Derby Fire - Guilty

[Inca]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

Having found out the Judge is a woman (Ta Sapph x)....I hope and pray she has PMT or the menopause....or her old man has peed her off.

[jon1965]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

Please do not assume that she has PMT or Hot Flushes and never assume she has (or even needs) a man, old or not.

It will be not what we call a life inside, they will have to mix with the lowest of the low who will look down on them as they are child killers. They may well be attacked and will forever looking over their shoulders. Do you think that the suicides in prison are all actual suicides or that the people were not driven to them . I am not condoning it

I am in 100% agreement with Eloise. Capital punishment is a backward step and i could never condone it, exactly for the reasons she says

[Inca]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

Please do not assume that she has PMT or Hot Flushes and never assume she has (or even needs) a man, old or not.

It will be not what we call a life inside, they will have to mix with the lowest of the low who will look down on them as they are child killers. They may well be attacked and will forever looking over their shoulders. Do you think that the suicides in prison are all actual suicides or that the people were not driven to them . I am not condoning it

I am in 100% agreement with Eloise. Capital punishment is a backward step and i could never condone it, exactly for the reasons she says

Firstly Jon,,I was making a joke
Secondly..I couldn't care less what will happen to them in prison,nothing will be as bad as murdering 6 INNOCENT children,,killed because Daddy and Mummy ( the people who SHOULD have protected them!) lit a fire and they were poisoned (thankfully) before they burned to death in their beds.
And finally.........I'm as entitled to my opinion as you are,,and I 100% disagree with you.

[jon1965]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

Inca I will not go into the ins and outs of what is a joke or not ...whole new thread
From what I have read, there was never any intention to kill them and that is a tragic accident that they will have to live with for the rest of their lives.

Of course you are allowed an opinion just as I am it's just a shame that yours is wrong (now that was a joke)

[Inca]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

Sorry ..but how the heck do you conclude it was an 'accident'?? Did they 'accidentally' buy the petrol? Did they 'accidentally' pour it over the foot of their stairs? Did they 'accidentally' set the 'accidental'petrol alight?

I'm retiring from this thread because I don't want to debate the right and wrongs of the deaths of 6 innocent children.

[Eloise01]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

If you are interested in my best guess, the reason for the delay is indicated by the submissions made and the judges very interesting intervention in the pleadings - which is quite uncommon. I may not be a criminal lawyer but I have sat in on enough criminal courts and I have more than a few friends who are judges. Just because manslaughter is a lesser charge than murder does not mean the sentence has to be lighter. It is entirely possible for a judge to hand down a life sentence - but very unusual for them to do so. My best guess is that the judge is considering this in at least one defendants case - the father. For that to stand scrutiny her reasoning would need to be impeccable - a life sentence for manslaughter is uncommon and open to appeal, and no judge likes their sentences being appealed. So she's probably reviewing precedent and writing her speech tonight!



And whilst I respect Inca's opinion, would she have suggested that the man convicted of murdering Lesley Molseed in 1975 - a pretty brutal murder by all accounts, was hung instead of languishing in prison? And if so, which one would she hang - the "convicted murderer" who confessed to the crime in 1975 (under police questioning and with no solicitor present - in the "old days" there wasn't a right to a solicitor being present!) and spent more than 16 years in prison before somebody noticed he was innocent - or the other one who actually did it?

There could be another list. My nominations are:

Mahmood Mattan - hanged in 1952 for a murder for which the conviction was later overturned
Timothy Evans - whose wrongful hanging in 1950 and the subsequent (15 years later) discovery that he didn't do it was a primary motivator in the shift of public opinion against hanging and its eventual abolition

Stefan Kiszko - the supposed murderer of Lesly Molseed mentioned above
Stephen Downing
Judith Ward
The Maquire Seven
The Guildford Four
The Bridgewater Four
Steven Miller, Yusef Abdullahi, and Tony Paris
Barry George
Suzanne Holdsworth

In all the cases in the second group, it is almost certain that the circumstances of the alleged crimes would have led to the death penalty had it not been abolished in 1965. In all these cases the people were found to have not committed the crimes they were accused of.

[jon1965]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

Well two good things happened in 1965 .

It has been horrific and I do think that a whole life sentence is appropriate. I do not believe that the intention was to kill the children, I can not believe that.
Inca in my mind there is no doubt that it got out of hand and hence can be described as an accident. I am not making light of it, I am trying to be even handed and see through all the fog of emotions to the facts

[Eloise01]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

Sorry ..but how the heck do you conclude it was an 'accident'?? Did they 'accidentally' buy the petrol? Did they 'accidentally' pour it over the foot of their stairs? Did they 'accidentally' set the 'accidental'petrol alight?

