Horrified by this judgement

[GaryLurcher19]

I'm staggered by this judgement. If it is as reported, it's a shame on our justice system.

I'm not even sure what I'm posting this for except reassurance that I'm not alone in thinking it's an egregious failure.

I'm planning to request an Unduly Lenient Sentence Review first thing tomorrow.

I have never had high expectations of UK Justice systems when it comes to murdered women, but this is something else.

Does anyone know if it's possible to get transcript of the judgement, please? And if so how to? I just can't let this lie.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/grandad-costa-wife-strangle-jail-29227685

It sounds as though they don't expect him to live much longer - references to his "state of health". He was also an alcoholic until, he says, ten years ago.

I agree with you that there are shades of "she deserved it" here, with press reports dwelling on her heavy drinking and verbal abuse. It sounds like a hellish marriage, but I can't understand why he was cleared of murder after turning himself in with a clear confession. He isn't claiming self-defence, only lack of self control.

Weird. And, yes, I would say the same if a woman "just snapped" and killed her foul-mouthed drunk of a husband. Other remedies are available, divorce being more obvious than murder.

Sounds like he reached the stage where going to prison was preferable to the continued abuse.

What makes you think that the jury reached the wrong conclusion when they were the ones that listened to all the evidence? Not goading, genuine question.

Not saying that it is EVER right to take a life - but there is a lot more to this than is being reported. As stated in the article.

The woman who killed her husband by smashing him over the head with a hammer after years of abuse was cleared of murder and released from prison on the lesser charge of manslaughter and everyone praised the new legal precedent that made that possible.

No one is saying it's justifiable but there are clearly mitigating reasons here.

Sounds similar to the jury case they recreated on tv for two sets of juries - man killed wife, claimed later he lost control, juries had to decide between murder and manslaughter. As a TV show it was awful - didn't show the judge's instructions, didn't have anyone really explain what "loss of control" actually meant and how you'd know if it occurred.

Basically it seems if you feel angry about someone enough people will believe that your muscles are going through the long process of strangling someone completely independently from your brain.

The show was very depressing and showed that people could literally not disentangle in their own minds the concepts of "she wasn't nice" and "he couldn't have stopped himself hammering her skull for a prolonged period or probably didn't realise that would kill her".

Sounds like he reached the stage where going to prison was preferable to the continued abuse.

I find it hard to believe that these were the only two options available to him.

If the roles were reversed she would be seen as the long suffering victim fighting back. This is mainly because we're socially conditioned to believe that men are abusers depsite the vast majority of evidence showing that women commit more DV.

Interesting. Could you kindly point me to some of this research. I've found some online but pretty outdated.

You mean if the woman had repeatedly used "serious violence" against her husband including putting her hands around his throat, as he had been doing, on multiple occasions? I haven't heard of such a case. Can you point me to one please?

How are you measuring "more dv" - frequency of occasions or seriousness of injuries?

It was proven in court that he had strangled her multiple times. How is he not the abuser?

Happily. I won't post it all in this thread as it's pages and pages. I'll cut and paste some from the other thread about it and post a link if you want to read the rest.

That article is a very unpleasant read. The judge is ‘sure’ tht Dawn lied and exaggerated her complaints when contacting the police re her husband, the man who later killed her, but he is also ‘sure’ that the poor victimised husband, on multiple occasions, strangled Dawn in the past?! But it’s okay though, he was provoked eh.

Yeah, I'd liked to know if her words were provoked. Seeing as words are so bad. Did he never say anything unpleasant in all the years he was alcoholic? Bizarre level of double standard.

The below is the biggest study on DV ever conducted, covering 1700 previous peer reviewed studies. Similar results were found with a separate 32 nation study and another covering 500,000 respondents.

Scholars of domestic violence from the U.S., Canada and the U.K. assembled The Partner Abuse State of Knowledge, a research database covering 1700 peer-reviewed studies, the largest of its kind. Among its findings:[66]

- Rates of female-perpetrated violence are higher than male-perpetrated (28.3% vs. 21.6%).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_against_men

The Jury were not being asked for a judgement on previous instances. The question that would have been asked of them was - "after having heard the evidence from the prosecution and the defence, when the defendant killed his wife was he experiencing a 'loss of control' (as defined by the law) such that he lacked the necessary intention to kill."

By the way, this partial defence to murder had been known as 'provocation', the term was dropped in favour of 'loss of control'.

I didn't say the jury were asked that. I simply wondered it for myself.

