Soham Murder trial

[codswallop]

I am sure this must be indescribably Painful for the parents , But I was thinking in bed - what if I had been selected for that Jury service....

I am soooooo emotional and i reckon that this would seriously affect me for the rest of my life (not saying it wouldnt for others natch).

I know you cant get out of Jury Service But God - how would you cope?

Just heard about it and not sure what to believe: BBC site

So he suffocated Jessica, to death, with his bare hands, by accident. Yeah, right.

So he accidentally suffocated one of the girls after accidentally drowning the other???!!!

I have a nasty feeling that this is going to lead to a technical argument of murder versus manslaughter, possibly with an element of diminished responsibility. Presumably his QC will also argue that the evidence is so circumstantial that a murder conviction could be deemed unsafe. Sounds as if it might get yet more grisly.

what a load of bull sh*t.

if this is true then he is the most unlucky person ever to walk this earth.

And where does the cupboard under the stairs come into it? He got very twitchy in the bathroom and beside the understairs cupboard when the police (or was it a journalist?) went round.

The diminished responsibility bit is why the prosecution has gone over his subsequent behaviour so carefully, eg, talk to police about how long DNA lasts, then return to bodies to remove clothing. They argue that he was entirely in possession of all his faculties.

He is indeed the unluckiest man on earth. His immediate reaction would have been to pull Holly from the bath and not silence Jessica surely. The man's guilty as hell and if he gets off with anything other than murder then the justice system nothing but a farce and a disgrace.

what? Sorry but what a pile of crap.

Has anyone seen the stuff about the girl who disappeared in Devon when she went to catch the bus to college- found her body last week- they've arrested the bus driver. I know him- well knew him- lived in the same village when kids.

What was he like, Jimjams?

But what if it is true? Seriously. You know that no-one would EVER believe you.

BUT

• if she slipped in the bath why could she not get out?
• if unconsciuos/unable why on earth didn't he get her out straight away - a 10 year old healthy child doesn't drown in a second surely?
• why stop her friend from screaming as a priority rather than helping the injured girl?

Sorry but it doesn't ring true.

my dad threatened to wring his neck when he was about 16 as he found him trashing his car! bit of a bad boy. I was quite a bit younger but remember being quite scared of him. His sister was in my class.

cnr

I too find it odd that he didn't help her back out or that she managed to drown in 18 inches of water without any struggle to get herself out. Also would not Jessica have tried to pull her out, unless he physically prevented her. Frightening scenario.

Timing of this claim is interesting as it comes just at the beginning of the forensic evidence, as if to cast suspicion on any assumptions previously made.

If such a tragic accident really did happen in your house, wouldn't you tell someone fairly quickly?

Exactly, fisil. His defence will be that he was "falsely accused" of something before (we don't know what) and that he panicked, the red mist descended, he couldn't see Holly in the bath, and didn't realise Jessica had stopped breathing.

As I said before - yeah, right.

Why were they in the house unless they thought Miss Carr was there too? And why would they have thought that? I don't believe for a minute they'd have gone in otherwise.

The nosebleed is interesting. I read in some evidence from Holly's mum that she was prone to nosebleeds - I think it was in her statement/description to the police when the girls had gone missing - am assuming that he had heard about that. (If not then it does raise a few questions.)

Message withdrawn

jimjams - sorry to hear that about the girl, saw it on the news last week( or when it happened) such a shame

I knew someone who murdered his girlfriend. We all used to taunt him as kids and call him 'psycho' and he use to wave a knife at us. Silly I know but we used to treat it as a joke didnt really know he was capable of what he DID though

I could not beleive what Ian Huntley had put forward as his defence - beggars beleif

I think there is no way that his story of the events will be believed. His defence is virtually worthless since he did not mention it sooner - you have a right to remain silent when questioned but this may harm your defence if you do not mention anything that you later rely on in court! The fact that he said nothing until now indicates that his solicitors have since scrambled around trying to find a defence! Any innocent person would have phoned an ambulance, police etc if his story was true, not disposed of the bodies in the manner that he did. I'm sure he'll get life.

How can his defence team sleep at night? I would not defend IH for all the money in the world.

That's why solicitors are sometimes called prostitutes of the law! Will do anything if the money is right! Not saying all solicitors are like that but i certainly couldn't sleep at night if i was them!

The story IH's barrister gave is exactly what you would expect from someone who is self-delusional about what he actually did. I've listened to my dad interviewing low-lifes in courtrooms and it's exactly the sort of far-fetched bizarre account these people dream up. I get the weird feeling we are hearing a tangled version of the truth, but even the current version barely absolves IH of anything. Even if you believed the defense story, it doesn't describe an accident; it describes manslaughter (girl he neglected to get out of the bath), murder (the girl who died in his arms, although not the same as premediated murder), and perverting the course of justice (disposal of bodies afterwards). The absurdness of his story is presumably why the prosecution went for a murder charge rather than letting IH settle for pleading guilty to manslaughter.

Northerner: I don't understand why you aren't out there campaigning for the abolition of trial by jury altogether. Clearly if someone's guilt can be so clearly established before the trial has even started, there's no point in them even them having a lawyer as good as the prosecution's barristers; no point in having jury trials at all.

Was thinking about his lawyer last night and, for the first time, had sympathy with a lawyer. It's an awful job, but everyone needs to be represented.