This article originally appeared in T&S Issue 33, Summer 1996.
In this country, a significant proportion of homicides are ‘domestic’—most are cases of men killing women. Feminists have consistently drawn attention to the striking discrepancy in the treatment of men who kill their wives and partners, and women who kill abusive men. The women whose cases have been taken up by Justice for Women are typically serving long sentences, having been convicted of murder. The men, by contrast, are overwhelmingly likely to succeed in getting the charge reduced to manslaughter. Some do not serve prison sentences at all.
Here Sandra McNeill scrutinises a sample of cases from the last two years to reveal the shocking facts about how often men literally get away with murder. She challenges those liberal pressure groups which campaign for the abolition of mandatory life sentences for murder, arguing that for feminists the real issue is why any conviction for murder in these cases is the exception rather than the rule. Why, she asks, are men who kill women not considered a danger to the public?
The time has come to state publicly that in this country men can kill their wives or girlfriends and get away with it. The time has come to challenge it.
We are not alone
In the recent Palestinian elections Dr Hanan Ashrawi — former leader of the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East Peace talks — was one of five women elected. She now plans to improve women’s status. Her priorities are: compulsory education for women up to secondary level; banning of marriage under 18; and banning of ‘honour killings’, where men can kill a wife or female relative thought guilty of infidelity.[1]
For 20 years Brazilian feminists have been campaigning against ‘the honour defence to murder and the proprietary attitudes towards women on which it is based.’ In 1988 they organised protests around the case of Joao Lopez who was acquitted of killing his wife and her lover. The jury accepted the argument that he had acted in defence of his honour. Protests led to the case going all the way to the highest Appeal Court which overturned the verdict and declared ‘murder cannot be seen as a legitimate response to adultery’.
This was a victory. However at his retrial, he was again acquitted, by a jury. Brazilian feminists know that the changes they are seeking ‘require more than a change in the legal framework. It requires a whole change in attitude: a man should not be able to beat or kill his wife with impunity’.[2]
But that doesn’t happen here — Oh Yes it Does
In England the defence of provocation, reducing murder to manslaughter was first introduced to protect aristocratic young men who got into sword fights. (Think about Romeo and Juliet. Apart from being a heterosexual love story the plot consists of a series of encounters and fights to death between such young men.) Later the defence was extended to men who killed their wives’ lovers — as long as this was in hot blood. In the 1920s the original reason why the defence was introduced was removed from the law (as by now young men stabbing each other to death were more likely to be working class youths — who should not have been carrying knives). In these histories there is simply no mention of men killing their wives. So either it was totally forbidden… or so commonplace it was not worth including. After all if a man in the eighteenth century accidentally killed his child or servant by an ‘unlucky blow’ while punishing him, this was not a crime in law. What do we think the situation was for wife killing?
The killing of women by men is not mentioned until feminist campaigns in the last century began to heighten the issue. The research into the history of women-killing remains to be done. I recently undertook some research for Justice for Women as background to discussions of the Mandatory Life Sentence.[3] Men in UK are getting away with murder. While infidelity remains the most frequent excuse for killing of wives and girlfriends, in fact any excuse will do. We were aware that many men get away with murder. Whenever we have been campaigning about a particular woman sentenced to life for murder we have had no problem finding a recent case of a man successfully pleading manslaughter in similar circumstances and getting a short sentence or walking free; usually pleading diminished responsibility.[4] These are not exceptional cases. They are the rule. The exceptions are the men who get life for murder.
Men who do get life for murder
Men who kill their wives or girlfriends or ex-wives and ex-girlfriends and plead diminished responsibility or provocation nearly always walk free or get short sentences for manslaughter. This becomes clear when you look at the exceptions, the men who do get life for murder of their wives or girlfriends. In the last two years they have been few and all have got some factor which makes them extraordinary…
- The man who killed his wife, a Building Society Manager. He robbed the Society, tied himself up and blamed a gang of robbers.[5]
- The vet who killed his wife by giving her immobilin — something that dopes horses — for weeks. He cashed an £180,000 insurance policy on her death and arranged to marry his mistress. When forensic and medical evidence was found he said his wife must have taken the drugs herself to commit suicide.[6]
- The ex-butcher turned prison warden who killed his wife and cut her body into joints of meat. He put them in the freezer and flushed the organs and hair down the loo. Reported her missing. Appealed for her. Joined police search. The police search was thorough. They found traces of blood in an outflow pipe and then her body hidden in a freezer in the loft — under peas. He then tried to run provocation. The jury did not buy it.[7]
- The man previously convicted of attempted murder of his wife (sentenced to four and a half years). Got parole after 2 years. Ambushes his ex-wife and her new man in their garden. Almost kills man. Kills her with sawn off shotgun. Had told mates he would do it.[8]
When sentencing the vet to life the judge said he was the ‘most evil selfish criminally callous man’ he had ever had to sentence.
