The Case of Sally Challen

[purpleme12]

Did anyone watch this? Just in the middle of it

I didn't know about it

Yes I caught the second half

I found it quite hard to watch because of what happened with my exH but OMG those Christmas cards. Massive red flag! I don’t really get why she put up with him for so long.

This has been in the news lots and lots.

I haven't watched it, but I have been so impressed by her two sons throughout it all.

Just for reference, I didn’t kill my ex Husband 🤣

😆

I watched it thinking I'd read most of it in the news. There was so much new information - she had lost her Dad age 5, met her husband to be when she was 15 and he was 22

Even her brother said, if our Dad had been around, he would have seen the boyfriend off.

She never had a chance to form her personality or understand how to make attachments to partners and that came across so strongly.

As her husband became more and more vile to her, she just became more and more desperate to hang on. It was so sad.

Great documentary and so sad on so many levels. I really felt for her son trying to reconcile his happy memories with the bad ones whilst never wavering in his support and love for his Mum.

I watched this today and found it really interesting and very well put together. So difficult for the son as both of his parents - who he clearly loved very much - had done such awful things. I found the husband quite chilling, and also disgusting, and thought she must have been holding in so much anger and frustration to have hit him 30 times with a hammer.

I knew nothing about it,don't know who I missed that as it had such big press coverage

Just awful but I know from experience with family that un diagnosed/treated MH issues can result in just what happened to Sally.

Very sad documentary and lots of information that I wasn’t previously aware of.
Her husband was vile. I was at the Christmas cards, what a creep.
Sally suffered so much at his hands, he treated her appallingly.

I watched this. I have to say I struggled with her taking the hammer with her.

Although I think manslaughter rather than murder was the right decision.

So she’d never had a healthy relationship to compare it to? Also as her had died when she was young, maybe few role-models for healthy relationships?

Must try to watch the bit I missed

No, I thought that bit was crucial. She also didn't necessarily come over as very likeable and that also seemed to be due to her lack of understanding of how relationships work.

She came over to me as medicated up to her eyeballs,which she would be if she's on mood stabilisers.

I felt a bit cheated at the end!

I wanted to know more about why the retrial was granted, then dropped and the sentence downgraded. It wasn't explained clearly enough.

I assume they only go to retrial if they can't come to a conclusion beforehand? There was so much overwhelming medical evidence I just presumed it didn't need to go to court again.

Mm...I didn't think the medical evidence was particularly overwhelming myself.

I think they could have explained it better.

But overall, really though provoking.

I didn't think it was massively detailed given how long it was. Didn't mention her suicide attempt or how even his family supported her appeal, the constant verbal abuse and criticism (calling her fat, saying she smelt etc) or the scale of his cheating which went well beyond the brothel visits. She'd left a few times before but always went back to him- that might explain why her best friend seemed to have run out of patience, and shown the strength of the grip he had on her. I agree with a PP it would have been good to have included some explanation as to why the retrial was dropped. They also didn't mention that Sally continues (at least at the time of the appeal) to say that she still loves him.

I'd read about but never seen the famous Christmas cards- I was shocked, they were so graphic. But they didn't make any attempt to explain why he might have done that or how it was relevant beyond "he wasn't a nice man".

It seemed like the program makers were trying not to make it too sympathetic towards Sally, and suggest that Richard had it tough too because of her controlling behaviour. That annoyed me, it really is incomparable.

Retrial was dropped as the CPS's new clinical psychologist (usually hired guns) recommended it was manslaughter thus meaning they didn't believe there wasn't enough evidence to retry her for murder.

Just watched this after seeing this thread. I thought it was really thought provoking. PP mentioned that they didn't mention a lot of the other abuse she suffered and I think perhaps that is to spare everyone involved. If his family were supportive of the appeal and the documentary maybe they requested that the details weren't really explicit. The aim of the appeal/documentary was not show that his behaviour led to his murder, but that it impacted on her mental state. And they must have done that for the appeal to be upheld. Also PP is right that CPS decided not to pursue a retrial after having another doctor assess her as I assume they didn't think they had enough evidence to be successful. They therefore accepted her plea of manslaughter with DR and she was released due to time served.

I wonder about Richard’s early life and what caused him to behave in that way?

I thought it was really interesting as from hearing about the case in the media it definitely was portrayed as if coercive control was being used as a defence whereas actually it was more her mental health and how it was affected by the abuse.

I thought it was a very balanced and clinical (in a good way) documentary.