Hang 'em high

Raging left - wing hypocrisy

Absolutely huge news just in. The very left wing Observer (what Guardian readers buy on a Sunday) is now tough on crime. As long as the criminal is a man and the victim is a woman. It seems using punishment as a deterrent in these cases does make sense. The headline: Femicide will only end when we stop letting killers off lightly. Allowing violent men to plead manslaughter on the basis of a loss of control wrongly limits their liability caught my eye.

In an editorial marking International Women’s Day last weekend the Observer says: “It is the grimmest of roll calls: to mark International Women’s Day, the names of women killed by men over the past year are read out in the House of Commons by Jess Phillips MP, now the minister for violence against women and girls. This year the number stood at 95. It was accompanied by a report by the charity Femicide Census setting out the characteristics of the 2,000 killings of women by men since 2009 where criminal justice proceedings have been completed.

The charity compiles the list annually, and without this important work, based on freedom of information requests to the police and extensive media monitoring, we would have no national oversight of the number of women known to be killed by men in the UK. Since 2009, it has amounted to one every three days on average. And these are just the cases we know about; the campaign group Killed Women estimates that there could be as many as 130 “hidden homicides” a year where a woman is killed by a partner or family member but the death is recorded as accidental or suicide.”

“Yet we still have a criminal justice system that – despite recent reforms – sometimes allows men who kill women to be treated lightly by pleading manslaughter on the basis of loss of control.

Femicide Census argues that this appears to constitute “a state-sanctioned means by which previously violent men can limit their liability for fatal violent acts”. In many of the cases reviewed in the report, the qualifying trigger for a loss of control was the victim leaving an abusive relationship or entering a new relationship.”

Last week saw Kyle Clifford given a rare whole life term for the horrific murder of his ex- girlfriend Louise Hunt. He was also convicted after trial of her rape in a “violent, sexual act of spite.” He murdered her with a cross – bow. He also murdered her mother Carol 61, whom he stabbed to death and Louise’s sister Hannah with a cross – bow at their home in Bushey, Hertfordshire, on July 9 last year. He planned these brutal murders for two weeks.

Louise’s father John Hunt is left with one daughter Amy and spoke of his daughters and his wife with huge courage at the sentencing hearing.

The Observer is concerned that too many male murderers are getting off a full murder charge by pleading ‘loss of control’ a partial defence that reduces murder to manslaughter. As such, the killer avoids a life sentence. This is a change from the old provocation defence that was also used by men to get a manslaughter not a murder charge claiming he was provoked to kill due to adultery or betrayal or rejection or some such nonsense.

The new defence of loss of control specifically excludes sexual infidelity as a trigger. There is also a test of objectively. The Observer is concerned that the new defence does not exclude breaking up and leaving a relationship as a trigger for loss of control, although I am not sure how this gets past the objectivity test. Not wanting to turn this into a legal article, although I would love to, you can read about the limitations of the defence here.

So I am somewhat sceptical of the claim that this partial defence is a “state-sanctioned means by which previously violent men can limit their liability for fatal violent acts.” You could certainly introduce a law reform that excludes exiting a relationship as a trigger for loss of control.

But my bigger issue is the left-wing hypocrisy. The Observer is a left-wing paper who does not believe ‘prison works’ as a deterrent. Yet here they are concerned that men are wrongly taking advantage of a loss on control defence that reduces murder to manslaughter thus avoiding a life sentence. In other words they want men who murder women, usually partners or ex-partners, to be convicted of murder. Not the lesser charge of manslaughter but murder. The real deal.

The Observer argues that by allowing a possible manslaughter conviction by way of the partial defence of loss of control and thus avoiding a life term is ‘letting killers off lightly.’

The editorial finishes: “The Labour government has an ambitious target to halve male violence against women and girls. But it has yet to define what would constitute success against this, let alone set out a properly resourced plan for keeping women and children safe from the dangerous men who kill. Only that can bring the rate of femicide down.”

I’ve a plan. It’s in line with not letting killers off lightly. My plan is to bring back hanging. Yes you heard me. It is time for the likes of Kyle Clifford to be hung high. That would demonstrate just how seriously the state takes violence against women and girls. Just how serious are the folks at the Observer when it comes to tackling violence against women and girls? I’m not sure.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

Take Kyle Clifford 25. He got a whole life term for those horrific murders but as his own suicide attempt failed he is in a wheelchair. So the tax – payer will now have to cover the cost of Clifford’s incarceration until the day he dies. That won’t be cheap. Why?

Why are we even funding Clifford’s stay in prison? He should be hung from the neck until dead because morally that is what he deserves. If we really valued the lives of women then we would say loud and clear as a society that men who murder their partners or their ex-partners who have had the temerity to break up with them, you have forfeited your right to life. Clifford pleaded guilty to the murder although interestingly not the rape (there was a trial for that) so don’t bother whining about miscarriages of justice.

And the hanging should be public. Run it on Twitter – slip it into all the stupid Andrew Tate algorithms that come up on every boy’s smartphone. That will focus minds.

There you go Observer – that’s your plan for tackling violence against women and girls. And it might save resources as we can save a few quid from housing these murderers at His Majesty’s pleasure.

Of course Britain will have to withdraw from whatever international human rights obligations that are out there otherwise the usual army of human rights lawyers will be coming your way banging on about “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Hanging the likes of Clifford is far more dignified than what he meted out to Louise, Hannah, and Carol Clifford. Or what Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens did to Sarah Evered, abducting her, also raping her, murdering her and then dumping her body in a wood and attempting to set it on fire (he did this while on a call to the vet.)

Honestly – these lawyers. What’s wrong with them? Anyway you will have to deal with them as they will be taking time out from their busy day objecting to the deportation of illegal immigrants who rape and abuse women to tell us all ‘how cruel’ we are to want rid society of the likes of Kyle Clifford and Wayne Couzens.

Cry me a flipping river.