends with somebody who was high up in the prison service, retired last year. The guards let these things happen when it comes to children, turn a blind eye so I’m holding out hope that they’ll get him!)

Tell me you don’t know what you are talking about without telling me you don’t know what you are talking about.

Allisnotlost1 · 25/07/2025 00:28

elm26 · 25/07/2025 00:20

As soon as I saw the title to your thread, I knew what this was about. I stupidly read the article earlier whilst waiting on maternity ward for bloods, had tears rolling down my face. I’m 33 weeks pregnant with my second child and I just cannot fathom how you’d ever hurt a child at all. I hope he is tortured every single day of his sad, pathetic life in that prison.

(My Mum is good friends with somebody who was high up in the prison service, retired last year. The guards let these things happen when it comes to children, turn a blind eye so I’m holding out hope that they’ll get him!)

Great news that your mum’s friend openly admits to turning a blind eye to misconduct in public office.

Do you somehow think that violence is good so long as it’s against people you don’t like? Or that public services should be run by thugs and criminals? Because that’s what you’re condoning here. Wild.

Smallsalt · 25/07/2025 00:31

novanova5 · 24/07/2025 23:03

I completely agree with you, OP. Anyone attempting to rationalise why we shouldn't reinstate the death penalty is just as disturbed as those who committed the crimes, to be honest.

So you are prepared to allow state killing of innocent people?

novanova5 · 25/07/2025 00:32

@AllTheChaos Is it justice to allow these despicable individuals to keep living? I have no doubt that the victims families would vehemently oppose your view, and I state this with confidence. SHAME ON YOU.

AloeVeraAloeFred · 25/07/2025 00:39

I do know exactly what you mean. It's hard to imagine how someone as dysfunctional as that man clearly is - not just that he has brutally murdered his own baby but that it seems to have been done in a premeditated, psychopathic way out of a pathological desire to maintain control over the baby's mother -can ever not be a risk and a burden to everyone around him. Violent, controlling men are like rabid dogs really and there's quite a lot of evidence out there that they aren't really reformable.

Still, I think the death penalty, where it is avoidable, as it is in our society, probably brings more problems than it solves. Let's forget the obvious (and in this case not especially applicable) problem of false conviction... What does it do to society to sanction murder, however "deserved" some may feel it to be? Who carries out the sentence and what does it do to those involved? What are the potentially unforseen pragmatic impacts (eg juries less willing to convict, vast legal expense of death row appeals etc)?

I do think being a violent controlling man should come with some kind of label (similar or equivalent to a psychiatric diagnosis) which enables the state to incarcerate / parole indefinitely and in total separation to women and children. Maybe he could be capable of forming positive relationships with other toxic men and they could achieve something useful with their lives in a work programme or something. Personally I'm not about revenge. I have some pity for people who are basically the human equivalent of a feral animal, and I think it's better to try to make some use of their lives instead of kill them. Killing is a sick thing to do and I think the death penalty makes society sick.

wordler · 25/07/2025 00:45

If killing people is wrong then any killing is wrong.

But I do think there should be full life sentences for people like the man in this case. Absolutely no prospect of parole.

AlwaysTheRenegade · 25/07/2025 00:48

I don't want to click on the link, so I don't know his crime, but he's obviously an evil, evil man.

I don't agree with the death penalty still though. Maybe someone should do to him what he's done X10. A fast humane death is sometimes an easy way out, and too good for the perpetrator.

A lot of my older family members always say "bring back hanging", but I can't fathom ever rejoicing in the violent death of someone else. If I was a victim's family member I think I'd still want them to live, but In the worst conditions imaginable.
But im luckily not in this position.
There are just too many grey areas with the death penalty, and inmates that are on death row for years

SnowFrogJelly · 25/07/2025 01:06

BIWI · 24/07/2025 23:02

It is a horrible story. Perhaps you should use your intelligence to consider just how we end up with people who commit these crimes in our society?

