******TRIGGER WARNING Powerful message from a midwife (re. the murder of Natalie Connolly) TRIGGER WARNING ******

[WTFIsAGleepglorp]

Relax, it's not a trans thread.

It's about the horrific murder of Natalie Connolly.

twitter.com/ThatMidwife/status/1075808892477693952?s=19

Who's writing to the Attorney General?

I've written to the AG. Reading about the injuries inflicted on Natalie, I could not believe that he could be thought of as anything other than an extremely brutal murderer.
Absolutely shocking.

Shocking doesn't even begin to describe it. What really puzzles me is why, given the level of alcohol in her blood, this wasn't a cut and dried rape and murder case. I get that with many rape cases consent can be a challenge but this is as cut and dried as it gets surely? That's without getting into whether any woman, regardless of her alleged interest in "rough sex", would ever consent to what he did that night.

Bitterly upset about this and can't describe how angered I am about the lack of justice.

That is an extraordinarily powerful letter and I will be fwding it to my own MP, whilst pondering my own for the AG.

Doea anyone know how to get a copy of the court transcript other than applying directly to the court? Is it likely to be in the public domain somewhere?

I'm going to state the obvious here and phrase it badly but I can't think of appropriate wording. But, I can't get the judge's comments about what he was "sure" of out of my mind - nor what the judge was accepting as naturally flowing from Natalie Connolly's consent to previous activities resulting in bruising.

I think that there must be unrecognisably different interpretations of the phrase, "rough sex" in play here.

There's the interpretation of those who are categorised as vanilla

Then there's the stuff that's normalised enough to turn up as TV tropes/advice in newspapers (I'm thinking of Tracey Cox level of advice)

50 Shades? Neither read the books nor seen the films but possibly somewhere round Tracey Cox or beyond it?

Stuff that's normalised because of access to pornography where violence is part of the experience. (Seems to involve air games and beyond?)

Probably some interims and then there is the the extreme end of pornography.

I know there's no BDSM community nor media representatives but it would be helpful if there were a contribution from informed people stating the activities involved in this pattern of injuries have no part to play within the overall framework of Safe, Sane and Consensual . And explaining whether there's a working definition of rough sex and how it can fit in within the framework.

I don't know whether transcripts are available but the Judge's formal 'Sentencing Remarks' are here:

www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/broadhurst-sentencing-remarks.pdf

I wrote to the correspondence address, my MP and also to the address for the Unduly lenient Sentencing Scheme address (ULS) which is
[email protected]

Doea anyone know how to get a copy of the court transcript other than applying directly to the court? Is it likely to be in the public domain somewhere?

Secret Barrister and Harriet Harman had an exchange about this on Twitter. The transcript doesn't seem to exist as yet.

Apparently, we should be grateful that we've been able to see an online version of the judge's sentencing remarks...

I know it's bad form to reverse the sexes, but fuck it, I'm going to. Imagine if a woman was in front of that same judge being sentenced for torturing and killing a man in the same way, what a hefty sentence would have been doled out. That scenario would never happen though, because women don't choke, beat or shoot sexual partners in their orifices to entertain themselves.

The whole point about consent is that you can’t consent if you are that drunk!!!!

The judge needs to watch consent is like a cup of tea video!!!

Thanks for the link @Dottierichardson.

I'm going to have to read it in stages for the sake of my sanity.

Snippets like this make my blood boil:

"I am sure that, apart from the stresses and strains that happen in nearly all relationships, you and Natalie were happy together"

"I am sure that Natalie’s motivation arose from the fact that she derived sexual satisfaction by being beaten quite hard"

How dare a judge presume to be sure about such things?

Referring to Natalie "Professor Jones said he had never seen such high levels of alcohol and cocaine together".

"Your own blood alcohol level was high, at 259 mg per 100 ml of blood at (based on a back-calculation to 3am, and lower still at 6am), but nowhere as high as Natalie’s. It is plain from your account that you were significantly less drunk than she was and you were capable of taking decisions and making choices".

So she was clearly not fit to give consent and he knew what he was doing. He should never have been allowed to cop for the lesser manslaughter charge. It's an outrageous disgrace.