I'm retiring from this thread because I don't want to debate the right and wrongs of the deaths of 6 innocent children.

I wish to clarify that manslaughter is not an appropriate charge for a "tragic accident". As I indicated previously, the defining difference is mens rea - a lay terms, the intent. I can kill someone without intending to kill them through actions which may but equally may not have been intended to lead to their death, or could have reasonably been obvious it would lead to their death. So if I shoot a gun out of my window and hit someone passing by, I may not have intended to kill them (or anyone), but it was within reasonable bounds that I might have killed someone. That is manslaughter. If the gun in my hand goes off because someone jolts me, and instead of hitting a target I hit a person, that is a tragic accident.

[Inca]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

Don't disagree with you at all Eloise...I see both sides of the 'capital punishment' debate...but I stick to my opinion that,in cases such as these,where there is NO doubt,it's justified.
We don't practice it here,so a long drawn out debate over it is pointless,it's only my opinion.

[Eloise01]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

Well two good things happened in 1965 .

It has been horrific and I do think that a whole life sentence is appropriate. I do not believe that the intention was to kill the children, I can not believe that.
Inca in my mind there is no doubt that it got out of hand and hence can be described as an accident. I am not making light of it, I am trying to be even handed and see through all the fog of emotions to the facts

I would have to say that I agree with you on the death penalty - but not that this was a tragic accident. Assuming you were stupid enough to set fire to your home while your children were asleep inside (so setting the fire and knowing your children were asleep inside is not an accident), I assume that you would be wracked with remorse and unable to live with it. You would not, presumably, have been cracking jokes outside the mortuary on the way to see your dead childrens bodies? Frankly, from what I have seen and heard on this case, whilst I think that the father intended to rescue his children and be the hero (and how callous is that, to put your children in harms way to be a hero and get a bigger house???), no parent with a drop of decency would put their children in harms way deliberately.

[enaid]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

Well I think there are people who should not be breathing after some of the things they have done and have been proved to have done without a shadow of a doubt.
I also think that people that are given life sentences for taking a life on purpose should be kept in prison in a way they wished every day they were dead, instead of ticking along nicely and then being let out early by some do gooder.

[jon1965]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

I use the term accident in that it was not the intended outcome. Yes I agree that anyone with an ounce of common sense would have forseen the very very high risks that were being taken and if they even imagined them these parents are very ...well I can not find a word for it.

As for the cracking jokes, emotions can and do play very funny tricks on you, although again I think that the wiring of these peoples minds seems somewhat suspect to say the least.

We know there are some very callous people in this world, remember the poor girl in Rotherham ( I think) .
My choice of the word accident was probably poor but I can not find another word that describes the situation where as I believe the deaths were unplanned

[TUTTSI]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

Just listened to the news Mr had a string of violent crimes behind him and had already spent 7 years in prison, he had a mistress + a wife and 11 kids the mistress it appeared had lived with them altogether - he said he planned to be the hero and save them but instead they all died, so why did they have to start the fire, just to get a bigger house and have more children. He is definately a headcase and he rightly deserves to be in prison for a very long time. How could any human being do that to their own flesh and blood it is beyond me how easy it was just to light the match.:noidea:

[Sapphire]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

He actually had 17 children in total.
Two days after the fire they were put up in a Premier Inn, and he watched whilst his wife gave the other guy involved oral sex.
At the funeral they asked for donations to be in the form of Argos vouchers, bought teddy bears and auctioned them off for profit.

Nice family eh.

I think that the nice lady judge will throw the book at him, life meaning life and she'll probably go easy on the wife and helper, although if it were up to me they would all get life and only get out when they are dead.

[Inca]

Re: Derby Fire - Guilty

Have you seen any of the documentaries jon?
If not,,can I suggest you do? They are absolutely unbelievable. Two men who tried to save those kids are interviewed,and real raw emotion showed.I watched and rewatched the press conference the Philpotts gave and it's so obvious he was acting and neither of them shed a genuine tear.
They created a scenario in which he would be a 'hero',,saving his children from the blaze,,bravery untold,,because he had court the next day about his other 5 kids and he wanted to win at any cost.That cost was 6 children.
And,,lets all spare a thought for the 'other woman',,the one who left him taking her 5 kids,,she has to live knowing that he did all this because he wanted revenge.
The whole thing is just so tragic.