Chit Chat
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I have followed the current debate about Sally Challen who has now has had her conviction for murdering her husband overturned due to her 'mental state' at the time of the event.
This is a woman who was separated from her husband due to his unfaithfulness but then asked him to take her back. She went to see him at her former marital home with a hammer in her handbag and then proceeded to hit his head twenty times. To make sure he was dead she stuffed his mouth with cloth so he couldn't breathe.
Apparently, she was 'abused' for over thirty years. One of the 'awful' things her husband did was call her 'thunderthighs' - oh dear
She was not physically abused.
That is why we have a thing called 'divorce', if you don't like what your husband says to you, leave - don't kill him.
If a man had done exactly the same thing there is no way it would be called manslaughter. How many men are in prison because they 'snapped' ( what she admitted to) when their wives or partners were unfaithful? Are they going to be set free?
This is a woman who was separated from her husband due to his unfaithfulness but then asked him to take her back. She went to see him at her former marital home with a hammer in her handbag and then proceeded to hit his head twenty times. To make sure he was dead she stuffed his mouth with cloth so he couldn't breathe.
Apparently, she was 'abused' for over thirty years. One of the 'awful' things her husband did was call her 'thunderthighs' - oh dear
She was not physically abused.That is why we have a thing called 'divorce', if you don't like what your husband says to you, leave - don't kill him.
If a man had done exactly the same thing there is no way it would be called manslaughter. How many men are in prison because they 'snapped' ( what she admitted to) when their wives or partners were unfaithful? Are they going to be set free?
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It's quite shocking imho but it's the way we are going. Men (and especially white men) are always in the wrong.
It seems to offer a license to kill, and yet another way slimey defence lawyers can attempt to fabricate stories to get murderers off. Women are AFAIK more likely than men to use speech "as a weapon". Maybe they could redo last of the summer wine and that henpecked husband snaps and batter Nora Batty to death with her own frying pan, stuffs her big knickers in her mouth, but gets let off as she said bad things about his ferret.. |
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I'm guessing that the men don't even actually have to be "unfaithful" to be on the end of this "licence to kill".
I'm sure that our magnificent Judicial System can still find a way to excuse the murderer. |
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Of course some men ARE total scum. The piece of **** in the news today who was deliberately giving women drugs overdoses then filming them as they suffered, until one died, he should have the key thrown away. What a disgusting blight on humanity that one is.
Back to the women case it sounds like it was in "cold blood" as well? |
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It was in cold blood, Just Checking.
She had cooked him breakfast then battered him over the head! She left a note saying she loved him! |
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007annie
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agree find it hard to see where she as been hard done by
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If she gets away with it how can anyone be convicted of 'premeditated' murder again? How much more premeditated can it get? She took a hammer with her in her handbag to the meeting with her husband. She also said she 'snapped', but she hit him twenty times! Also I think the final nail in the coffin against her was that she stuffed his mouth with a tea towel so he couldn't breathe - that doesn't sound like an impulsive action.
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I reread the article a few times as I felt I must be missing something.
Beggars belief, no justification to overturn the original findings. |
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If a man had done exactly the same thing there is no way it would be called manslaughter. How many men are in prison because they 'snapped' ( what she admitted to) when their wives or partners were unfaithful? Are they going to be set free?
Actually it happens all the time. Manslaughter is the "crime" in such cases, far more often than murder. For men more than women in fact. As men killing their partners happens far more often than women killing theirs. |
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I knew one such man, used to come into the bookies. (I was mates with his son as it happens, who never mentioned it). An absolute arsshole, he used to get drunk and beat his wife up. One day he threw her downstairs, killing her.
He told the story that he'd come and found her in bed with another man (for some reason, he said a Jamaican man) no evidence of which ever surfaced. The sentence? 7 years, for manslaughter. A fairly typical case too, by all accounts. |
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SF I think the difference in this case is that it was premeditated in that she'd went to meet him armed with a hammer.
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But, the argument is, that she was driven to it. (not in a car)
It was premeditated insofar as she got to the point where she couldn't stand it anymore, so decided to get a hammer to him. I would assume he was probably bigger and stronger than her, so she would need to think a little in advance. I think it goes a bit deeper than being a bit fed-up with him. It does seem that quite a few friends and family think she was abused (in this case subjugated) for ages, maybe to a point where she would have wanted to leave, but couldn't? If it had been straight out cold-blooded murder, I'd have thought there would be less support for her. |
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I see your point but its still a helluva precedent to have set.
In effect a defence for premeditated murder. |
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Maybe it depends on the amount of premeditation?
How long she was planning it, or if there were in fact alternative courses of action. We could be the judges on this! |
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I think another point to be made is that she had left him, she was living with her youngest son, so he wasn't that controlling, was he? And there was another course of action, STUDYFORM, she could have got a divorce and never seen him again. Millions of women do it all the time without ending up killing their husbands.
