Domestic Violence

The British Government swings from one end of a problem to the other, at the moment it is suggsting that any killing perpertrated by someone who claims they have been subjected to domestic violence should not be treated as murder.

Protecting Who?

The problem that I think many people have with this is just who is the law designed to protect. Until recently women who killed violent husbands and partners were sentenced to life for murder, one case in particular springs to mind where a woman suffered systematic abuse for years. She killed her abuser while he was sleeping - the court decided that this constituted premeditated murder and gave her a 25 year sentence, which was later successfully appealed.  Some men, on the other hand, have got away with manslaughter when they claimed to have killed their wife or partner in response to persistent nagging - there has been much debate about this, especially among those who believed that the verdict should have been murder.

The Point

My point here is will this proposed new legislation really help women (and occasionally men) who have suffered years of violent abuse from reacting to that violence? In the case mentioned above the woman killed her partner while he was sleeping after another violent attack on her, because she was too terrified to fight back while he was awake. So will it actually protect people who have suffered years of torment and terror, or will it protect the man who beats to death a nagging wife?

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