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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Man kills girl after strangling her "by accident"

110 replies

NoLoveofMine · 21/07/2017 09:42

Apologies for the content of this thread.

This case has got to me somewhat: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-40670225

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4714598/Ex-McDonald-s-worker-obsessed-porn-jailed.html

I know people understandably don't like Daily Mail links but there's more detail in that article.

The man in question was convicted of manslaughter but cleared of murder for strangling a girl he'd met earlier on that day. He claimed applying pressure on her neck was consensual but she was proven to be in an extremely intoxicated state, the judge said in her summing up unable to understand what was going on if she was even conscious, had no history of liking this kind of thing, whereas the man was "into" this kind of pornography and had tried it with a former partner. The jury, however, believed his account that he had believed she was consenting to it, only meant it as a "sex game" and was horrified when he found out what had happened (despite the fact he waited over 20 minutes before calling an ambulance after she was dead which the judge herself said was "chilling" in sentencing).

There is more which incredibly troubles me about this case but in short I find it quite disturbing that a man clearly into pornography depicting violence against women, including the very method of violence he used here, can ply a girl (significantly younger than himself) he's just met (through her boyfriend) with drink, "guide" her to his bedroom supposedly to put her to sleep, then do this before showing "no remorse" (investigating police officer's words) can be cleared of murder by a jury seemingly because he claims she initiated "kissing" him (which can't be proven not to be the case as the judge said but it's just his word...I do wonder what motivation he could possibly have for claiming this) then apparently consenting (in an extremely intoxicated state even if this was the case) to having pressure applied to her neck. I've thought for a little while men could start using this kind of defence in a case like this and now it appears to have worked.

OP posts:
Datun · 21/07/2017 19:12

*What a bloody world we live in!

Now there's one man I can always rely on. Jack Daniels.

Anlaf · 21/07/2017 19:14

Mark my words he'll probably turn out to have a terrible backstory

Datun · 21/07/2017 19:19

Anlaf

God, yes! Him and his oak barrels.

Anlaf · 21/07/2017 19:37

i come from an area where barrels are common in industry and there is a true and scandalous story which I can't remember and I think is for another time, another thread

PoochSmooch · 21/07/2017 19:50

Oh, that poor wee girl Sad and her family. I just want to hug them.

Any man who ever, ever put his hands round the throat of a woman is a danger. He's something like eight times more likely to end up killing a woman.

Honestly, I sometimes despair of a society that has so lost its moral centre that any credibility whatsoever could be given to this absurd story of sexy-times-gone-wrong. I mean, heaven fucking forbid that we should judge anyone, eh? That's just pearl clutching and kink shaming.

LetsSplashMummy · 21/07/2017 20:02

My DH was on a jury for a sex crime (they changed plea to guilty last minute so he didn't do the actual trial in the end) but he said it was a mainly male jury as they excused/didn't select people who had been a victim of sexual assault or harassment. I don't know enough about the law to know if this is standard but with sexual assault so prevalent, that means a large chunk of the population, those most likely to empathise with the victim, are not sitting on these juries.

AssassinatedBeauty · 21/07/2017 20:11

I thought that the only reason you could be de-selected from being on a specific jury is if you knew someone involved in the trial? I didn't think that anything else needed to be declared.

WhichJob · 21/07/2017 20:17

WTF does a man have to do to get convicted of murder in this country?

WhichJob · 21/07/2017 20:19

LetsSplash, bloody hell I didn't know that! As most women have been sexually harassed at some point then that would exclude most women so how can the outcome be fair?

StealthPolarBear · 21/07/2017 20:19

"WhichJob

WTF does a man have to do to get convicted of murder in this country?"
Kill a man I'd guess

PoochSmooch · 21/07/2017 20:21

That's a really interesting point letssplash.

Though I suppose that women are almost as vulnerable to believing rape myths as men are. In an ideal world, juries in general, whether male or female, would be less susceptible to believing rape myths.

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 21/07/2017 20:27

I thought that as well assassinated

WhichJob · 21/07/2017 20:36

Stealth, true. Depressing as anything, first the murder and then the complete lack of justice.