So, men who devise fiendish plots, men who are trapped by forensic evidence, men who try to kill once and if they don’t succeed try and try again — get life for murder. All the rest get off with manslaughter.
Any excuse will do
Justice for Women have flagged up the most common excuses: she was unfaithful or she nagged. These are winners every time. But in fact any old excuse will do.
‘Ambulance driver who kills lover blames work stress’. An ambulance driver killed the woman with whom he had lived for 10 years. They were splitting up. They had been to marriage guidance counselling but she still planned to leave. He killed her with a sawn off shot gun. His defence (diminished responsibility) was that five months earlier he had attended the scene of the Baltic Exchange Bombing. One victim had died in his arms. So he had been suffering from stress. This excuse was accepted by judge and prosecution (no need for a jury). He got four years for manslaughter.[9]
Many people have stressful jobs. Ambulance drivers, like police officers, firefighters, physiotherapists, nurses, doctors and many more attend the aftermath of accidents and disaster and bombings. Should that excuse any murder they commit? Of course not. So why did it succeed in this case? I would suggest that it is in fact because he killed his girlfriend who was leaving him. Others would not perceive him to be guilty of much. Not a heinous crime. Not a danger to the public (see below).
Most cases, however are marked by their ordinariness:
- she was having an affair
- she taunted him about his sexual prowess
- they were divorcing
- she had walked out on him
- she nagged
The list goes on and on. Some walk free, some get three years. The unlucky ones get five years. And men know this. One man jailed for a year for killing his wife, was shocked to receive a prison sentence. He had bashed her brains out on a concrete path during ‘an argument’. He told the judge he was concerned about who would look after the child when he was in jail.[10]
Men expect to get away with murder. This is dangerous to the public. It means women who live with them or leave them are at risk. Women must be very careful. One woman in 1994 was not careful. When she discovered her husband was having an affair she punched him on the nose. (It required hospital treatment.) He told her he had had two other affairs. She kicked him. He strangled her. A jury found him not guilty of murder. He walked free. The judge (giving him 18 months suspended) said, ‘He had been outrageously provoked’.[11] Yes, I think the double standard is alive and well here.
Change the law
Justice for Women has for years been seeking to establish that domestic violence should be grounds for manslaughter. That is in the case of violence from men to women. There was no need to establish that violence — any at all — from a woman to a man was grounds for manslaughter as the above case shows. Yet at Sara Thornton’s first appeal in 1991 Justice Beldam had said ‘Domestic violence is no excuse for murder’.
Thanks to campaigns by Southall Black Sisters and Justice for Women, not only has domestic violence finally been accepted as a defence which can reduce murder to manslaughter but juries are no longer required to consider only the events immediately before the death. Cumulative provocation in a defence of diminished responsibility was accepted at the appeal of Kiranjit Ahluwalia in 1992. In the case of Emma Humphreys (1995) cumulative provocation was allowed to be included in the defence of provocation. Both those cases involved repeated violence from the men.
Sue Bandali in an article about men getting away with murder, worries that these gains will be used by men to help them get away with more murder.[12] But men are already using cumulative provocation — not in cases of them being regularly beaten by their wives — but in relation to nagging. When men plead provocation on the grounds that their wives nagged, they are palpably not talking about one occasion. Yet they have been successfully pleading it for years.
Oliver Kellett, one of many men using this defense, stabbed his wife Lucy as she was preparing to leave him after years of violence from him. His GP gave evidence that Kellett had been severely provoked by Lucy’s nagging. He walked free. Three years probation. His plea was accepted by the judge and prosecution so there was no jury trial.[13] If instead of him killing Lucy, Lucy had killed him at that time, then then a jury would have been told to discount his years of violence and only consider any threat on the last occasion. Yet then as now he can plead ‘she nagged’.
Justice for Women were right to insist cumulative violence should count as a defence within the definition of provocation. Justice for Women have been aware that changing the law is itself not enough and have also campaigned widely to change public attitudes. However we have been wary of general attempts to reform provocation for example by removing the need to prove sudden and temporary loss of control, without such safeguards as adding that neither words alone nor actual or alleged infidelity should count as defences. We have supported the creation of a different defence of Self Preservation (see article by Jill Radford and Liz Kelly in T&S 22).
These demands have not so far been taken seriously or attracted many supporters beyond feminist groups and women’s committees. Instead Justice for Women have been urged to support quite a different campaign: for the abolition of the mandatory life sentence for murder.
