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annie.
28 Feb 19 19:55
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Date Joined: 22 Sep 06
| Topic/replies: 9,809 | Blogger: annie.'s blog
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 Plain  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?
Pause Switch to Standard View WOMEN NOW HAVE A LICENCE TO KILL...
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Report Just Checking February 28, 2019 8:01 PM GMT
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..
Report alun2005 February 28, 2019 8:02 PM GMT
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.
Report Just Checking February 28, 2019 8:06 PM GMT
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?
Report annie. February 28, 2019 8:12 PM GMT
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!
Report Capt__F February 28, 2019 8:16 PM GMT
007annie
Report cardifffc February 28, 2019 8:29 PM GMT
agree find it hard to see where she as been hard done by
Report annie. February 28, 2019 8:45 PM GMT
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.
Report akabula February 28, 2019 8:59 PM GMT
I reread the article a few times as I felt I must be missing something.
Beggars belief, no justification to overturn the original findings.
Report STUDYFORM February 28, 2019 9:14 PM GMT
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.
Report STUDYFORM February 28, 2019 9:22 PM GMT
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.
Report akabula February 28, 2019 9:26 PM GMT
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.
Report STUDYFORM February 28, 2019 9:32 PM GMT
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.
Report akabula February 28, 2019 9:37 PM GMT
I see your point but its still a helluva precedent to have set.
In effect a defence for premeditated murder.
Report STUDYFORM February 28, 2019 9:44 PM GMT
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!
Report annie. February 28, 2019 10:04 PM GMT
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.
Report lybertyne February 28, 2019 10:56 PM GMT
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.
Report lybertyne February 28, 2019 10:57 PM GMT
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-13892154
Report Just Checking February 28, 2019 11:04 PM GMT
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 :)
Report annie. February 28, 2019 11:10 PM GMT
Thanks for that, lybertyne Happy

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.
Report saddo February 28, 2019 11:13 PM GMT
"If I can't have him, no one can" seems pretty damning to me, I can't see an abused person using that sentence.
Report annie. February 28, 2019 11:13 PM GMT
Laugh  Just Checking

I 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?
Report Just Checking February 28, 2019 11:15 PM GMT
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.
Report Just Checking February 28, 2019 11:16 PM GMT
philophisy - a spelling so bad I need help :)
Report annie. February 28, 2019 11:18 PM GMT
Laugh
Report Just Checking February 28, 2019 11:19 PM GMT
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!
Report annie. February 28, 2019 11:24 PM GMT
You are so funny, Just Checking Happy

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..
Report donny osmond February 28, 2019 11:30 PM GMT
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.
Report Just Checking February 28, 2019 11:32 PM GMT
BlushLaugh
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 Scared
Report lybertyne February 28, 2019 11:53 PM GMT
This really is disturbing.  You just know she'll be acquitted at the retrial.
Report doantwin2easy February 28, 2019 11:58 PM GMT
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.
Report doantwin2easy March 1, 2019 12:03 AM GMT
*or husband
Report doantwin2easy March 1, 2019 12:04 AM GMT
*unless they've had too much of the tiered cake in which case they can make their own way in.
Report pumphol. March 1, 2019 12:10 AM GMT
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 Crazy
Report Just Checking March 1, 2019 12:15 AM GMT
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.
Report doantwin2easy March 1, 2019 12:18 AM GMT
I agree with Pumphol, given the defendant's tendencies, an acquital is nailed on.
Report annie. March 1, 2019 12:21 AM GMT
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 Happy
Report pumphol. March 1, 2019 12:24 AM GMT
So she will now  most likely be acquitted so from your opening post how can this be " good "
Report Just Checking March 1, 2019 12:25 AM GMT
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".
Report doantwin2easy March 1, 2019 12:29 AM GMT
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.
Report annie. March 1, 2019 12:34 AM GMT
Her being acquitted is not a foregone conclusion, pumphol.  Let's face it the original jury had the option to find her not guilty but they didn't.

I said it was good as the Appeal Court was asked to reduce her conviction to manslaughter but they refused, so I think they had misgivings as well. They quashed the murder conviction because of the new law on coercive control which wasn't law at the time of her trial but still ordered a retrial.

Sorry, I forget that many people on here would not have read the report in full and would be going on just what I post.
Report pumphol. March 1, 2019 12:56 AM GMT
Not sure her mental state was taken into consideration at the original trial, its heavily odds on she will be found not guilty next time around.
Report pumphol. March 1, 2019 1:03 AM GMT
Just Checking   
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".


Worst way it will be manslaughter, she will " walk free " she's served nearly eight years, so she walks from time served, she aint going back to prison that's a cert.
Report UBLE/REGY March 1, 2019 1:20 AM GMT
Well since women seem to get away with just about everything else to do with their husbands nowadays

ie..Depriving them of their money, their house and access to their own children(even though husbands still have to support them)

Getting away with murdering them, would be the logical next stepSad
Report Reynard March 1, 2019 9:21 AM GMT
Gender cleansing ? Scared
Report TheGoldenVision March 1, 2019 9:43 AM GMT
A murderers charter IMO.

Let's face it, a St@nley clawhammer costs £8.39 on Amaz0n... that's a darn sight cheaper than a divorce lawyer.
Report Reynard March 1, 2019 10:41 AM GMT
Let's face it, a St@nley clawhammer costs £8.39 on Amaz0n

Not sure of your motives for purchasing such an implement , but only £6.95 at Tool Station .
Whilst I cannot verify the quality of the Tool Station product if you only intend to land a maximum of 20 blows , it should hold up Devil
Report annie. March 1, 2019 4:22 PM GMT
Laugh
Report Baphornet March 1, 2019 5:15 PM GMT
my Aileen gave me a knowing look this morning; i think it's time to check my weetabix
Report annie. March 1, 2019 10:27 PM GMT
Happy
Report annie. March 1, 2019 10:33 PM GMT
I noticed that all the newspapers are singing from the same hymn sheet.  Poor Sally, abused etc etc.  Now other women are demanding their convictions are quashed because they were 'abused'.

Soon no women will be convicted of murder or assault, they will probably get victim compensation for killing their partners as well.

This outpouring of poor thing etc for a woman who told the volunteers at Beachy Head that 'If I can't have him, no one can' Pure jealously because he had found another woman after she left him.
Report Capt__F March 1, 2019 10:36 PM GMT
Dianne abbott wher r u ?
Report annie. March 1, 2019 10:50 PM GMT
They are all going to be jumping on the bandwagon, Capt F Happy
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