Friday, December 08, 2006

Manslaughter verdict "appals"

A man who killed his wife by hitting her 4 or 5 times with a cricket bat received a manslaughter sentence. I am assuming this is due to the extreme provocation he experienced. Read about it here and here.

Brian Gardiner from the National Network of Stopping Violence Services is appalled.

"It's not this woman's fault that she is dead, it's his. People experience provocation every day of their lives and do not assault and murder," he said.

I beg to differ. She is, in part, responsible for what happened. In absolving her of any blame Brian Gardiner shows his bias. If the roles had been reversed I doubt Mr Gardiner would be saying anything.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Indeed - everyone should be able to murder their partners for having an affair.

Any man (or woman - in your case) who is an apologist for murder for such a thing is not a decent human being and belongs in the dark ages.

Anonymous said...

Well here is a case of the reverse from almost exactly a year ago. (From DPFs blog)

Discharged without conviction for stabbing!


To be sure the male bed ridden male victim didn't die but that was only because he was able to summon help through having an emergency medical beeper.

Another point to note, if this woman had run off with her kids to be with her fancy man there is a good chance that the man in question would have found himself entangled with the IRDs Liable Parent people and had to front up a considerable portion of her income.

This happened to a fellow I worked with a few years back tho in that case the new person in his wifes life was another woman.

Anonymous said...

Beating anonymous posters with a cricket bat seems a good idea though!

Especially when they don't read the post properly before the inevitable kneee-jerk comment...

Lindsay Mitchell said...

"Any man (or woman - in your case) who is an apologist for murder for such a thing is not a decent human being and belongs in the dark ages."

Include the jury.

Anonymous said...

May I humbly remind people that we don't have "degrees" of murder in this country, and unless the **intent** to kill can be proven to the satisfaction of the jury, manslaughter is the next available fall-back position.

Anonymous said...

Belt- quite right- this is another example of why we need the tree degrees of murder!

Anonymous said...

What I want to know is, how many deliveries did he face?

Cactus Kate said...

And now of course like guns, we should ban people from owning cricket bats...as they kill.

Possibly after the Black Caps tour Australia in the coming months we will be calling for a ban on cricket bats fullstop for reasons other than they kill anyway.

Anonymous said...

The thing about Mitchell is she thinks very short term.

If her daughter married unhappily and had an affair and was subsequently murdered by someone who thought she was a possession instead of an individual would she still think the same? I doubt it.

A a parent one shoud be opposed to domestic violence - not an apologist for it.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Anon, Re-read my comment.

If the roles were reversed and HE had been sending photos of himself wanking, over the cellphone to some woman (and she was reciprocating with photos of her genitalia which the wife had seen), HE had been yelling at his wife he didn't love his kids but was nevetheless threatening to take them away, telling her when the phone rang it was his 'girlfriend' calling and if SHE, in a desperate moment, lost control and stabbed him 4 or 5 times, many people would be saying, what a prick, he had it coming.

I would be saying he was certainly partly to blame for his death, which is what I said about the woman in my original comment.

How does pointing out gender bias doesn't make me an apologist for domestic violence?

David said...

Because that's what some people have dubbed it, unfortunatly. A bit like how people who say the Iraq war was/is stupid get called "Defeatists".