Another horrific death

[Arcadia]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-57511912

Such a horrendous story where a girl of 15 died, with compressions to her neck, but only three years in prison? Crazy.

Culpable homicide is the killing of a person in circumstances which are neither accidental nor justified, but where the wicked intent to kill or wicked recklessness required for murder is absent

I would posit leaving a young girl on top of an exposed hill, drunk out of her mind and floppy, on one of the coldest nights of the year did involve wicked recklessness. But what do I know, I'm only a woman.

No justice, no peace.

@HoldontoOneMoreDay

Culpable homicide is the killing of a person in circumstances which are neither accidental nor justified, but where the wicked intent to kill or wicked recklessness required for murder is absent

I would posit leaving a young girl on top of an exposed hill, drunk out of her mind and floppy, on one of the coldest nights of the year did involve wicked recklessness. But what do I know, I'm only a woman.

No justice, no peace.

Yes, especially with the violent assault beforehand

Murder

He also texted 'are you alive'.
So he knew it was a possibility.

I would posit leaving a young girl on top of an exposed hill, drunk out of her mind and floppy, on one of the coldest nights of the year did involve wicked recklessness. But what do I know, I'm only a woman.

I actually read a murder novel, set in Scotland, where that was EXACTLY how one of the victims was killed.

I'm wondering if they got the idea from this case.

His defence counsel Shelagh McColl QC said he would have to live with what had happened for the rest of his life: "He was a young man who would have been under the influence of alcohol himself and he's a young man who has made a bad decision with catastrophic consequences," she said.

He is also a man who left a really drunk young girl to die on a hill. A man who thought the way to turn on a woman was to squeeze her neck and bite. A man who chose an underage girl to do this to.

A man who thought his train home was more important.

Aye - he’ll have to live with it. Like he’ll care…

She doesn’t get to live with it.

No justice. And one can hope he gets no peace.

This wasn’t just a ‘bad decision’.

3 years?!?!

A man groomed a child online, lured that child from her home, drugged that child with alcohol and then committed a violent sexual assault on her.

He then discarded her when she was of no further sexual use to him.

Presumably he didn’t raise the alarm at the time because he realised emergency services would find evidence of his assault.

I work with adolescents and we talk a lot about their ability to risk assess, particularly when under the influence of alcohol and I think I can understand why you can't prove "wicked recklessness" in this case. Similarly, he's not a paedophile. He is many, many things but legally - and I hate to admit it - I can objectively see how the parameters of the law led to the sentence. Of course we can all reflect on the myriad problems, reasons and desperately disgusting norms which caused this entire chain of events and we've still such a fucking long way to go.

The victim is only 12 months older than my dd and I can't even begin to imagine what her parents are feeling.

I am sickened by how the delay between his actions and her actual death have downgraded this to a “bad decision”

Her death from hypothermia was a direct result of his premeditated grooming, drugging and attack on her.

So sickened to read this! How can anyone justify just 3 years?!

A young man who was under the influence of alcohol himself how can that be any kind of excuse when he was the one who made the fucking decision to buy it and drink it? Before abandoning a child to the elements after supplying her with enough alcohol to make her completely helpless, sexually assaulting her and strangling her. A bad decision? Ffs.

@speakout

I am outraged by this sentence. This man goomed this child online, persuaded her to catch a train to meet him, plied her with vodka, until she was totally inebriated, sexually assualted her, applied neck compression and left her on a bench in a park in below zero temperatures.

Three years!!! And he will be out in 18 months.

This. What 15 year old child meeting someone for the first time (or ever) wants her breasts bitten, her neck compressed ? He plied a child with alcohol so that he could do these things to her and then left her to die. Her parents now have to live with the fact that he will out again in a year or so while she is dead. I feel sick with anger and despair.

What 15 year old child meeting someone for the first time (or ever) wants her breasts bitten, her neck compressed?

Porn. Porn. Porn. Porn.

This is why I'll never be ok with it, never never never.

Everyone is entitled to a defence and the one put up by his barrister was obviously effective.

However, I can't stop grieving that men's fictions are accepted as reality for legal purposes in this area - the most effective counter-argument to that fiction is dead so can't contest it.

However, as we know from the scintilla of rape cases that are prosecuted and secure a conviction - having a live witness and counter-argument doesn't work when a man's fiction will always be the accepted version of events when people are weighing probabilities.

By the above, I mean something akin to Sorkin's framing of the discussion around rape in Newsroom :

In a classic “Newsroom” setup, she wasn’t simply a victim denied justice. Instead, the woman was another of Sorkin’s endless stream of slippery digital femme fatales; she created a Web site where men could be accused, anonymously, of rape. …

“The kind of rape you’re talking about is difficult or impossible to prove,” Don tells her. It’s not a “kind of rape,” the woman responds sharply. She argues that her site isn’t about getting revenge, that it’s “a public service”: “Do not go on a date with these guys, do not go to a party with these guys.” Don cuts her off: "Do not give these guys a job, ever." He argues that she’s making it easier for men to be falsely accused, but the woman says that she's weighed that cost and decided that it’s more important that women be warned.…”

Finally, he reveals his real agenda. He’s heard two stories: one from "a very credible woman” and the other from a sketchy guy with every reason to lie. And he’s obligated, Don tells her, to believe the sketchy guy’s story. She's stunned. “This isn’t a courtroom,” she points out, echoing the thoughts of any sane person. “You’re not legally obligated to presume innocence.” “I believe I’m morally obligated," Don says…Yes, that's correct: Don, the show’s voice of reason… argues that a person has a moral obligation to believe a man accused of rape over the woman who said he’d raped her, as long as he hasn't been found guilty of rape.

www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-newsroom-crazy-making-campus-rape-episode

People absolutely should get a defence.

It is just a shame that the defence was based only on the bits he decided to share.

As said by admissions - the only person who can dispute his version of events is dead.

I suspect her story might have been somewhat different.

He left a child to die.

3 years is not enough. Will never be enough.