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?

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but if he wanted to punish her, surely he couldn't have thought of doing that in such an instant. If punishing his wife was on his minds, then maybe he had thought of killing himself and the children if his wife left him, so maybe this argument led to him carrying out the thoughts he had had previously, hense the pre-meditated murder charge.

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I suspect he is pleading 'not guilty' on advice of his legal team.

I find thouse comments his wife Natasha made very ineresting - I'm not sure if I could say those things if it was my child he had killed. It's easy for me to feel sympathy for him when it's not my child he killed.

She has been through a nightmare, and has acted very admirably, right from the moment when she tried to save her son using her nursing knowledge.

No it's not black & white & of course as mothers we react with fury & incomprehension at the fact any parent could kill their child, but that's the horror of mental illness it makes people do incomprehensible things. it's not excusing any of his actions just trying to say that none of us 9least of all him I should think) know what goes on in the mind of a mentally ill person when they do these awful things.

I think there is a world of difference between this case & that of Shipman/West/ Huntley who were cold-blooded murderers who knew EXACTLY what they were doing & in the first two cases over an appallingly long time.

I'm pretty stunned that people can think things are so black and white.

Do people really believe that every case of filicide is because that person is evil and that no pity should be felt for them?

What about a new mother suffering from post-natal depression? Should she be jailed for murder?

shipman suffered from mental illness though. he attempted suecide while in college, he had drug addictions, so potentially he was suffering from mental illness.

should that excuse the fact he murdered so many people?

should we have empathy for him?

I think yes we should WannaBe, if we want to advance our ability as a society to pre-empt and prevent crimes like the ones he committed.

But it's easier and more fun to spit blood and feathers all over the place and scream for the return of the noose

wannaBe: Shipman never claimed to suffer mental illness, was never found to have suffered from any mental illness and in fact never even pleaded it as a defence.

I feel terrible for that man, but I think he MUST be given a sentence for what he did. If i were his wife, I would want him to go to prison for a very long time, I'm afraid.

The best friend of a colleague is the mother of a child killed by his father in exactly this way some years ago. I have met the mother and her surviving child many times.
In this case, the father was looking after the boys - she was extracating herself from the relationship. She went out to work, he was in with the boys. In their tower block flat. 10th floor. He called her to come home. He waited. And then shortly before he knew she would be back, he threw one child off the balcony. Then the other. Then jumped, himself. The second child survived because his brother's body broke his fall - but has severe and permanent damage of many kinds.

It was the moct chilling example of exactly what Madamez talk of.

I don't think he was insane, but i think his degree of anger and possesiveness enveloped and deformed any feelings he had for his boys.

He deliberately timed it so that she would arrive back and see the carnage. In fact he included some horrible catch-22 ultimatum in his message calling her home, one that was impossible for her to meet.

The desire to hurt, to do damage, knows no bounds on occasions, it seems. I don't think he was insane. Made irrational by anger and vengeance and posessiveness - but is that insanity?

I think it is terrible that the woman in Crete has to sit metres away from her ex husband.

Tragic all round, I think the wife most likely had another man as she seemed to be splashed all over the papers with her "new love" quite soon after.

I think she is turning her guilt in to anger towards him.
He seems to come from a family of mentally ill people, and must have some thing wrong in his head as to do what he did if sain just makes him evil.

Fair play if he wanted to kill himself thats down to him, but to kill his child, maybe just to get at his wife makes him screaming mad or plain evil. I don't feel much pity for anyone who kills their own child.

I think what ever the reason it is a case of where to lock him away and not if.

Yes but Kerry he wasn't sane one minute & then insane the next - it had been building up over time he was on anitdepressants & had a blazing row with his wife which obviously flipped some switch so he jumped with the kids.

Totally inexcusable but I can't put him in the same boat as Shipman who was an arrogant bastard who killed people over a period of time & took drugs recreationally because he had easy access to them & comitted suicide to avoid being deprived of his liberty NOT because he was ill.

I think he SHOULD be convicted because he did it, but as previously said in a mental institution not a prison.

KM you don't want to understand and you are not interested in more empathetic approaches. You have been supportive of me on other threads but I always disagree with you on these threads.

Do you have any room for reconsideration of your staunch approach? Mental state is so such a complex a thing isn't it? On that basis how can we take a 'condemn all' approach?

I agree with Blu.

Blu that is also a different case in that he pre-planned to kill himself & the kids- that WAS evil.