I think 'provocation' and 'loss of control' is a distinction without difference, personally.

I think you pasted the wrong link- what is the study, please, and was it measuring frequency of occurrence or severity of injuries, or what?

Ah - think I've found it. Differing definitions at play.

"When severe aggression has been perpetrated (e.g., punching, kicking, using a weapon),
rates of injury are much higher among female victims than male victims, and those injuries
are more likely to be life-threatening and require a visit to an emergency room or hospital.
However, when mild-to-moderate aggression is perpetrated (e.g., shoving, pushing,
slapping), men and women tend to report similar rates of injury."

Let's assume that as we're on a thread about killing and strangling, we're talking about severe aggression.

I took you to mean that there was a bizarre level of double standard employed at the trial.

I agree with your assessment - the term 'provocation' had become unacceptable to some. Nobody else gave two hoots and so it was changed. No doubt in turn 'loss of control' will suffer the same fate and another term will be preferred.

I really dislike the way the 'loss of control' is used to get manslaughter instead of murder, strangling someone takes a lot of force and plenty of time to come to your senses and stop.

Gosh - that was quick. What term would you like instead, if any?

Some of the studies in that link actually found that men were slightly more likely to suffer 'serious' attacks and others found that women were more likely to use a weapon if I remember rightly.

There seem be small variations in each study, but in general they were consistent that women perpetrate more DV but men are more likely to cause serious injury (which is unsurprising given the differences in physical strength).

For what? I find it very unclear what specific situation or mental state it's supposed to be describing, and how anyone would know if it was occurring or not.

Is someone e.g smashing a hammer around indiscriminately doing it because they literally do not have any ability to control their actions, or because it's what they feel like doing and any urge to do the right thing has been subsumed?

Good question. I believe (from memory from when I was a law student) that these so called "partial defences" (see the internet for more of this) against the charge of murder came about when Parliament was debating ending the death sentence (1950s??). A prominent proposal at the time was that instead of being hanged the guilty would receive life imprisonment. But then others in Parliament argued that some murderers hadn't intended to kill - for reasons of crime of passion, provocation, diminished responsibility etc). So, be way of accommodating everyone the way real politics works (THIS IS PROBABLY WHY WE HAVE THIS) - the law developed these partial defences - which reduced the crime from murder to manslaughter - so less of a crime and therefore it was argued should be deserving of a lesser sentence than life in prison. Now you and I may not suffer from 'loss of control' incidents but is that true of other people. Maybe some do. Over time, the point of prison has diminished as a sensible way of punishing people in general. ( I have heard the nicest people in prison are the killers - being ordinary joes without real criminal backgrounds).

What is this post supposed to mean - you're offended somehow that I dislike to see people trying to angle a lighter sentence by pretending they just couldn't control themselves at the time? I've seen this used a number times by men who've murdered their partners.

"crime of passion, provocation, diminished responsibility etc"
I understand diminished responsibility and often seem to see this misused as well - tho in that case it's usually the reverse issue, an attempt by prosecution to claim there are no grounds for such a defence.

What is this post supposed to mean

It needs to be read in context to my post just before yours - I was wondering how long before people complained about the phrase 'loss of control' as they had with phrase 'provocation'.

you're offended somehow that I dislike to see people trying to angle a lighter sentence by pretending they just couldn't control themselves at the time?

I'm not offended in the least - quite indifferent to me, whether you give any credence to 'partial defences' or not.

I've seen this used a number times by men who've murdered their partners

And women too, there've been several high profile cases where women were the defendants relying on loss of control/provocation, the case of Challen for example.

I understand diminished responsibility and often seem to see this misused as well - tho in that case it's usually the reverse issue, an attempt by prosecution to claim there are no grounds for such a defence

often seen this misused ? you sound quite the expert. Any cases you wish to share?

Thanks. It's a fascinating question (as a lay person), what makes killing someone less bad? At what point are you less responsible for a fairly predictable outcome of your actions?

The Murder Trial Jury show really annoyed me (but also was a great idea) because I felt it left open the interpretation of 'loss of control' to basically mean 'well she deserved it'. Or "her calling him fat and being hideous to him caused him to hammer her skull".

The jury clearly needed quite clear direction as to what they were looking to establish (in the real case this may well have been forthcoming but was left out of the TV show).

I'm not aware that Sally Challen used 'loss of control' as a defence and it's irrelevant to me in any case. The majority I've seen using 'loss of control' are men who have strangled their partner. But I'm not interested in 'sharing' anything with a sneering bad faith type like you so jog on.