A sad case.....but the Judges comments are strange..

[s3fella]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8237765.stm

Clearly a rare occurrence, but father seemingly of sound mind decides to do himself in instead of dying a slow painful death (although his actual demise seems to have been hardly painfree). And a weird case that he did this in hospital, clearly a dangerous place to be firing a gun etc, why not wait til back home, unless he was so bad he was not ging home??

Anyway, what I found odd was the judges comments about why this case was not one with more serious charges of assisting a suicide..?
Would such a prosecution have been at all in the public interest, and max 14 years been any more fittign punishment for this guy, whose dad was dying and whose mum was in a home with Altzeimhers??

Seems as though our justice system continues to amaze with a quite draconian attitude from this judge, wanting to dish out up to 14 years and yet that Romanian Asylum seeker who raped 4 women gets 6 years....?

I sort of feel a bit sorry for this guy, although his actions were real stupid and could have ended even worse than they did.
But is he really a danger to the rest of society..?

Edited by s3fella on Friday 4th September 16:58

[oldsoak]

No he's a danger to an outdated law that punishes those who have compassion on someone else who is beyond medical help or possibility of recovery and want to put an end their pain and suffering.

[Zod]

I'd love to see you redraft the law in such a way that it avoids the risk of grasping inheritors persuading a an oldie who could happily live for another few years that it really would be better for all if the oldie were to top himself sooner rather than wait for death to come of its own accord.

[oldsoak]

Zod said:

I'd love to see you redraft the law in such a way that it avoids the risk of grasping inheritors persuading a an oldie who could happily live for another few years that it really would be better for all if the oldie were to top himself sooner rather than wait for death to come of its own accord.

Congratulations for completely missing my point...a-la those who have no hope of recovery are beyond medical help and wish to end it all shouldn't be impeded nor should those who furnish the means for those people wishing to end it all be punished.
Your scenario doesn't take any of that into account...nice try but no cigar...

[ucb]

oldsoak said:

Zod said:

I'd love to see you redraft the law in such a way that it avoids the risk of grasping inheritors persuading a an oldie who could happily live for another few years that it really would be better for all if the oldie were to top himself sooner rather than wait for death to come of its own accord.

Congratulations for completely missing my point...a-la those who have no hope of recovery are beyond medical help and wish to end it all shouldn't be impeded nor should those who furnish the means for those people wishing to end it all be punished.
Your scenario doesn't take any of that into account...nice try but no cigar...

And your scenario does not take into account any durability in the expression of suicide, nor can we ever remove extraneous factors from a person's decision as to their best interests.
In the case on the website, the guy in question clearly has many factors for reactive depression (own diagnosis, wife's needs and care, hospitalised) and he has now taken a permanent step in what he vewed at that time as being a hopeless situation. What would the situation be a month later?
How does the son impact on this guy's decision making? Walking in with the gun that his father requests, sounds like an agreement that his life is not worth living. What would have happened if he refused to bring it in? Would this guy have gone home and then spent the rest of his days (and they could have been numerus) living it up. But of course there might have been nothing left to inherit then!

[Olf]

I presume the judges comments related to the fact that if the CPS had charged him with the more serious crime it strangely would have given him an opportunity to give the guy an even lower sentence as with a firearms charge he has to give a minimum tariff.

[TheLemming]

Olf said:

I presume the judges comments related to the fact that if the CPS had charged him with the more serious crime it strangely would have given him an opportunity to give the guy an even lower sentence as with a firearms charge he has to give a minimum tariff.

Indeed. Everything I've seen on this case has reported that reasonably, the case wasnt about suicide. It was about the procuring and supply of a firearm and 19 rounds of live ammunition.

A very sad state of affairs all round, but I cant help but think that had it been approached differently by the defendant (ie not bringing his Dad a gun) that charges would likely not even have been brought.

[nonegreen]

This is typical ticking and stamping. Its why the criminal justice system is ste. Its a total failure. We can do nothing about kiddies terrorising neighbours yet we imprison caring humans doing the best they can. Time to take up arms and get rid of bad gummint.

[Olf]

Lets not forget that he fired a gun on a full hospital ward and subjected the nurses on a cancer ward to a gun shot wound. That's a fking stupid thing to do even if you are dying.

Also the son clearly can't be that clever, all he needed to do was bring the gun in a locked box and say "My dad asked me to bring him a locked box from the loft, I just assumed he was going to give some of my inheritance before he died".

Sad, but still gold plated, fur lined, ocean going muppetry.

End of.

[Dominic H]

I hope that if I'm in a similar position, I shan't require 19 rounds present to finish the job.....

[MentalSarcasm]

Zod said:

I'd love to see you redraft the law in such a way that it avoids the risk of grasping inheritors persuading a an oldie who could happily live for another few years that it really would be better for all if the oldie were to top himself sooner rather than wait for death to come of its own accord.

If you read up on the procedure used by Dignitas, you'll see that there are ways to make sure that "grasping inheritors" don't get through.

IIRC correctly, in order to be "accepted" by Dignitas you must have proof that you have a terminal illness (old age doesn't count), you are interviewed by a doctor (twice I think), a psychiatrist and (I think) a counsellor, all at different times. The process takes months, it's not a case of showing up on the doorstep in a wheelchair going "I'd like to die now please", and leaving in a coffin an hour later. There are loads of people who apply to be accepted by the clinic and get rejected, and a huge percentage of those that ARE accepted never go back when they get the green light.

Yeah, grasping inheritors suck. You know what else sucks? Dying very slowly and very painfully from a rare illness and knowing that if you ask your family to help you end it, they could be dragged to court for it.

[fluffnik]

Once more I find myself wishing to dissociate entirely from the (very) Criminal (near total lack of) Justice System.

It's broken, we need a new one.