Datun · 21/07/2017 20:43

pooch

Any man who ever, ever put his hands round the throat of a woman is a danger. He's something like eight times more likely to end up killing a woman.

Is that right? A known statistic?

As far as I know, in terms of juries they can deselect people in the US, based on whether they think they will be prejudiced, but not in the UK.

AnneElliott · 21/07/2017 21:20

Having done jury service twice, I'm surprised anyone is found guilty.

We had a burglary case where the judge said to us "you don't need to find a defendant on the premises to convict him if burglary".

First thing one juror says "well they never actually caught him on the premises"Shock

CherriesInTheSnow · 21/07/2017 21:31

I've discussed porn use with aquaintances and I'm always made to feel like such a wet blanket for being so against it, they always try and argue that it's a woman's perogative to do it if she wants to, etc....

The population in general seem so ignorant and naive to the horrible realities of the industry and the insidious implcations it has on (especially young) mens view of women. What I will never understand and can't bring myself to understand is just why it is such a turn on to watch violent and aggressive sex? It's completely abhorrent and really scary.

I don't know what the fuck to believe with this man - did he really mean to not kill her, I don't know. It doesn't make a difference really to me. He killer her violently. It is horrific, that poor girl, her poor family :(

CherriesInTheSnow · 21/07/2017 21:34

And I agree that the jury system worldwide doesn't seem to work well in instances of rape. There seems to me to be so much pressure to "not ruin the poor man's life". The thread about Gayle Newman recently highlighted this for me too.

OlennasWimple · 21/07/2017 21:35

I feel strongly that the right to trial by jury is a cornerstone of our justice system. But everyone I know who has done jury service says that they would always elect to have their case heard by a judge rather than a jury, because of their experiences...

M0stlyBowlingHedgehog · 21/07/2017 22:43

Yes, not so much 12 angry men, more 9 somewhat bored people, a couple of reasonably engaged individuals and a rape apologist. Not such a snappy film title, though.

Anlaf · 21/07/2017 22:54

He's something like eight times more likely to end up killing a woman.
Is that right? A known statistic?

I found this:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2573025/#!po=50.7813
It's awful. strangulation is indicator of 6.7 fold increase in chance of a woman being attempted murder case and 7.5 fold increase in chance in what they call "completed homicide".

I don't think they've looked at later the victim of attempted murder or murder as their data for attempted and completed murders come from different approaches.

For completed homicdes 7.5x increasein chance to women through previous strangulation: For Latina women it's 21x, for white women 14x. For African American women 4x but that appears to be because African American women are strangled much more frequently and are also murdered much more frequently (4x greater chance of being murder/attempted by intimate partner than other ethnicity). Bloody hell.

(Friday night so my stats interpretive skills are open to challenge Gin )

New yorker article also grim:

the very act of strangulation turns out to be the penultimate abuse by a perpetrator before a homicide. “Statistically, we know now that once the hands are on the neck the very next step is homicide,” Sylvia Vella, a clinician and a detective in the domestic-violence unit at the San Diego Police Department, says. “They don’t go backwards.”

www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-unseen-victims-of-traumatic-brain-injury-from-domestic-violence

I think I've seen another study that didn't show such a strong link but cannot see it.

powershowerforanhour · 22/07/2017 04:41

Good grief. If poor Elaine O'Hara hadn't left evidence in the form of texts that explicitly said "Please don't stab me to death, I don't want to die" or words to that effect, would the brute who murdered her have been found not guilty of murder?

Datun · 22/07/2017 08:30

Anlaf

That's a very interesting link. They talk about strangulation in the context of an abusive relationship. I've only skim read, but I can't see anywhere where they talk about it as part of a sex game.

However, this blurring of the lines between a sex game and straightforward violence, is very important. Given this report's findings that some men (not women) have a propensity for strangulation and choking generally, I'm wondering exactly how many women really like this kind of asphyxiation play during sex.

Surely, if anything, it's got to be something that has to be carried out incredibly gently, because of the high risks of injury?

