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The expression of the guilty person's face isn't the important part of the sentence, though I think there is some closure affected on those present by seeing the guilty physically taken from the court to the cells by prison officers.
Also a reminder it's unlikely any victims will be in court, or will have written impact statements, all either deceased or being infants at the time are around 8 now and probably sensible that they stay away from the cameras today.
I'm not a great fan of the idea of Victim Personal Statements having a big role in court, does the existence of an eloquent moving statement mean the crime is worse? Is it worse to murder a homeless person without family than one of our living saints like Malala Yousef, David Attenborough or Marcus Rashford? I don't, and the law doesn't either.
Then give the judge the power to dismiss them from court, as per interview on R4 news the “norm” should the that the guilty be in court for these things but give the judge the power to use their common sense.
The norm is that the guilty is present in court, because not to do so does affect their sentencing. However when someone’s already going down for a whole life tarrif, there’s not much else you can do to compel them.
In this case I suspect that if she’d been dragged into court she’d have ended up being sent back to the cells anyway. I honestly don’t think she’s going to last long in prison.
I honestly don’t think she’s going to last long in prison.
Prisons should have processes in place to manage inmates at high risk of attack.
You may as well just lynch them if prisons aren't able to keep them alive to see out their sentence.
You may as well just lynch them if prisons aren’t able to keep them alive to see out their sentence.
I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking thats fine in this particular case.
I'm sure you are not but its a horrible position to take
this young woman is clearly mentally ill. No sane person does what she did
Prisons should have processes in place to manage inmates at high risk of attack
I was thinking more of suicide.
Bizarrely, given everything that she’s done, she strikes me as mentally fragile.
Prisons have Rule 43 to isolate prisoners who are vulnerable to attack. I imagine she'll end up in Broadmoor.
Kramer - she did not make a diminished responsibility defense and delusional does not equal mental illness. there is no way she is sane by any definition.
thre is a lot more to offending and mental illness than delusions
allitt - a very similar case found guilty in court and no defense of diminished responsibility but once in the system has ended up in Rampton because she clearly in mentally ill or was when she committed those crimes.
The start of a whole life term must feel a pretty pointless exercise for everyone concerned. As the inmate, what's the point in living (especially considering the amount of solitary confinement that will be needed to keep her from harm), for prison workers it'll be two complete career generations of keeping her from harming herself or being harmed with zero point in doing any rehabilitation. And for everyone else her confinement will act as no deterrent because people who do what she did are in no fit state to use that as a reason to act normally. I'm in no way in favour of capital punishment but the alternative for the next 50 years plus is grim too.
I don’t know about medical definitions, but if you try to kill more than a dozen newborn babies then that puts you firmly in the ‘mentally not wired up correctly’ bucket, imo…
but its a horrible position to take
In your opinion.
I get that of course, but I'm all out of compassion and understanding for somebody that committed the crimes she has dones.
Whilst that is a very base instrinct - it feels true to me.
An eye for an eye leaves us all blind
As I understand it a 'mental illness' is an illness which can be cured or ameliorated whereas Munchausen by Proxy is a condition with no known cause and therefore is incurable. IANAP.
@tjagain by definition, for someone to be considered insane they have to lack capacity to make decisions because they are unable to understand, accept and retain the relevant information give to them for long enough to inform their decision.
In practice that means evidence of delusional beliefs, or mental impairment, of which there was neither in this case.
Beverley Allitt now being mentally ill, doesn’t mean that she lacked capacity when she committed her crimes.
Most prisoners show signs of mental illness, diagnosed or undiagnosed. That doesn’t mean that they were insane when they committed their crimes.
I don’t know about medical definitions, but if you try to kill more than a dozen newborn babies then that puts you firmly in the ‘mentally not wired up correctly’ bucket, imo
Agreed. But that’s not the same as being insane.
Whilst that is a very base instrinct – it feels true to me.
Unless it turns out, in 20 years time, she was totally innocent and wrongly convicted because the Police deliberately witheld evidence exonerating her...
