An appalling judgment which was an insult to ALL women
● PEOPLE with a keen sense of smell for unpleasant household pongs may be suffering from stress, scientists say. Apparently, there’s a link between high levels of cortisol and sensitivity to bad odours. At first I found this slightly concerning – I have a nose like a retriever. And then I remembered: I live with a teenage boy.
● SASHA Walpole, AKA ‘the older woman who took Prince Harry’s virginity’, has been photographed in her job as a digger-driver, shifting lumps of earth. I wonder if he’s apologised to her for revealing to the world in his memoir his drunken liaison in a field behind a pub 22 years ago? After all, he’s demanding an apology from his brother and father for a lot less...
I’M not convinced about The Rolling Stones/Paul McCartney collaboration, as announced last week. To me you’re either a Stones fan or a Beatles fan, and never the twain shall meet. Of course, it’s all nonsense, like the ‘feud’ between Oasis and Blur. Still, I’d take Sympathy For The Devil over All You Need Is Love any day.
AM I missing something? A man takes his children to Windsor Great Park, makes a den for them to play in, then digs a hole in which he buries a large plastic box.
Next, he conceals a claw hammer in one of his children’s school bags, drives them to his estranged wife’s house and bludgeons her to death within earshot of them.
Afterwards, he drops the children off at his (pregnant) girlfriend’s place, drives his ex-wife’s corpse to the makeshift grave site and buries her.
Despite clear premeditation (I mean, what else is digging your victim’s grave in advance?) a jury acquitted him of murder and, instead, convicted him of manslaughter, which carries a far less serious punishment. That was not a sentence, it was an insult.
Now, having served just 13 years in jail, this man is eligible for parole. Thirteen years for killing the mother of his children with a claw hammer. People get more for fraud.
It makes you weep with the injustice of it.
The man is former British Airways pilot Robert Brown. His ex-wife, Joanna, was 46 when he killed her. Their two children, aged just ten and nine, were subsequently raised by Joanna’s mother and her second husband.
Yesterday’s Daily Mail ran a profoundly moving interview with Joanna’s mother, detailing what her daughter suffered at the hands of a controlling and cruel man.
It started with slights and rudeness, then gradually he became nastier and more abusive, until eventually he threatened her with a knife, prompting her to leave him. He killed her just days before their divorce was due to be finalised.
A charity, the Joanna Simpson Foundation, was set up in Joanna’s memory and, with the support of the Mail, is lobbying Justice Secretary Dominic Raab to keep Brown behind bars. Joanna’s mother also has the backing of two influential women who have done much work in this sphere: Camilla and Carrie Symonds, Boris Johnson’s wife.
Combating violence against women is a cause close to Camilla’s heart, and Carrie was instrumental in preventing the early release of rapist cab driver John Worboys, whom police believe may have targeted more than 100 women, including Carrie, who was drugged by him when she was 19.
Given the circumstances of the Brown case, it seems inconceivable that such a man should even be considered for parole.
But we live in a world where serving police officers rape and murder young women such as Sarah Everard and where, increasingly, those charged with dispensing justice seem more on the side of the perpetrators of crime than their victims.
In Brown’s case, it was claimed during his trial that he had been suffering ‘adjustment disorder’ because of the divorce proceedings – an excuse which may seem preposterous, but which persuaded the jury to convict him of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
No wonder such cases lead many to believe that it’s not just the police who have a woman problem, it’s the entire system of police, courts, judges, lawyers – the whole lot.
Everything about this appalling story feels like a classic case of victim-blaming, a silent collusion with Joanna’s killer which suggests that, somehow, she brought this terrible fate upon herself by daring to leave him in the first place.
Dominic Raab faces a momentous choice. If he allows Brown’s release, he would not only be sending a clear signal to women victims of violence that their suffering is of no value, he would also be signalling to all vicious men that the justice system is on their side; that they can commit the most heinous crimes and not get the punishment they deserve.
Because that’s what serving 13 years for bludgeoning the mother of your children to death with a claw hammer is in my book: a mere slap on the wrist – and an abhorrent affront to justice.