Wow patronising

twilightermummy · 25/07/2025 01:07

bluewanda · 24/07/2025 23:10

For me the line is killing a child. Star Hobson, Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, Sara Sharif, Baby P (to name a few) - their killers are pure evil.

I completely agree with you. These are cases of horror. There seems to be a jaw-dropping case every year and somehow the perpetrators are getting more violent - it beggars belief.

I cannot understand why they were allowed so much time with their baby when he was going to be immediately removed from them.

Anyway, in cases like this where it's clear who's murdered the child then it's a yes to capital punishment from me.

echt · 25/07/2025 01:11

Anyway, in cases like this where it's clear who's murdered the child then it's a yes to capital punishment from me

And all the ones where innocent people were executed for murder, served life sentences or are still in prison were all perfectly clear at the time.

PyongyangKipperbang · 25/07/2025 01:13

I have to be careful how I word this as this was very heavily covered by the UK and international press and I do not want to be disrespectful to the victims family. The victim was (just) an adult. Dont ask for more details as I wont give them.

The best friend of one of my children was murdered abroad. It was initially thought to be terrorism (hence the media coverage). Turned out it wasnt, it was a failed attempt at suicide. When it went to trial the family of the victim could have insisted on the death penalty, as it is the law in that country. The family said no. Mainly because they knew that their child wouldnt want that, but also because it was what the attacker wanted. That the attacker must live their life until nature takes it course was/is by far the biggest punishment.

If this man was given the death penalty, what would it achieve? A life taken in retaliation doesnt bring a life back. He will have a very very hard time of it in prison, and it is deserved.

Isittimeformynapyet · 25/07/2025 01:20

WhereIsMyJumper · 24/07/2025 22:52

As always, first post nails it

Can't believe people are still posting this boring, pointless cliché.

Tiredofwhataboutery · 25/07/2025 01:23

I’ve come to realise that there are many awful people in the world who harm others with impunity until one day they finally do something horrific and everyone is shocked. I’m not sure that we need the desth penalty but really hard cracking down on early criminality. Of course there’s no prison spaces or purposeful rehabilitation so perhaps it wouldn’t help.

CalicoPusscat · 25/07/2025 01:26

@PyongyangKipperbang do you mean the perpetrator tried to kill himself but it accidentally spread? Perhaps I'm too tired to process and should sleep :)

Namechangedforthis25 · 25/07/2025 01:35

What?! And its irrational, unfounded comments like this which worries me about our juries making such huge impactful decisions

A civilised state should not murder it’s own - that makes us as bad as them

a whole life sentence where there is lifelong incarceration, loneliness, loss of liberty and hopefully penance and remorse is the way to go - with a possibility of narrowing the opportunities for miscarriages of justice

AngelicKaty · 25/07/2025 01:41

bluewanda · 24/07/2025 23:24

I wonder how many miscarriages of justice there have been for child killers.

What about Lucy Letby? If we had Capital Punishment she could be dead by now for the murder of seven babies and attempted murder of a further seven, yet the safety of her convictions is now being questioned. We may not know for years whether the verdicts are correct or if there has been a terrible miscarriage of justice, but if it's the latter, at least she will be alive to be released and compensated. How would we, as a society, feel if her convictions are quashed at some point in the future, but she has already been murdered by the state? How could we reconcile that with our collective conscience?
I totally understand your visceral reaction OP, I really do - I saw the news report on the BBC earlier and then read the report on their website - and felt such anger, distress and sheer hatred towards Gunther that I imagined what I would like to do to him (which I can't tell you because MN would probably delete my post!). He's utterly worthless trash and adds nothing to the world by drawing breath. Nevertheless, I don't want to live in a country that just seeks vengeance on even the most heinous of criminals - I don't think that's a healthy basis for our justice system - particularly when we know miscarriages of justice do occur here.
I also believe that the death penalty would be the easy way out for repugnant brutes like Gunther. Category A prisons are truly terrifying places to be and this pathetic coward will meet many men inside who are considerably harder than him who will find ways of making him pay for what he did - for years. (No quick, easy and relatively painless escape for him.) And when he's helpless and repeatedly suffered at the hands of fellow inmates, he might finally understand what he put poor, innocent baby Brendon through.
The death penalty shouldn't be reinstated - it doesn't represent who we are.