She was just very, very jealous. I have read the 'abuse' she 'suffered' and they are the same things that millions of women complain about. But they just leave their husbands, not kill them. If the 'abuse' she 'suffered' was justification for killing him then the world has gone mad. |
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I've found the BBC article from 2011 when she was convicted. Here are some quotes from that article:
Asked why she killed him, Challen told the court: "I don't know. I just didn't think that he wanted to be with me." As chaplains tried to coax her away from the cliff edge, she admitted killing her husband of 31 years. "I killed him with a hammer. I hit him lots of times. If I can't have him, no one can," she told them. Seems pretty clear she killed him through jealousy, not because she was a brow-beaten victim of abuse. |
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-13892154
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There's a lot of talk these days that there is little incentive for men to get married as they get little out of it, but may have huge financial risk, so it's a pretty crap "bet" not in their favour, given the statistics of how many end in divorce.
"being able to be killed in a pre meditated attack by your wife and she is let off with murder" doesn't help the concept :) |
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Thanks for that, lybertyne
 If it had been the other way around and he had killed her for being unfaithful he would not have stood a chance of being tried for manslaughter. |
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"If I can't have him, no one can" seems pretty damning to me, I can't see an abused person using that sentence.
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 Just CheckingI agree, men must be mad nowadays to get married, especially if you have a good job or are wealthy. That's another thing, if she is found guilty of manslaughter does that mean she might get the money from his estate? |
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I'm always wary of "experts" brought by people on one side of a legal case, when the thing they are talking about is an opinion not a provable fact.
A psychiatric "expert" on her side is surely someone paid to give their opinion to back her up, in the wishy washy field of "psychiatry"? Psychatrists in the same field can have wildly differing philophisy. It's not long ago they were electrocuting gay people, giving them horrifying chemicals, and even locking up unmarried mothers in asylums. Yet now they are saying her "disorder" might make it ok to murder people? I'm so fed up of the basic lack of common sense in modern society. |
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philophisy - a spelling so bad I need help :)
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Annie I was talking to a female friend the other day and she felt sorry for how her female friend had "taken her husband to the cleaners". He never did anything wrong apparently, but she got the house, support, part of his pension, full custody of the kids .. he's got .. a new crap flat he has to pay for himself. At least he's alive!
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You are so funny, Just Checking
It has happened as well to my brother and a couple of ex boyfriends who had done nothing wrong. Lost their houses and pensions etc.. |
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surely a court of law will decide upon her guilt based on facts.
some facts were missing from first trial. some trials get it wrong, presentation of evidence etc , thats what appeals are for it is worrying that somebody can take law into own hands and possibly get away with it... i think she will need to prove systematic abuse over years...but the comments above suggest she was already safely away from him, ..so it'll difficult to get off, imo. |
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 FINALLY a chit chatter who respects my comedic genius :) But seriously, as you get older the amount of stories you hear from men who seem to be done over... IRL and in the press. One I'll never forget was when John Cleese said the divorce courts had ruled when he dies his ex wifes children will get more than his biological children! A guy I used to work with was married twice and by all accounts "done over" twice. It's like he built himself up again just to get knocked down again  |
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This really is disturbing. You just know she'll be acquitted at the retrial.
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Laugh Just Checking
I agree, men must be mad nowadays to get married, especially if you have a good job or are wealthy. It's all worth it for that big day with the horse drawn carriage, tiered caked and the feeling of carrying your wife over the threshold. |
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*or husband
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*unless they've had too much of the tiered cake in which case they can make their own way in.
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She has NOT been acquitted but will be tried again, do not get this at all, if the verdict was changed to manslaughter she would now be released, now we have to go through the rigmarole of a retrial in which she will undoubtedly be found not guilty, so we will have a trial costing a fortune will should not be taking place
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It's so typical of the p*ss poor media we have now that the above totally damning quotes are being searched out and found by chit chatters, not actual "journalists"...
The "progressive" labour woman on this week seemed to think that this result was fantastic and was her moment of the week. How predictable. No man who in a cold blooded manner took a hammer to go meet and kill his wife and said : "I killed her with a hammer. I hit her lots of times. If I can't have her, no one can," "he told them." Would have a male politician proudly backing them on the TV and considering this "progressive", if they did they'be hung out to dry. There is no level playing field anymore. |
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I agree with Pumphol, given the defendant's tendencies, an acquital is nailed on.
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One good thing that the Appeal Court decided was that although they have quashed the murder conviction they have refused to substitute a manslaughter conviction and she will still face a retrial of murder.
Lawyers had asked the Appeal Court to reduce her conviction to manslaughter. Mrs Challen, whose name is Georgina but is known as Sally, will face a retrial on a charge of murder after the panel of judges refused to substitute a manslaughter conviction. Good |
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So she will now most likely be acquitted so from your opening post how can this be " good "
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I'm not a lawyer but I'd imagine if a retrial wasn't murder she'd get something. So it would be murder again OR manslaughter, not "walks free".
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I'm not a lawyer but I'd imagine if a retrial wasn't murder she'd get something. So it would be murder again OR manslaughter, not "walks free".
not necessarily - if new evidence has come to light or the law has changed, or the basis of the original conviction was flawed. or so it used to be. |