I'd like to discuss the John Hogan case, but I dont want it to descend into a 'lynch' thread

[VVVQV]

It aint gonna happen, is it?

Maybe he just couldnt contemplate life without his children. The reports say that his wife said she was going to leave him. And the fact is that in cases like this, young children usually end up living with the mother as their main carer.

Following edam's analysis, Iwould still have it that the men who 'kill their children with them' out number by some way the number of women who do it.
Much less likely due to being the 'agent of birth/life' being my theory....

What is there to say except that it is a tragedy. I don't think there can be any punishment greater than having to live with what he did.

popmum - he's on trial for murder. Murder has to be premeditated and he's arguing that it wasn't (his psychiatrist in prison who was interviewed today said that he has no recollection of the day at all).

I feel terribly sorry for him and for his wife. More so for her obviously but I do feel for him. What a dreadful thing to have to live with

no, it is more than whether he planned it, but whether he was mentally capable or not of murder at the time he committed the act.

too slow

Yes, in the case of that chap in London who killed his daughter, he was quite clearly in the grip of a psychotic episode and so not legally responsible for the murder of his child. An awful case.
I presume that for the Greek authorities to bring murder charges against John Hogan, they must have concluded that he was sane at the time.

i don;t know who will be feeling the worst

the surviving child

the mother, wondering if she could have picked up some clue that could have prevented it

the perpertrator

it is just an absolutely awful tragedy

although seeing it as an act of aggression seems to sum it up quite well.

what could be worse than taking away yourself and your children from your wife/ mother ..ultimate act of revenge/punishment

Pan, I'm sure you are right - vague memory of stats somewhere that show men are far more likely to kill their children than women are.

the legal side is hard to understand as they obv have diff laws in greece - i understand he is also charged with attempting suicide which is not a crime here (I believe). I guess their system must not have the manslaughter option like we do (as VVQV suggested).

I wonder how John Hogan's parents are feeling (if they are still alive)

But how sane can you be to not only throw yourself off of a 4th floor balcony, but your children too?

DH is under the impression that the mother is hiding something

he had threatened to burn down the house in England if his wife threw him out.

A few posters have commented about the mental torment for him having killed his son by his own hand....ummmm, sure.... - and I understand the mental health issue too...but surely if there was heartfelt and intense remorse / he would be truly wanting to 'atone' for his sins and would gladly accept any punishment the law could throw at him, without trying to seek mitigation....

Insane? (ie psychotic)
Emotionally unstable? (ie personality disordered)
Under the influence?
Depressed and suicidal?
Or just plain evil?

Could be any of the above

VVV - who, the wife or Hogan's mother?

According to that article, she is living with her new boyfriend in Newport.

bit ed, though not judgemental(phew) at such a speedy recovery to commence another relationship to the point of co-habiting.

VVQ, you might be sane but very, very angry and prepared to kill your children to make a point. Bad things are done by perfectly sane people all the time.

Isn't what the mum is doing now irrelevant to what happened in Greece?

the ex-wife, yes. He thinks she may have goaded and taunted him. That there was already another man. Can't see how she didnt realise what he was about to do. I still dont think that makes her necessarily complicit - even if it were true.

True edam. Very true. Isnt that considered temporary insanity though?

'goading' and 'taunting' are accusations often used by violent men to justify domestic violenced. But even if she was sleeping with someone else (or everyone else in town), that hardly excuses what he did.

But that makes it sound as though he thinks it is partly her fault that her husband jumped off a fourth floor balcony with her two children?

I'm with Lulumama, I think it is an horrendous tragedy for all parties concerned.

Deliberately taking the life of your own child is surely the preserve of the mentally unsound. How one lives with ones self I cannot begin to imagine

I agree with notnowbernard.
we can't possibly know what his state of mind was at the time. there are any number of explanations.
his "failure" to "accept his punishment" isn't an indicator of anything either. that is a bit of a "trial by water" argument tbh.