Megan Newborough: another beautiful and vibrant young woman murdered in the prime of her life

[EmmatheStageRat]

…just that really. The images of this beautiful and vibrant young woman haunt me. She was nearly decapitated by her boyfriend murderer, Ross McCullam. Just WHAT are parents of boys teaching them about positive relationships with females?

I think there is an issue with conditioning men to see woman as their equal and many who don't wouldn't fit the definition of "monster".

Thats my point exactly. We can blame ‘societal sexism’ for a lot of behaviour but not, I believe, crimes like this one. It’s easy to just fall back on ‘oh it’s all misogyny’ because to say anything else feels somehow excusatory. But there’s nothing to suggest this is the case and trying to bend facts to fit a narrative serves nobody.

For those who are missing the wood for the trees and getting hung up on my usage of the word ‘beautiful’, Megan’s father, Anthony Newborough, described her as his ‘treasured and beautiful daughter’.

www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/local-news/dad-megan-newborough-relives-chilling-25772942.amp

The men who commit these crimes are always porn obsessed @Cuppasoupmonster. I believe misogyny is involved & the fact these men only care about their thrills & use woman's bodies to achieve them regardless of what happens to that women.

What do you think drives these men?

I said before, psychopathy. The majority of men watch or have watched porn (despite the many protests on here). Yet fewer than 1 in 50,000 men will go on to commit murder, let alone something sexually motivated (generally it’s over drugs or similar). I don’t know what the figure would be for sexually motivated killing but it will be much less than even that.

Why it is that so many psychopaths are men would be an interesting (and more productive) debate.

They're not psychopaths though. They're not diagnosed as psychopaths or even sociopaths. They're not held in a secure hospital. Where is the evidence that this most recent murderer is a psychopath? Or that the majority of men who kill are psychopaths?

When are people diagnosed with these disorders before they commit crime? I don't remember a psychopath screening at school.

There is violent porn and a prevalence of pornography but these crimes existed before any of that was a thing.

Each and every one of these men know what they're doing is wrong (education to tell them that it is wrong won't change it as they already know). The problem is when sex and violence get confused in these individuals, there is probably a biological pre-deposition to it, there may be cases where childhood plays a part in it.

There is a definite problem with police/law failing to recognise the ever escalation in crimes by these individuals, which usually end in murder. In a recent murder case the Met stated that they need to recognise these types of offenders, but the man in question already had 31 previous convictions!

Where did I say that they should or could be diagnosed as psychopaths before committing a crime?? Or a screening at school?? Huh?

I obviously meant afterwards, when they are being tried and assessed for sentencing. That's when I'd expect them to be identified as psychopathic, if they are. Due to attempts to mitigate or aggravate the sentence, because it's been ordered by a judge in order to decide whether somewhere like broadmoor is appropriate rather than prison etc etc.

The entire point I'm making is that these men are not psychopaths. They are violent men. It should be a priority for government funded research into the backgrounds of these men, to look for commonalities, risk factors and so on that could be addressed in anyone identified as similar in future.

This is a fucking joke right?

Women are catcalled and have their bottom slapped all the time still in 20fucking22..

On top of that, in addition, men are downloading extreme hardcore violent "porn" (it's not pornography, it's sadism) onto their harddrives in huge numbers on a regular basis.

Online porn wasn't available in the 70's. It bloody well is now and men are on the rampage not only slapping our bottoms in the workplace but choking us during sex.

Cuppasoupmonster did you seriously miss "I grab em by the pussy" Trump and J Epstein's sex ring? We're supposed to believe sexism has gone away?

Psychopathy isn’t the same as insanity.

Sorry when did I say sexism has gone away?

Sorry, where did I say that psychopathy is the same as insanity?

You said they should be held in secure hospitals. That process only applies to those with severe MH issues or who have been assessed as insane.

"You said they should be held in secure hospitals. That process only applies to those with severe MH issues or who have been assessed as insane."

No, I really did not say that "they should be held in secure hospitals". I said nothing of the sort. You don't seem to have understood my basic point. I know these men are not in Broadmoor, nor have they been diagnosed with personality disorders like psychopathy or sociopathy. That's my entire point. You called them psychopaths, these men who murder women like this. But they really are not at all, not in the slightest. They are simply violent men.

There’s violent men and then there’s this. Violent men get into pub fights, throw their weight around and generally act in an aggressive manner.

This is sadism and psychopathy - murdering for pleasure or a sexual thrill.

Your ‘proof’ they’re not psychopaths is that they’re not held in psychiatric hospitals, but they wouldn’t be. Psychopathy isn’t a condition that makes you insane or unfit for trial. It’s basically a rare personality type.

I don’t think you really understand the issue if I’m honest.

Earlier intervention and treating crimes such as flashing and stalking more seriously would surely help. Also having a list across all police forces of persistent offenders who need to be flagged up the second they commit a crime. It's impossible to stop all crimes but it is truly shocking in many cases of murder that these men have been offending for years and nothing much happens until they escalate to the point of murder.

@Wellies54 both of those things are crimes already.

Look, you made the statement that these men are all psychopaths, unevidenced. I did not in any way state that the fact they're not in a psychiatric hospital means that they aren't psychopaths. Again, you're misreading what I'm writing and applying a meaning to it that isn't there.

Domestic abusers are violent, but only within a specific context. Are they all psychopaths too? Because they don't get into pub fights, but save it for their vulnerable partner at home?

Our society produces these men, consistently. Not just the ones who kill, but those that attempt to and thankfully fail, those who rape and sexually assault. It should be a national emergency that this level of violence towards women (and yes, towards other men) continues in our society.

Even your pretty highly aggressive petty criminal would balk at what happened to Meghan and wouldn’t be capable of doing it themselves, nor would they want to.

Its very tempting to dump all of this at the door of ‘aggressive misogynistic males’ without separating it out, but it’s completely counterproductive and is more about our own wishful thinking than anything else.

If you're responding to me, then I don't know what you're referring to. I've said multiple times what I'd like to see happen in response to the continuing violence towards women from men. I'm not interesting in "dumping" anything, and I'm baffled as to how recognising that this violence is rooted in misogyny is counterproductive. Calling it "wishful thinking" is just bizarre.

Also, I'm not going to continue with any debate about this, as I feel that I'm contributing to bringing this thread down when it's about the awful death of a young woman at the very start of her life. I'd like to think about her for a while and the dreadful loss to her family, expressed by her father in such a heartbreaking way.

Well the thread is about the general nature of this type of crime as well as poor Meghan herself, which is what we are discussing. I just don’t feel the current narrative on here is accurate or useful in any way.

I care. I'm sat here wondering why anyone would do this. Not for the first time, I remember feeling the same after each of a long list of cases that I've read in the media over the last five years.

I've absolutely no clue what I can do about it though. I mean, obviously I'm not going to go around murdering women so I'm not the problem. But given that other people are doing it, it's not enough to just be good myself, because that alone is not going to change anything. How do I be part of the solution? What even is the solution?

One of the other recent cases was of a man with a history of recidivism. If that man had been locked up longer for his previous crimes he wouldn't have been walking the streets when he actually did kill.