Justice finally for Dawn Rhodes - Husband convicted for her murder in double jeopardy case

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I had not heard this story before:

https://www.cps.gov.uk/south-east/news/husband-convicted-murder-double-jeopardy-case

What an evil, calculated act, and how brave the child was to come forward.

I’m glad Dawn has finally received justice.

Yes, I've been horrified reading about this today.

That poor, poor child living with this knowledge.

Horrific murder.
Forcing your child to ask their own mother to close her eyes and put out her hands as if she were about to receive something and then her husband slits her throat...
Pure evil.
Just so he could date someone who looked very like her but 20 years younger.
There is no limit to what some men will do for sex.

Beyond awful, poor child.

If the crime had been committed 15 years earlier he'd have got away with it, despite there being proof that he'd done it.

Ann Ming deserves so much thanks for all she did to make second trials like this possible.

I can see why the double jeopardy law exists, but it's also really clear why there needs to be the ability in very limited circumstances (previously unavailable evidence) to try a case again.

I read this earlier and it's been haunting me. That poor child. I am so glad they came forward but the cruelty of doing that to a young child is unbelievable. I hope he is put away and never let out.

Did it not occur to anyone initially that this whole story of the man being attacked first, being afraid for his life, then retaliating so savagely as to inflict horrific injuries, sounded dubious from the start? Even with a child's testimony, given their age and the fact that you could hardly expect a neutral unbiased account of this kind of thing happening between your parents - did it not ring alarm bells with the police?

It most certainly did but misogyny is ingrained in society and men tend to band together and look the other way when there is violence against women.
All men benefit from violence against women, one way or another.
We see this in the appalling levels of convictions for rape - the onus is placed on the victim to provide sufficient evidence that she had not led the man on in any way shape or form whether verbally, in her manner, her dress, the hour of day that she was out and about, etc.
The law was written by men for men.
We see that in practice every day and in particular in the Sandie Peggy case.

Well, quite! Hardly the most likely explanation. Once againit seems (and I said something similar on another thread just now about something completely different) like a case of misogyny, coupled with a more generalised lack of critical thinking. It's like much of the world has just gone daft.

Yes it did. It sounded very implausible when you consider the facts and the physical difference between this disgusting man and his victim. The child is a further victim.

The original case must have been good enough in the first place to prosecute him at all.

The jury, my god. How could they have ignored she’d had her throat cut like a goat? Brainless

I read some of the original articles and it mentions how Dawn was over 6ft. He must have used that in his original defence.

Yet he was known to be violent and women are rarely the perpetrators in domestic violence. I can’t believe the BS people are prepared to believe in order to let men off the hook.

The original story after the trial also mentions the fact she’d been having an affair which ended the marriage.

i think it’s a cautionary tale about people making moral judgements. It sounded like Dawn was in a horrible abusive marriage and then met someone who gave her the courage to leave.

It’s so sad she never got a chance to leave this monster. And that her child has had to carry the guilt of being complicit.

I’ve just read about it and it’s horrifying. You do wonder what the hell must have been going on before for the child to think the conversation about ‘getting rid of mum’ was not deeply troubling. That is potentially years of psychological manipulation or alienation beforehand. My children are young but I can’t imagine them going ‘oh ok then’ to that sort of conversation. It’s an extra level of messed up abuse to actually involve in a murder of their mother.

This is nonsense. Clearly it was thought to be suspicious as it went to the first trial and if you read the articles the child testimonies was videoed and not challenged probably because they were a child.

The child was groomed poor thing. But to blame the police and courts of blanket mysogyny is unhelpful and fails to understand what the murderer did.

I think misogyny is very much part of it. Women who kill their abusive partners don’t get the same leniency.

my jaw drops the way many people are happy to accept that women are conniving and evil.

look at Sally Challinor- she was jailed for life for murdering her husband despite years and years of abuse.

Rhodes was able to convince the court that someone with no history of abuse suddenly attacked him with a knife.

The child said in a later interview that the killer had damaged the relationship with his mum. It sounds like he’d been manipulated into hating her.

It’s likely the poor child was blaming his mum for the break up of his family. Something lots of kids do- but this was manipulated by the killer

Because there was a convincing witness who latter turned out to have lied and the jury believed or were told to believe.

unfortunately the protection put in place for vulnerable witnesses for abuse enabled the murderer to get away with it.

should we abandon that because of your allegations of systemic misogyny and say all witnesses against women should be interrogated in court? But not if it s an allegation against men….

The authorities did their job. Of course it was suspicious, they didn’t believe him.

The jury did. Thats a failure of society, not the authorities. It was their misogyny and probably a degree of salaciousness as to the possibility of a mad woman attacking a child. The naivety of believing such a story reflects on them, not the police or the prosecutors.

The Police clearly didn't believe him and neither did the CPS - which is why he was charged and put on trial the first time.

And I can understand why the Police didn't believe him. I just watched his interview: it was clear he wasn't crying - he was just screwing up his face and making noises. Not a single tear, not a single wipe, for all those minutes of 'crying'. He was acting - badly. And it was bloody obvious.

Glad he's finally facing justice.

Horrific! Evil bastard.
Poor Dawn and poor child. 😥

We don’t have to abandon anything.

you can still be found guilty of murder even if you’ve acted in self defence. It’s whether it was proportionate.

so even if his story was true that she had gone crazy, killing her looked way over the top. The child had a superficial cut, so did the murderer.

she can’t be both too strong to control ( his story), and not strong enough to inflict more serious injuries.

he had cut her throat so violently he had almost beheaded her- how likely is it that you could do that to someone in self defence? I couldn’t. Most reasonable people couldn’t.

the point is that a jury are a reflection of society and unfortunately we blame women and make excuses for men.

its why, with even a long list of evidence to show abuse, Sally Challinor was still convicted of murdering her abusive husband.

The child needed stitches it wasn’t a superficial cut. He inflicted that on the child.
The jury have to make a decision on the evidence in front of them. The prosecution couldn’t prove its case and they would have needed to undermine a key witness and show that their evidence was unreliable.

And I think that was achievable- without undermining the witness. As many pps have said, the police and prosecutors clearly didn’t believe his story.

He killed her. No one disputed that. they only needed to show that his reaction was disproportionate to find him guilty of murder. I wasn’t in court so I can’t comment on whether it was a poor prosecution or a jury full of misogynistic thickos. But I strongly suspect the latter.

And even some minor cuts can require stitches.