Actually thinking about this again and with TJ present and knowing this is a subject you have a passion for - how would you feel about a prisoners serving a whole life tariffs (after a given amount of time) being able to elect to take their own life? My rational being that their quality of life is diminished by an illness and society's need to have them therefore confined being not totally dissimilar to granting it to those with physical illness that debilitates to make the same choice. I guess the issue would be that you'd have to be able to assess them as mentally competent to make the decision which by dint of the reason they are there at all could be impossible.
The whole clamour behind wanting her to appear in court is nothing more than a populist narrative from the Daily Mail, presumably so they can get pictures of a what they would love to see as courtroom theatre of crying victims and a judge shouting "you're going DOWN!"
Because the Daily Mail want it, Sunak is suddenly very positive about such a law as well. Funny to see how the Daily Mail are on the side of judges now; a year or so ago judges were the Enemy of the People...
🙄
Actually thinking about this again and with TJ present and knowing this is a subject you have a passion for – how would you feel about a prisoners serving a whole life tariffs (after a given amount of time) being able to elect to take their own life? My rational being that their quality of life is diminished by an illness and society’s need to have them therefore confined being not totally dissimilar to granting it to those with physical illness that debilitates to make the same choice. I guess the issue would be that you’d have to be able to assess them as mentally competent to make the decision which by dint of the reason they are there at all could be impossible.
I wouldn't be happy as it distorts the case for dignity in dying.
@tjagain by definition, for someone to be considered insane they have to lack capacity to make decisions because they are unable to understand, accept and retain the relevant information give to them for long enough to inform their decision.
In practice that means evidence of delusional beliefs, or mental impairment, of which there was neither in this case.
thats not any definition I am familiar with. Is it the one for "diminished responsibility" in a court?
That definition does not fit with various legal precedent over the years either. there is a difference between mentally ill and not having capacity. You can be mentally ill and have capacity, you can not have capacity while being not mentally ill
There is a long standing issue (I think now mainly solved) that under the mental health act for someone to be detained they must have a " treatable mental illness" and its often been argued that personality disorders are not treatable thus folk with them cannot be detained under the mental health act,.
It think this is perhaps the cause of the confusion. She clearly is either mentally ill or not wired up right or both. But is she detainable under the mental health act? does she meet the criteria for diminished responsibility? Seems to me she falls between the cracks
Unless it turns out, in 20 years time, she was totally innocent and wrongly convicted because the Police deliberately witheld evidence exonerating her…
and while that feels very unlikely, just read about Lucia de Berk in the Netherlands, who was convicted of similar crimes.
Unless it turns out, in 20 years time, she was totally innocent and wrongly convicted because the Police deliberately witheld evidence exonerating her…
Possibly, but given everything 'we' know about this case, I'd say highly doubtful. If you follow your logic to it's conclusion then maybe nobody should be prosecuted and face consequences incase we get it wrong?
Anyway, I'm not here to argue, there is no right or wrong answer to an opinion and therefore nothing you could say that would make me consider my first post.
Funny to see how the Daily Mail are on the side of judges now; a year or so ago judges were the Enemy of the People…
Very well put. 👏
sunak is pandering – again.
And Keir will say how he will pander better, but not explain how - again
I think it must be hard for the victims and their families not to have the defendant present when victims statements are read out and sentences are handed down.But I don't think compulsion is a good idea as the defendant can just end up acting out and get sent out anyway, and adding months onto the sorts of tariffs that has to be handed down to people like Letby is hardly an incentive to get her to show up and be contrite anyway.
"Something must be done" shout the editors of The Red Tops who are themselves just feeling emasculated because they can't do anything and that makes them feel less manly than they're comfortable with.
the more i think about it, the courts system does seem a bit of a performance: the dock, wigs, gowns, banging a small wooden hammer
the perp being there for sentencing seems just as unecessary
i look forward to the Justicebot 1000 AI collating & examining evidence, convicting & sentencing instantly
(i appreciate that comes with its own risks)
If you follow your logic to it’s conclusion then maybe nobody should be prosecuted and face consequences incase we get it wrong?