PyongyangKipperbang · 25/07/2025 01:55

CalicoPusscat · 25/07/2025 01:26

@PyongyangKipperbang do you mean the perpetrator tried to kill himself but it accidentally spread? Perhaps I'm too tired to process and should sleep :)

No. The attacker performed an action that would (or should in their head) have ended in their death but not have led to the death of the victim. And the murderer survived but the victim didnt.

AngelicKaty · 25/07/2025 02:08

OonaStubbs · 24/07/2025 23:45

We should have a referendum on whether to bring back the death penalty. I am very confident that "yes" would win, and by quite a large margin.

Well your confidence in a big win would be misplaced. The most recent poll by The Justice Gap, from January this year, showed that 54% of Britons would like to see the death penalty reinstated for certain crimes. Hardly a resounding victory.

OonaStubbs · 25/07/2025 02:18

I think if there was an actual vote, the margin would be far wider than that. At least 66% in favour and maybe 75%.

AngelicKaty · 25/07/2025 02:20

Robin67 · 24/07/2025 23:50

Please can you elaborate? How many dead people went on to commit more crimes? Please link to stats. I would be fascinated to see.

"State and regional murder statistics show no correlation between use of the death penalty and reduced crime. The murder rate in non-death penalty states has remained consistently lower than the rate in states with the death penalty, and the gap has grown since 1990."
Source: deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/murder-rates/murder-rate-of-death-penalty-states-compared-to-non-death-penalty-states

user1473878824 · 25/07/2025 02:22

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 24/07/2025 22:49

YABU to use anything you read in the Daily Heil as the basis for forming a black and white opinion about a really complex issue.

Yeah I always find someone brutally murdering a premature baby a bit of a grey issue.

askmenow · 25/07/2025 03:06

bluewanda · 24/07/2025 23:03

I’m struggling to see that right now. Why should the scumbag who murdered an innocent baby get to live when his victim didn’t?

I'm hoping the other prisoners read these articles and true justice is served in prison, causing him ongoing very painful suffering.

No pain is too much for the scumbag,
Perhaps someone inside will spare us the cost of keeping this turd alive.

But not before he's been thoroughly tortured.

bert3400 · 25/07/2025 03:13

Send him to prison, he'll get hell. He has committed the worst crime possible and he will pay for this in prison, I'm sure the guards will turn a blind eye to the 'accidents' that will occur, other prisoners will make his life hell

AngelicKaty · 25/07/2025 03:20

OonaStubbs · 25/07/2025 02:18

I think if there was an actual vote, the margin would be far wider than that. At least 66% in favour and maybe 75%.

That's absolute nonsense - what you think the result would be is irrelevant and you just plucked those figures out of thin air. An actual poll shows you're wrong.

Topseyt123 · 25/07/2025 03:32

It's an utterly horrific story. Really appalling.

How was this lowlife ever allowed near to the poor baby?

However, I would still never reinstate the death penalty even though I can fully understand the sentiments behind the suggestion. Miscarriages of justice do happen and the danger of the state sponsored murder of innocent people is just too great. That will never change and it will not be possible to set up sufficient safeguards to eliminate the possibility. Therefore it must remain off the table.

This scumbag should be imprisoned with a whole of life tariff, no possibility of parole and no leave to appeal (as there seems no doubt at all over his guilt here). That is a sanction available in this country and in such cases the judiciary should be willing to use it.

It's not that I think scumbag deserves to live, he doesn't and I certainly would shed no tears over him if he died. I do think that he deserves to suffer every single day for the rest of his useless, shitty life. That can be achieved in prison if the correct tariff is imposed.