I'm probably not explaining myself very well, but I get the feeling that even wanting to choke a woman during sex is an indication of the perpetrator's violent nature.

So sex games aside, a man who attempts to strangle a woman, does indeed indicate he has a propensity for violence. I wonder if the prosecution had bothered to read up on it, because the statistics are very persuasive.

These findings indicate that strangulation is a relatively prevalent form of violence toward women who experience physical violence in an abusive relationship (a finding consistent with the sparse literature on the subject) and is a significant predictor for future lethal violence.

Based on the health consequences noted by other researchers, and given that all incidents of strangulation could potentially result in death, it would appear logical that strangulation be prosecuted as a more serious crime than simple assault and battery

Idaho recently signed a bill into law (Senate Bill 1062-April 2005) that any person who willfully and unlawfully chokes or attempts strangulation of a household member, or a person with whom there was a dating relationship, guilty of a felony punishable by incarceration for up to fifteen (15) years. Importantly, no injuries are required to prove attempted strangulation and the prosecution is not required to show that the defendant intended to kill or injure the victim, the only intent required is the intent to choke or attempt to strangle.

Out of interest, I googled choking during sex and the very first website started like this:

Women enjoy being choked during sex. It turns them on and gives them more powerful orgasms.

Non qualification - just 'women'.

The website (which I stopped reading), then started to talk about how women like an alpha male, like someone to be dominant, and have rape fantasies.

So, I googled rape fantasies.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201508/why-do-women-have-rape-fantasies%3Famp

Interestingly, the actual description of the rape is never given. It also asserts that a woman who has a rape fantasy does not want to be raped in real life (unsurprisingly).

It also says that one of the reasons for the fantasy could be a shame around the sexual urge, and being forced into sex takes away the guilt. Women shamed about wanting sex is another symptom of patriarchy.

I've read quite a few comments from men who claim women like rape fantasies, going on to entirely miss the point that this is just a fantasy.

It's used as justification for actually coercing someone.

Five seconds on the relationships board will tell anyone that coercing a woman into sex, however you do it, is the biggest turn off in history.

A display of mastery in the bedroom, Heathcliff style, is incredibly hard to pull off without looking like a complete wanker.

And something that men should realise is confined to a vanishingly small number of the male population. Not to mention, that at the first whiff of actual violence, women will run a mile.

Sorry, long post.

I could have just summed it up with God men just don't get do they? Whether they are the perpetrators the prosecution, the judge, or on the jury.

NoLoveofMine · 22/07/2017 09:37

So sex games aside, a man who attempts to strangle a woman, does indeed indicate he has a propensity for violence. I wonder if the prosecution had bothered to read up on it, because the statistics are very persuasive.

Very much so. I really don't think there's enough awareness or acknowledgement of this (or many just aren't bothered). The desire to strangle a woman should be such a major "red flag" yet, possibly in part due to pornography, the notion plenty of women are happy with it or even want it seems to have been lapped up by many. It almost seems to have become something any defendant in such a case can claim a woman or girl wanted or was happy.

The murder of Georgia Williams in 2013 is an example of an awful case where the man who murdered her had previously strangled another girl having locked her in his house yet only received a final warning for it www.shropshirestar.com/news/2013/12/20/the-evil-mind-of-georgias-killer/

OP posts:
M0stlyBowlingHedgehog · 22/07/2017 10:13

Anlaf - fascinating, if depressing and horrifying article. And Datun, yes to the awful blurring of lines between choking in sex (which should be seen as a niche and intrinsically dangerous activity) and DV.

It makes me want to leave a signed affidavit with a solicitor saying "in the event of my death due to strangulation during sex, here is a complete list of my former sexual partners, all of whom will testify I liked normal, vanilla, non-violent sex. Please make sure the bastard who did this goes down for murder".

SoPassRemarkable · 22/07/2017 10:22

This is very local to me. I may be wrong but I'm sure I read previously that the man involved had shown a lot of remorse......I've kind of been trying to avoid reading too much though.

My gut feeling was that he's got away with murder.