Does that follow?
If we remove someone’s liberty, but then find out we were wrong to do so, we can restore their liberty and compensate them in other ways. But we can’t make them live again if they’re dead.
“Something must be done” shout the editors of The Red Tops
If only they were so keen on doing something about the Leveson report.
Possibly, but given everything ‘we’ know about this case, I’d say highly doubtful. If you follow your logic to it’s conclusion then maybe nobody should be prosecuted and face consequences incase we get it wrong?
My logic was wishing them dead or harm to come to them, is unwise given the history of miscarriages of justice in the UK..
Sure, incarcerate them, but be mindful they might one day be found innocent.
Counterpoint to the whole shebang:
The whole sentencing hearing is surely the definition of a meeting that should have been an e-mail. A day of the courts time both in the manhours spent by everyone involved and physically taking up one of a finite number of courtrooms (yes I know they've done it in cinemas, hotels and allsorrts over covid). The idea of giving the victims their day in court is all well and good, but somewhere in the CPS there's a case being put in the bin because there aren't the resources to send it to court.
The idea of giving the victims their day in court is
all well and good, but somewhere in the CPS there’s a case being put in the bin because there aren’t the resources to send it to court.
...somethig that some victims of crimes desperately need to help them move on with their lives - if you find that sort of thing important obv
…somethig that some victims of crimes desperately need to help them move on with their lives – if you find that sort of thing important obv
And somewhere there's another victim of crime being told "sorry, we don't have the resources to even take this to a trial", it's just that we rarely see that one.
The doctors have some very difficult questions to answer I’m afraid.
If they suspected criminality early on, they had a clear ethical and statutory duty, which is to inform the police. No ifs, no buts no maybes. It is also clear that they cannot defer this duty to any other person
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that they were threatened with a disciplinary if they did. I’d say the problem is they went through the appropriate procedures & were therefore at the mercy of management.
the more i think about it, the courts system does seem a bit of a performance: the dock, wigs, gowns, banging a small wooden hammer
There are no gavels in British courtrooms.
There is an element of performance around the entire judicial system - in part described as justice should both be done and seen to be done.
It's physically impossible for that to happen if you have an offender in the dock shouting, swearing, kicking and screaming. It's almost impossible to get an accused physically into the dock if they don't want to go without risk of injury to themselves or the guards. To get someone there they need to be removed from their cell, moved to a prison van via a number of corridors in a prison, then moved from that van into the court (usually to a temporary cell) then from there to the courtroom - usually on a different level so a lift or staircase, and then into the dock. After the case (or an adjournment so they can calm down) the process repeats in reverse. You can restrain them - perhaps even gag them (not sure that would be legal), put a spit hood on them etc - but you can't actually force them to listen so it would all be pointless. Would you be willing to be a guard that got punched, kicked, spat at, shat on, etc so that someone who wasn't listening could have a speech made to them? I wouldn't. If the person in the dock is guilty of these most barbaric offences its a waste of time as any logic / reasoning / empathy you are projecting onto them are the feelings of "normal" people not those who commit such crimes.
I think it must be hard for the victims and their families not to have the defendant present when victims statements are read out and sentences are handed down.
By this point they already know that the offender is 100% evil.
Funny to see how the Daily Mail are on the side of judges now; a year or so ago judges were the Enemy of the People…
Have "judges" said they want to see people physically dragged to the court and forced to hear them talk? I doubt it, they will be acutely aware of the problems disruptive people in the dock cause and the downsides to a seemingly attractive proposition. I suspect if judges really wanted to take a stance just now, they could without new legislation and insist than at least some of those who refuse are "brought".
