Why do courts seem to treat violence against women so lightly?

[Happyjoe]

So this man who was found guilty of throwing his abused girlfriend off the 4th floor of a tower block, giving her horrific injuries and is jailed for just 5 years. Found guilty of 'wounding', despite being found guilty previously for abuse. He should've been done for attempted murder in my mind. Instead he'll be out in 2 and a half years - absolutely nothing.

Why are women's lives so cheap to the courts?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cedeze6w5wqo

This often seems to be the way when a violent incident arises as the result of a violent argument. Like, when a man punches another man during a drunken argument and kills him it's usually manslaughter and not murder.

They don’t. They are bound by statutory sentencing guidelines. They don’t get to just pluck a sentence out of thin air according to what they feel like.

As for not running attempted murder, it’s a notoriously hard charge to prove, and wounding (s18) carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, so no material difference in maximum sentence.

I have no idea about the circumstances of this case but there’s often an awful lot more to them than meet the eye.

Fair enough. Cheers for the info! Just seems that women's lives are cheap and with his previous conviction against his g/f, it should've been considered more serious imo.

Ok so a further article says:

He was cleared of more serious offences of attempted murder and causing GBH 'with intent'.

So - it was the jury that decided he shouldn’t have been convicted of attempted murder, and instead convicted him of a ‘lesser’ offence. It was tried, so you can’t blame the authorities for that.

As I said - a lot more to these things than meet the eye

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/jury-reaches-verdict-over-man-112859462.html

A lot more than meets the eye, and again shows me that he's been let off too lightly imo.

He hasn’t been let off, he’s been convicted. It looks like they charged him with the highest offences possible - attempted murder and also controlling/coercive behaviour to account for the abuse during their relationship.

They got him on the coercive behaviour, but couldn’t get him on attempted murder as there was a hung jury. So they then had a retrial on that count, and a second jury also didn’t convict him of attempted murder but did convict him for a lesser offence.

The sentencing guidelines the dictated the sentence.

So if you want to criticise anyone, then the criticism should be aimed at the jury who twice didn’t convict him of attempted murder, for which he would’ve likely received a heftier sentence. Or criticise the Sentencing Council for not advising longer sentences for certain crimes. It appears the criminal justice system however did all they could to bring this man to justice, even if the outcome wasn’t the one they anticipated.

I do criticise the jury. I also said 'fair enough' and thanked you for the info on a previous post. No need to be a dick about it? I am happy to stand by my mistakes in putting this thread up in the tone I did, the BBC article wasn't that detailed, until you came up with more info which made me look around.

Am I being a dick? Sorry if so. My tone is a bit brusque but I don’t mean anything by it. Just trying to explain why these matters are always far more complicated than they look.

I also think our courts just treat violence in general lightly. Like, I watched a video on YT the other day where a US teenager got 25 years for robbing a 14yo of his electric scooter at gunpoint. He'd previously offended and broken his probation seven times but hadn't actually killed or seriously injured anyone.

And I don't think violence against men is taken any more seriously. They're like 70% of homicides but we hear much more about murdered women. People even try to dismiss it by saying "oh, but it's men doing the murdering". I've never understood how that makes it ok when an innocent man is murdered for being gay/black/etc.

It’s always been the case that crimes of violence are taken less seriously than financial crimes. I would say for male victims that I think people often attribute many of these to victim precipitated homicides. That is to say that the victim was themselves involved in criminal activity at the time of their deaths. I grew up near Glasgow when it was the knife crime capital of Western Europe but it was largely gangs / football casuals stabbing each other rather than “innocent” victims. People don’t have a lot of sympathy for drug dealers/ gang members etc. getting stabby with each other. Statistically a man is much more likely to be killed after a “quarrel” with a known assailant often fuelled by alcohol or drugs than a random attack due to race or sexuality.

Statistically a man is much more likely to be killed after a “quarrel” with a known assailant often fuelled by alcohol or drugs than a random attack due to race or sexuality.

No doubt. But equally the main pattern of DV is bidirectional and the biggest DV study to date (biggest by far, it analysed 10,000 former studies) found that women actually perpetrate more DV despite killing less, which is likely down to the disparity in physical strength.

So, it's pretty muddy waters when we get down to victim precipitation etc.

The thing which bugs me about English sentencing is that sentences are pretty much always concurrent. I am a victim of a crime. The offender offended against 10 women. At least. It would have made no difference if it was 5 or 20. His sentence was extended because of the multiple offending but not by much.

If you go into any sentencing hearing you will be shocked how short sentencing is.

One thing I didn't realise though is that life, while it doesn't mean life, does mean the risk of being recalled to prison without trial for life. So even once offenders with a life term have been released, they risk recall, without trial.

But does it feel fair? Nope.

You weren’t being a dick. Some people read direct language as being a dick when it isn’t.

Attempted murder is one of the hardest crimes to prove. It's an odd charge anyway. It should be the same as murder, really.

Do you have a link to this study? I find that difficult to believe tbh

People react to the headline but rarely read the full details of a case. A jury will have heard all the evidence as will the judge. Sentences for crime have been getting longer and prisons are packed. There are plenty of debatable issues around crime and punishment but people do need to understand the details

When I was sat with the other women after the sentencing, I can tell you now that in no way did it feel just.

Sentences are determined by the judge not the jury and (normally he) only has certain levels of leeway between guidance and legislation set by parliament.

I'm not sure it's down to any amount of not knowing the details that leads to low sentences.