The provision was there in 1995 for a life sentence. I believe this provision should have been used. The death penalty, in concrete and in abstract, was not relevant.
I think anyone who abducts a child for sexual gratification has crossed a crucial line. Such a person should be detained, via a life sentence, until there is clear reason to believe he is no longer a danger. That day might never come – and so be it.
I happen to agree with earlier comments in the thread that attraction to children is an orientation, however lamentable, for certain people. To them, the orientation is like any other one.
There are complexities. The age of consent in Britain between 1275 and 1875 was 12. Between 1875 and 1885 it was 13, before being raised to 16. There are plenty of countries today where the age of consent is 14. But none of these historical facts gainsay the right of children to be safe.
Presumably lads who want death sentences/whole life tariffs for paedophiles and child murderers would have adocated the same for people who killed kids with a kilo of Semtex
The death penalty is a very complex issue but there’s things that could’ve been done to prevent two of the murders mentioned here.
How was that man still working as a police officer after having been caught exposing himself 3 times?
The man that murdered Sarah Payne, how was he out so soon after the previous conviction?
If judges would only use the tools at their disposal in terms of sentencing, and put the safety of the public first.
Sarah Everard was particularly unlucky in that this happened during COVID, it gave that prick even more opportunity, but had it been normal times, the walk was an hour, she’d have been on the bus or the underground.
Yes, precisely. There are numerous examples over the years. The judge made it clear to The Birmingham Six that they would have been executed if that provision had still been on the statute books.
I am also against the death penalty because I believe, correctly or incorrectly, long term incarceration over decades is more of a punishment than execution. But I freely concede the family of a victim may well have exactly the opposite opinion and I fully respect their perspective.
Aaron Sorkin employed a neat turn of phrase in Season 1 of The West Wing that focused on the death penalty.
David Proval of Sopranos fame played a Rabbi vehemently opposed to capital punishment who delivered the line “The State has the right to punish, it does not have the right to kill”
The exposure stuff as regards Couzens is still a bit opaque. Does seem there was more of a mess up than a cover up on the police’s part. Exposure, even though often the prelude to grave offences, is not taken particularly seriously as a crime. Hopefully that situation will change.
I suspect, like probably a lot of people here, the roots of his depravity lie in an addiction to violent pornography. The fact that he washed his phone means this suspicion will almost undoubtedly never be confirmed. But this prompt seems the most likely one.
Whiting being released in late 1997 was horrific – but not surprising in light of the four year sentence. The original sentence was the error – a tragic error.
I think Couzens factored in ‘Covid life’ as part of his heinous plan. If Sarah Everard had left her friend’s house a few minutes earlier or a few minutes later, she would still be living her blameless life in London. I think this aspect is why so many people, including myself, find this case so deeply unnerving. But the terrible reality is that the evil gobshite was going to abduct some poor woman that night. He was seemingly driving around for hours in London before half nine. And would probably have stayed driving around for several further hours, needs be.
We do however have prisoners that have been locked up for 40+ years. John Shaw being the case in point. He tortured, raped and murdered two women back in 1976. He was arrested in Salthill. His accomplice died in prison in 2012.
Yet Larry Murphy is out and about.
It’s absolutely insane.
I hope that UUCOAM couzens does proper hard time, 23 hours a day lockdown until he dies. No shifting down the security level as years pass.
I hope he dies of boredom.
If you willingly take a life in cold blood then you should be prepared to forfeit your own and not have resources that could be better used,diverted to your survival.The world might be a better place and might make people think twice before they decide to go down that road.
Forget passion,mental illness and all that craic.An eye for an eye and I’d suggest the date for the execution should fall on the anniversary of the victims death.
Way too many cunts are living the easy life after causing utter heartbreak to innocent people and their families.
Some of the more senior members of the forum might recall it better. But from speaking to my mother who was around Galway that time, the terror these cunts instilled was something else. They had planned to torture, rape and murder a woman once a month.
The famous line about the Devil in the Usual Suspects springs to mind.
I would be in favor of the death penalty in the most extreme cases, the premeditated deliberate murder of a defenseless person especially a child, where there is absolutely no doubt of guilt. The example I always use is Richard Allen Davis who abducted, assaulted and murdered 12 year old Polly Klass in 1993 not far from here. During his sentencing in 1996 he claimed in the courtroom that the victim told him her father had molested her.
He was on death row until 2019 when a moratorium was put on executions in California.
My dad told me all about it. They threw at least one poor lass body into lough Inagh, and there’s people think it’s haunted. Matty O Sullivan, the gard in moycullen would never fish there. They had the next lass chosen and lined up. They apparently only got caught because JimBoland a Garda in Salthill noticed a dodgy numberplate, stopped them and one of them panicked. He saved one or more lives.
