The murder Sophie Moss, he'll serve 4 years

[katemuff]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9965751/Killer-choked-mother-two-33-death-jailed-four-years.html

So the "rough sex" defence continues, despite the assurance it was not admissible. Another vulnerable woman with mental health issues is killed, 2 motherless children left to deal with their pain and trauma for the rest of their lives. He get's 4 years.

Why don't women's lives matter?

I don't grasp how we can still say after all these cases that people don't know that putting your hands around a person's neck and squeezing can result in death???

If you put your hands around another person's neck and squeeze then you may kill them. It's not an accident - you know that there is a risk of death each and every time you do it.

Aggravating factors in this case are the alcohol - he must have known that drinking was likely to impair his judgement so that he should have stayed away from a woman that he said he was in the habit of *squeezing the life out of for the purposes of sexual excitement".

FFS

By all means let people have their kink, but it should be understood that if it goes wrong then you knowingly and willingly put their life at risk and death by sexual violence should result in a hefty sentence. Maybe it wouldn't feel so sexy if you were risking 15 years of your own liberty.

By all means let people have their kink

No. Kink is just a Trojan horse for people to hide evil intentions behind.

@BelleOfTheProvince

By all means let people have their kink

No. Kink is just a Trojan horse for people to hide evil intentions behind.

This

Can someone with legal knowledge explain why, despite it apparently not being admissible as a defence, the rough sex thing still seems to be getting men off the hook? I understand this was classed as manslaughter because of no evidence of intent but what was the point of having the rough sex excuse become inadmissible if this can still happen?

I also fail to see how you accidentally strangle someone. As far as I know, it isn't like in the movies. It takes minutes and the victim would become unconscious long before death took place. Exactly how careless and negligent, not to mention fucked up, do you have to be not to notice your partner has passed out and to keep on choking her? At least killing someone by drunk or dangerous driving is a split second thing (even if the decision to drive while drunk isn't).

I feel like this also gives people with this type of fetish a bad name.

There are plenty of safe ways to perform this act. (which i personally can't stand) and equating what two adults do in privately when they are of sound body and mind with what this piece of absolute trash did only blurs the lines and makes it easier for this shit to sneak through.

Like the attitude of 'she was up for so many times we cant prove this time was any difference so lets just get the conviction we can' NO!

No way would someone who was genuinely interested in the safety of their partner would attempt this when so heavily intoxicated, it would be unthinkable.

These are just bored men who are taking their anger and hatred out on the body in front of them.

Its unbelievable that they accepted manslaughter. This woman had substantial mental health problems and was legally vulnerable, she was clearly taken advantage of. This implies that she knew what she was expecting when she opened the door to him. How could she? he was way too intoxicated to instigate that act and he should pay deciding to do it - whether he meant to kill her or not.

Someone mentioned dangerous driving earlier and thats the thing...the charge of death by dangerous driving holds because regardless of whether you meant to kill someone or not you knew it was a risk to engage in that behaviour while you were intoxicated and you're held responsible for that risk.

It should be the same here, he should be held responsible for engaging in that behaviour while he was intoxicated but the responsibility for absorbing that risk again is put on the woman - the victim.

Its not an accident if you knew strangulation was dangerous which he clearly did. Being drunk is not a mitigating factor.

Her poor kids too... I'll be thinking of them.

Sorry this case has really got to me.

Utterly demoralizing, yet another example of the failure to protect women which is accepted in today's society. 4 years for taking the life of a young woman . The power imbalance is so apparent I'm incredulous.
Institutionalised misogyny. How do we redress the balance when it when it's so ingrained?

Strangulation is always dangerous. Even with the precautions that someone who does this as part of a fetish might employ.

@sticktomygun

I feel like this also gives people with this type of fetish a bad name.

There are plenty of safe ways to perform this act. (which i personally can't stand) and equating what two adults do in privately when they are of sound body and mind with what this piece of absolute trash did only blurs the lines and makes it easier for this shit to sneak through.

Like the attitude of 'she was up for so many times we cant prove this time was any difference so lets just get the conviction we can' NO!

No way would someone who was genuinely interested in the safety of their partner would attempt this when so heavily intoxicated, it would be unthinkable.

These are just bored men who are taking their anger and hatred out on the body in front of them.

Its unbelievable that they accepted manslaughter. This woman had substantial mental health problems and was legally vulnerable, she was clearly taken advantage of. This implies that she knew what she was expecting when she opened the door to him. How could she? he was way too intoxicated to instigate that act and he should pay deciding to do it - whether he meant to kill her or not.

Someone mentioned dangerous driving earlier and thats the thing...the charge of death by dangerous driving holds because regardless of whether you meant to kill someone or not you knew it was a risk to engage in that behaviour while you were intoxicated and you're held responsible for that risk.

It should be the same here, he should be held responsible for engaging in that behaviour while he was intoxicated but the responsibility for absorbing that risk again is put on the woman - the victim.

Its not an accident if you knew strangulation was dangerous which he clearly did. Being drunk is not a mitigating factor.

