Man With Apergers Prosecuted For Voluntary Manslaughter

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http://www.mirror.co.uk/northernireland ... _page.html

I originally skipped over this article in the paper yesterday, but removed a sheet as it mentioned asexuality and I might wanna refer to it in future. I then decided to read the other articles on the other pgaes of the sheet and I noticed this. First of all it creeped me out that one thing rarely mentioned in the papers was on the same sheet as another problem of mine which I had never seen mentioned before in the news. Secondly, over the past week I've been studying diminished responsibility as a partial defence to murder in law, and one part (which may just be semantics) really upset me yesterday. Diminished responsibility requires 'an abnormality of mind (Defined in Byrne as a state of mind which the reasonable man would term abnoromal) caused by ret*d or arrested development of mind, any inherent causes, injury or disease that significantly impairs the defendant's mental responsibility'. What upset me is that Asperger's does not fall under the categories of inherent cause, injury or disease, so that makes it 'ret*d or arrested development of mind'. So, now in the eyes of the law and judicial precedent, us with Asperger's are either ret*ds or worse. Maybe I'm being over-sensitive, and I do realise we do have a ret*d development of mind insofar as having slowed social development, but I just didn't want to think of myself that way... Gah, I'm ranting.

Post your thoughts on the news article.

An aspie in Northern Ireland? Has anybody seen donkey lately?

He's from Sussex, not Northern Ireland. Sussex is a county in England.

Pardon me. I saw Northern Ireland on the web page, and the article had no dateline.

Aren't there a few members here from Sussex?

What upsets me is that defense lawyer getting away with saying aspergers makes people murderers, and the court believing him.

Is Aspergers a mental illness?I thought it was a "wiring" thing?There are also many "comorbids" with AS....There is nothing in the traits of AS that I see 'causing" someone to murder but I can see how people treat people with AS exacerbating a co-morbid....It would hardly follow ,logically,that AS is the "cause" of the behavior.

This is a more lucid account.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article ... 40,00.html

Some of the language and sweeping judgementalism is even worse though.

Asperger's is not a mental illness, it's a state of mind. But those stupid f***s in court don't know that of course.

I was wondering when somebody was going to post this. As unfortunate as the incident was, it just goes to show that the media often knows nothing of anything they report on - especially tabloids, with their dumbed-down language and extreme bias. The moment they encounter something they've most likely never heard of - Asperger's in this case - they ridicule it as a mental illness and say we 'suffer' from it. We do not suffer. It is not an illness. They will, of course, never learn this, and if they ever decide to research it, will remain ignorant.

And since when was Asperger's a 'profound' degree of autism? If anything, from what I've read, it's considerably less severe than 'traditional' autism. It's terrible that he's going to be incarcerated at an institution for the rest of his life. I don't know what to say about his defence, considering I've been more used to seeing the "dimished responsibility" one in "the-videogames-made-me-do-it" cases. Nevertheless, the point still stands that this guy was just as accountable for his actions as anybody else would be. He knew perfectly well what he was doing, and somewhere in the back of his head he knew what kind of effect it would have.

I don't know what else I can say on this one. And if I happened to have worded this wrong, I apologise.

Can't blame a lawyer for doing his job as best he can. A different kind of "diminished responsibility." If the guy gets/got off, then that's the lawyer I want.

I blame anybody who harms countless innocent people to make a cushy life for themselves, even if they say they're "just doing their job." That excuse didn't work at Nuremberg, and it shouldn't work at Sussex.

And a judge making pronouncements that are totally in contradiction of the facts is not doing his job.

How will this affect aspies looking for a job, or aspies who are already considered suspect for their odd behavior, maybe it will reduce bullying for aspie kids if the other kids think they're liable to murder them, but it won't help them when some normal kid is thinking, "Hey, maybe this aspie kid isn't so bad after all, even if they seem a little different."

I hope you brits raise a stink I can smell over here across the atlantic and across two-thirds of North America. Maybe you can get Charles in on this, I gather he's hard up for some good PR.

Ignoring the ignorance of people regarding Aspies:
What? Saying 'I'll kill them!" now leads to clear intent and purpose? Right ....I've said plenty of times that I'd kill several idiots in my class. I still know the consequences outweigh the benefits though.

:
Oooh, I know. Whenever anyone says anything in the heat of the moment and later goes back to wherever, let's arrest them.

Come on, we all say things in the heat of the moment. None of them really mean anything. I mean, when you're incredibly mad with someone, you tend to scream at them you hate them and most of the time, let's face it, you don't mean it.

This is a sad day.

That judge belongs behind bars himself.

It very may well be, aspies and other autistics are normally notorious for having a short fuse (as is evident by some responses in this thread), and while that doesn't prove the Asperger's causes it, it's the likeliest explanation.

That's entirely subjective. Depression is commonly regarded as a mental illness, but you could just claim it was a more pessimistic state of mind and that couldn't be argued with. The answer is that something can be both of these things at the same time.

Speak for yourself. I went through plenty of crap during compulsory education for it, and the co-morbid conditions I have such as S.A.D. (which may even have came about as a result of my social inadequacy) do indeed make me 'suffer'. Also, I know someone who used to be in my Law class with Asperger's, the class basically hounded him until he left. That's suffering too, if it drives him to make that kind of decision. I do agree wth your condemnation of the media however, as well as Freer knowing what he was doing.

This person stated fact, not contradiction of fact. Note one of my earlier posts, the situation definately falls under an abnormality of mind, and since ret*d development of mind would mean delayed learning of certain relevant functions, Asperger's could indeed be classified as 'ret*d devlopment of mind' (see either section 2 or section 3 of the Homicide Act for the context the term was used in). While I don't want to think of myself in this way, it stands true unfortunately.

No, but it suggests it. As for intent, if you attack someone in the manner Freer did, it is almost certain to cause death or grievous bodily harm. Intent, in simplified terms, is either doing everything within one's power to commit the offence (direct intent) or wishing to do one thing and the offence occured as a by-product, and it must have been virtually certain to occur (Oblique intent, and he wished to smack the crap out of her. That's direct intent for GBH which is enough for a murder charge). Freer had clear intent and a purpose with the attack. As for saying things but not meaning them and 'everyone doing it', not 'everyone' kills the person shortly after. On top of that, Freer actually said afterwards he intended to kill the victim, so that's obviously clear intent.



I doubt this post will make me popular, but it should at least set a few things straight. As for the articles, neither was particularly bad, though both should have elaborated more on the nature of Asperger's after the totally false claims made by the defending Queen's Counsel. I can't recognise this 'sweeping judgmentalism' that neilgr refers to.