The life sentence debate
Since 1991, The Guardian has repeatedly argued that Justice for Women should simply join the campaign for the abolition of the mandatory life sentence, on the grounds that if it is successful women who kill will have no more problems as judges will be able to take into account their ‘tragic circumstances’. Justice for Women has disagreed for two reasons.
Firstly, judges are not known for being sympathetic to women. In the case of women who have killed violent men this is evident in the lengthy tariffs given. (The tariff is the amount of time someone sentenced to life must serve before being considered for parole. Josephine Smith and other women we have supported have tariffs of 12 and 15 years). One cannot rely on the mercy of judges. Secondly, convicted women like Emma Humphreys have said themselves that the most important thing for them was being free — of the label murderer. To these reasons I would now add a third. Those men currently getting life should carry on getting life. So should many of those getting away with murder.
What are the arguments for abolishing the Mandatory Life Sentence? The position of Liberty (formerly National Council for Civil Liberties) is that it wants rid of all life sentences. They argue that prisoners do not benefit from them! They also argue that no one should be detained for crimes they might commit as opposed to crimes they have committed. ‘If a prisoner is considered dangerous there should be a “medical disposal” to a place where they can get treatment’.[14] They nowhere take on board the fact that someone who is not mad (whatever that means) could still be a danger to us, the public.
The Prison Reform Trust do support the retention of the life sentence but maintain that it should not be mandatory. Instead it should be reserved for the ‘most heinous’ of crimes and for perpetrators who are ‘a danger to the public’. They do not consider men who kill their wives and girlfriends to come in that category.[15]
Other arguments from Liberty and the Prison Reform Trust concern abuses of the system. For example someone due for release who commits a minor infringement of prison rules and is set back years; or someone released on licence who commits a very minor offence (e.g. stealing a packet of fags) and has his licence revoked and goes back to serving life. These abuses could be removed by having, as Liberty also suggest, ‘stringent procedural safeguards about the granting of parole and revocation of licence’.
The major abuse the Prison Reform Trust are concerned about is the abuse of the Home Secretary’s powers. This could also be reformed by taking the power away from politicians and giving it to a senior parole board. Just because there are abuses of a system does not mean that system should be scrapped.
Once the abuses are addressed all we are left with is the point made at length by the Prison Reform Trust: that most lifers are not members of the ‘criminal classes’ — so they are therefore no danger to the public. Are not wives and girlfriends the public? They say life should only be the punishment for the most heinous crimes. They do not consider men who kill their wives and girlfriends to be in that category. For such men they argue for mercy.
I would argue they are getting too much mercy already. Already in most cases they are not even convicted of murder. Rather than abolishing the mandatory life sentence we should be looking at why it so seldom applies. How do we go about making it apply in cases where men kill women because they leave, say they are leaving, have affairs or are alleged to have affairs, or nag? Women are no longer chattel who must be cheerfully subservient.
Like our sisters in Brazil we must ensure there is a change both in the law and in public attitudes. Yes even in the attitudes of The Guardian, Liberty and the Prison Reform Trust. With our sisters around the globe, we must say it is time to stop men getting away with murder.
References
[1] INSERTNOTE↩
[1] The Guardian February 8th 1996↩
[2] Miranda Davies (ed) Women and Violence — Realities and Responses World Wide (Zed Press, 1994)↩
[3] Times Index 1994/95 for list of cases of men who did get life for murder in a domestic homicide.↩
[4] In 1991 just after Sara Thornton’s appeal against her conviction for murder for stabbing her drunken violent husband was turned down, Joseph McGrail was freed by the same court which had sentenced Sara. McGrail had kicked to death his commmon law wife Marion Kennedy. His excuse was he had come home to find her drunk again. The judge said ‘that woman would have tried the patience of a saint’.↩
[5] Carol Wardell killed by Gordon Wardell The Times November 15 1995↩
[6] Sandra Ryan killed by James Ryan The Times May 4 and 26 1995↩
[7] Myrtle Allen killed by Michael Allen The Times July 7 1995↩
[8] Margaret Whitcombe killed by Philip Manning The Times July 25 1995↩
[9] Susan Oliver killed by Trevor Thomas The Times June 23 1993↩
[10] Donna Swaton Killed by Simon Swaton The Times February 25 1995↩
[11] Diane Hunt killed by Alan Hunt The Times October 29 1994↩
[12] Sue Bandali ‘Provocation — A Cautionary Note’ (Law and Society, September 1995)↩
[13] Oliver Kellett pre trial review — plea accepted. 13th April 1992, Chesterfield.↩
[14] Liberty Submission to the House of Lords Select Committee on Murder and Life Imprisonment (1989)↩
[15] Prison Reform Trust Committee on the Penalty for Homicide Report (1993)↩