Her poor kids too... I'll be thinking of them.

Sorry this case has really got to me.

Manslaughter in this case works exactly like death by dangerous driving. We very rarely charge drivers who kill with murder because we usually accept that they didn't intend to harm anyone but they should still be charged with a serious crime because the death was a predictable consequence of their actions.

The furore over the death of PC Andrew Harper was because most people didn't believe that the perpetrators didn't intend harm.

Cases involving death by allegedly consensual strangulation are the same. The problem is nothing to do with consent, which is why putting the existing law on consent into statute makes no difference. The uproar is largely that most of us don't believe the perpetrators didn't intend harm.

FYI this is Harriet Harman's letter to the AG.

I'll be blunt. I feel fucking disgusted about this.

There is no safe way of strangling someone

@SpindleWhorl

I'll be blunt. I feel fucking disgusted about this.

Same. It makes me feel sick. How many of us have had boyfriends or partners who we later found out we couldn't implicitly trust?

Not only is this a personal tragedy for a young mum and her family; it's a real stark reminder of the danger we are in at the hands of some men. Not only that, but they then get to control the narrative and drag your name through the mud.

How are we to know if a partner is capable of this? We don't. And if four years is the going rate then what's to stop someone carrying out their snuff fantasies on a woman?

I feel like there's almost a value judgement attached to this crime. That because she consented to sex with this man she should have expected it or it somehow makes it less of a crime. It's like we've time travelled right back to the dark ages where a woman's life was worth less than livestock.

Just for context, animal activists have got more time in jail for releasing mink in fur farms.

I think something needs to be done. I'm absolutely shocked at the legal explanations here. I watched a program where a woman was given life in prison when in a drug fueled argument she pushed her husband. He accidentally fell out of their high story flat window and died. She was given a life sentence. She later commited suicide in prison.
Now, this was in America, not the UK, but I would be very surprised if men who strangle their partners in alleged kink aren't also using it as a get out of jail free card there.

There's far more intent in throttling someone than pushing them in a fight. Why is it not punished?

Reminds me of the case of the married policeman who killed his lover by strangling her in his car - he called it a "kerfuffle". No suggestion that she consented to being throttled and the judge even said that he believed the intent had been to kill, but it was "loss of control" and so he was found guilty of manslaughter, and given 10ish years which I believe was increased to 13 after appeal. Basically women are fucked either way though.

There's a lot about the woman's 'consent' and not a lot about what kind of men want to strangle women in bed. What the woman is consenting to or not, if a man wants to strangle women to get his jollies, he's violent. It's not kinky or weird, it's violent and scary.

I'm sure that had I asked DH to strangle me early in our relationship, I would be single. Because he wouldn't have been able to do it, because he's not a violent man.

Regardless of women's consent, men who do this are dangerous, even if they say it's a 'normal' kink.

Was there even any evidence that she had consented to this act in the first place? Is it really just his word for it?

I'm just so disgusted with the whole thing, it's revolting. I'm single and the more I hear about what sort of sex men seem to expect these days, the less I ever want to get anywhere near a man ever again.

@MrsTerryPratchett same for my husband.

But then he grew up in a time when porn was topless magazines found in bushes. We don't know how many monsters are being created by porn, or whether it was always thus and they're just emboldened.

I feel like this also gives people with this type of fetish a bad name. There are plenty of safe ways to perform this act

If you have daughters, I hope to god you don't ever spout that crap to them.

If you remember your crime history Fred West blamed quite a few of his and Rose's victims deaths on sex games gone wrong.
Times are obviously very different as that didn't wash back then.

Apparently he'll serve just over 2 years.

@Lateyetagain

Apparently he'll serve just over 2 years.

Sickening.

@SuperbLyrebird

It's not 'crap' - fetish clubs exist and there are people that practice 'breath play' in a safer way with plenty of notice, preparation, enthusiastic consent and no intoxication.

Personally, the thought of it makes me sick but I feel like thats really different from this case where the murderer took advantage of a vulnerable person to act out violently towards.

For info, I hope to instill emotional confidence in my child so they can have healthy relationships.

Fetish clubs exist so it's ok then?!
I'm sure you can find clubs for lots of things if you look hard enough: cannibalism, child abuse, beastiality etc.
Just because some weirdos think this is normal does not make it ok.
If you make excuses for it you are part of the problem.
Kink is just a shield to make things humans know are wrong more palatable.

Ugh - this whole ' let's practice breath play safely' thing is just plain terrifying.

I have a teenage son and a 22 year old daughter. I have told the eldest that no, we do NOT have men place their hands round our necks EVER and I will tell my youngest who's a boy, that we don't put our hands on women's necks - despite what he may see and hear from his peers. He's not quite ready for a chat about strangling women just yet though.

It's become normalised and women think they like it. But you're not allowed to say that though as women obviously know their own minds but you'll never convince me that women enjoy being choked during sex. They're doing it because men like it and well, porn.

@sticktomygun In all these fetish clubs where "breath play" occurs, what proportion is it where women are doing this to men for the man's sexual gratification?