However rest assured that in a few months' time the DM will be lambasting the lawyers who represented her, and the millions of legal aid they get for a 9 month trial. Just after the dust settles on them making a fuss about the guy wrongly convicted of rape getting some of his compensation reduced for prison costs.
i look forward to the Justicebot 1000 AI collating & examining evidence, convicting & sentencing instantly
(i appreciate that comes with its own risks)
Those risks are massive. All the evidence is that any AI system will have inherent bias build in and be much harder to train out. Don't make the mistake of thinking hat we are anywhere close to AI having cognitive intelligence - it (like a modern politician) just gives the impression of that by churning out eloquent sounding sentences with no appreciation for their actual meaning.
And Keir will say how he will pander better, but not explain how – again
He played a blinder. "We have already told them we will support new legislation on this if the government want to bring it forward". So he's made it sound like "tories are the problem here" even though he's been in enough court rooms for sentencing to know it would be a ****ing disaster and achieve nothing.
The whole sentencing hearing is surely the definition of a meeting that should have been an e-mail. A day of the courts time both in the manhours spent by everyone involved and physically taking up one of a finite number of courtrooms (yes I know they’ve done it in cinemas, hotels and allsorrts over covid). The idea of giving the victims their day in court is all well and good, but somewhere in the CPS there’s a case being put in the bin because there aren’t the resources to send it to court.
Just to ensure you understand where the problem is across England about 25% of courtrooms sit empty on any one day because there are no staff, whilst the backlog of cases is worse than ever. The people who could solve this were today talking to the media about how they would like to use more resources to physically force people to come to court. The court case took 9 months. The judge will probably be getting a few days off after this to recover before he starts a new trial. I doubt having the sentencing hearing in court rather than as an email held anything else up. I think its quite important for the public (and victims) understanding of sentencing that it is not simply an email - which would over time become a legalese document rather than plain English. The judge has spent a lot of time thinking about exactly what words to say and that is entirely proper, the fact he knew it would be broadcast on TV, widely quotes forces careful consideration. That is a good thing.
The court case took 9 months.
Any idea how many hours in court that might amount to? I'm assuming the court was not sitting 5 days a week, 7 hours a day for that time. I'm always amazed quite how long cases can take - especially when if you strip it down to the basics, it's a glorified presentation of information to 12 statically average members of the public with two different perspectives. Much of it no doubt technical, in obsessive levels of detail or tedious. All all 3. I'd hope I was statistically average in terms of intelligence - but I'm not confident I could meaningfully assimilate 9 months of being talked at on the same subject and do anything useful with the information. In an increasingly instant gratification world where seemingly most of the population don't have the concentration span to last the length of the national TV evening news getting them to take onboard 9 months of information seems a hopeless task.
I wonder if any attempt to force attendance for sentencing could be challenged under human rights legislation?
If it were to involve restraint of some sort I'd say that's definitely a possibility.
Either way, sounds like a lot of pain for not a lot of gain.
Just heard the verdicts read out. It's not a single whole life order but seven whole life orders
I swerved being on the jury in this case by inches. I did jury duty back in October last year and they were doing selection for this. Most folks were trying their best to not get selected. Luckily I know some of the witnesses phew …
@nickc yes I suppose some of the jurors will never be the same again after this.
I swerved being on the jury in this case by inches. I did jury duty back in October last year and they were doing selection for this. Most folks were trying their best to not get selected. Luckily I know some of the witnesses phew …
10 months in a trial, that would be the end of me even if it was a case about happy unicorn farms.
for extended cases like this they ask specifically who can do it dont they?
10 months with the paltry fee they offer would either ruin me financially or ruin the company I work for (they have paid people who have done their 2 weeks jury duty in the past)
This is a follow on from another case where a drug dealer burst into someone's house chasing another man and shot a child in the head by mistake. The mother wanted to make an impact statement to the murderer and he refused to come to the dock.
Would it make a difference, possibly to the parents whose lives are pretty much ruined for ever. Would it effect the guy who did it, I doubt it and don't care my sympathy is with the parents.
To me its as much about justice being seen to be done
Seen by whom?
She's going to jail and not coming out. Who / where is this suspicion that justice isn't being done coming from?
Would you prefer stocks in the village square and a basket of over-ripe fruit?
It's emotive, I know. But justice is "being done" whether anyone gets to watch it or not.