"I am sure that Natalie’s motivation arose from the fact that she derived sexual satisfaction by being beaten quite hard"

This is why I would welcome some informed commentary on what is generally understood by the phrase "rough sex" as it relates to people's voluntary experiences rather than something that is coerced or made into a form of entertainment.

I have no insight into how the judge traverses from that assertion into thinking this parlays into consent for what happened to Natalie Connolly.

Point 24 makes me want to scream!!!

Letter sent. Bastard.

Point 24 makes me want to scream!!!

Indeed. Basically, accordng to this judge's logic, a women can never be deemed not competent through intoxication to consent.

Basically, accordng to this judge's logic, a women can never be deemed not competent through intoxication to consent.

MacKinnon covers the issue of consent as applied to someone who is comatose:

One cannot not consent when dead, serving to reveal a tacit presumption in some instances that if sex happened, the woman consented to it, so the prosecution has to prove she did not. ...A corpse is certainly acquiescent—seemingly the sexual appeal of rape-murders—as are comatose or drugged or sleeping or otherwise un- conscious49 women. A lifeless body is utterly powerless, death being the ultimate overcoming by the power of the living.
...
The accompanying doctrine of mistaken belief in consent67 further means that if A is found to have believed B consented to sex with him, when she did not, the sex that occurred was not rape. Never mind that in societies saturated with pornography, a lead pipe over the head or its equivalent can sincerely be believed to produce consent to sex. Reasonable belief—what juries or judges think a so-called reasonable person in the position of the accused would have believed68—is a marginally higher standard for the ac- cused to meet than honest belief—what the accused actually believed. But the underlying equality question remains: in societies of sex inequality, why should the defendant’s beliefs, constructed in a rape culture that glorifies and normalizes male force in sexual relations,69 rather than his actions, determine his culpability?

harvardlpr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/10.2_6_MacKinnon.pdf (pdf)

Is that defence barrister the same one who defended Rolf Harris? If so he'll take money off any evil bastard won't he?

I think the earlier email adresse for the attorney general is incorrect.
To request a review you have to email:
[email protected]

I’ve had the odd brush with BDSM stuff, and it’s all quite a bit scary tbh. I think when someone dies or suffers significant injury the person responsible for inflicting it IS culpable.

I refuse to believe there wasn’t some voice in the back of this guy’s head saying “this is a bit much,” I don’t care if he even had consent or not. There are some things you just shouldn’t do to a fellow human being. If you feel the urge to you should get therapy.

Arran
The famous bdsm case involving a group of 10 gay men which set down the precedent that you cannot legally consent to being significantly harmed, is R. v Brown.

It’s this case:
swarb.co.uk/regina-v-slingsby-crwn-1995/

Which has caused complications with the judgement I think.

I’m horrified and disgusted. I have sent emails to the addresses given.

I’ve written to the attorney general this morning the leniency in this case is appalling and I cannot understand why the cps did not pursue a murder charge

Arran, the article you reference is from the US so not really relevent here if we're trying to make sense of an English judge's conclusions.

According to the Crown Prosecution Service (link below) referencing the Sexual Offenses act,

Lack of consent may be demonstrated by:
Evidence that by reason of drink, drugs, sleep, age or mental disability the complainant was unaware of what was occurring and/ or incapable of giving valid consent;

www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offences-chapter-3-consent

I'm not a lawyer but it seems clear to me. Happy for any lawyers to explain if I'm missing the point.

Given all this, I'm hugely relieved at the verdict and sentence in the Christina Abbotts case:

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/21/city-banker-zahid-naseem-jailed-bludgeoning-woman-christina-abbotts-death-pestle

Arran, the article you reference is from the US so not really relevent here if we're trying to make sense of an English judge's conclusions.

The full paper (which I linked) is based on the issue of consent in several legal jurisdictions with different evidence thresholds. I linked it as part of a wider understanding about issues of consent. England and Wales are explicitly mentioned in the section about The Vicissitudes of Consent .

MacKinnon's political critique of consent covers Western countries.

I have emailed the AG and copied in my MP.

Just to note, there are a couple of very small typos in that draft letter (fullstop not a comma, words with no spaces) so you might want to proof read before you send.