Grace Millane murder - do we believe the accused?

I fundamentally disagree with your analysis here.

It's effectively immaterial as to whether this man had the intent to seriously injure or kill Millane at the point when he began choking her. For the sake of argument, we can posit that he didn't have any such intent at that point.

But....

....the only important factor to consider is whether or not this man must have had intent to seriously injure or kill Millane at some point before he actually did cause her death.

And the striking evidence which convinces me (and, it would appear, the trial jury) that this man must indeed have had the intent to seriously injure or kill Millane at some point before he caused her death is - as I've argued so, so many times before - as follows: he must by definition have continued to apply a strong choke hold to Millane's neck for a very considerable period of time after she fell into unconsciousness.

Now, this action is (IMO, and apparently in the opinion of the jury also) wholly incompatible with that of a man whose sole innocent intent is to perform an erotic asphyxiation act upon a sexual partner, with the sole aim of heightening her sexual arousal. Once she'd been choked unconscious - a point which cannot fail to be noticed by the one doing the choking, on account of the fact that she'd have become limp and unresponsive with her eyes closed - the "aim of the game" would clearly and obviously have been surpassed.

Someone whose sole intent was to assist in the heighened sexual arousal of his sex partner would have released his grip at that point (or at most, within several seconds thereafter), in order to allow his partner to regain consciousness. But what the man in this case did instead was to carry on choking the limp, lifeless body of Millane for many dozens of seconds further. There can (again IMO, and apparently in the opinion of the jury also) be no other explanation for this than that he must have intended to cause Millane serious injury or death. And that's murder.
Yes but the penultimate date expressed a somewhat perfect experience.
This is confounding evidence by any measure. Let us assume he was sober then but drunk with Ms Millane...
(since I kind of agree with your customary use of repeated ... to keep people reflecting, I am not being a plagiarist )
 
Senior lawyers and women’s organisations have condemned the increasing use of “rough sex gone wrong” as a courtroom defence to the murder of women and called for a change to the law in the UK.

In the wake of the conviction of British backpacker Grace Millane’s killer in New Zealand, researchers have revealed a tenfold rise over the past two decades in the number of times similar claims have been made in UK courts.

According to the campaign group We Can’t Consent to This, in the past decade 30 women and girls have been killed in what was claimed to have been consensual violent sexual activity in the UK.

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/nov/22/concern-over-use-rough-sex-gone-wrong-defence-uk-courts
This is a failure of the education methods in Western democracy, it should never take a decade to transform protocols that would surely avail young women of knowledge of this catastrophe in cultural risk taking.
Some serious work should be yesterday, today and tomorrow at the latest.
 
I expected today some news break from those experienced in 'choking for pleasure.' It hasn't happened. On the face of it the horse has fled the stable with much reporting around the 'time' needed to cause death. That overlooks other facts in this case.
I recall from swimming and free diving the longest time I was able to hold my breath appeared from memory far less than a minute. When that happens when you're underwater you immediately head to the surface. If you were being choked you would go for the hands or to the ligature.
So without any information on the topic of 'choking time' I searched under 'choking time' and other headings before recalling reading an unusual term on a NZ blog today - breath play.

Follow 3 links as to breath play:

The third seems to be evidenced based whilst other 2 appear more to be warnings. They warn in terms of seconds rather than minutes.

Adding to that is other information that in Britain a women is strangled to death every 2 weeks. And that the NZ law regarding murder was amended to expressly use the language around halting breath. Reportedly that amendment puts NZ law along with at least 2 other countries as advanced in recognizing the dangers of choking. Initially when reading it I thought it was amended to clarify cases of assisted euthanasia but now without reading the Parliamentary Bill I'm not sure.

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a29074659/breath-play-bdsm/

https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/dan-savage-love-breath-play-choking-kink/Content?oid=33151336

https://www.healthline.com/health/healthy-sex/erotic-asphyxiation#safety

It appears that the fixation with how long pressure needed to be applied overlooked what the minimum time could be before things possibly went wrong. The very key to this case.
 
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Someone suggested earlier in the thread that he had also been charged with a separate crime of rape against someone else and the name suppression was to prevent prejudice of that trial. If that's the case I suspect that's past praying for now. The rape trial is probably hopelessly compromised.

Probably not in NZ where in the Millane trial the prosecution were allowed to make the unproven claim about the timing of the photos.
 
Senior lawyers and women’s organisations have condemned the increasing use of “rough sex gone wrong” as a courtroom defence to the murder of women and called for a change to the law in the UK.

In the wake of the conviction of British backpacker Grace Millane’s killer in New Zealand, researchers have revealed a tenfold rise over the past two decades in the number of times similar claims have been made in UK courts.

According to the campaign group We Can’t Consent to This, in the past decade 30 women and girls have been killed in what was claimed to have been consensual violent sexual activity in the UK.

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/nov/22/concern-over-use-rough-sex-gone-wrong-defence-uk-courts

That's around thirty defences of what is calculated to be 250 cases of 'choking to death' in Britain over that period.
 
I fundamentally disagree with your analysis here.

It's effectively immaterial as to whether this man had the intent to seriously injure or kill Millane at the point when he began choking her. For the sake of argument, we can posit that he didn't have any such intent at that point.

But....

....the only important factor to consider is whether or not this man must have had intent to seriously injure or kill Millane at some point before he actually did cause her death.

And the striking evidence which convinces me (and, it would appear, the trial jury) that this man must indeed have had the intent to seriously injure or kill Millane at some point before he caused her death is - as I've argued so, so many times before - as follows: he must by definition have continued to apply a strong choke hold to Millane's neck for a very considerable period of time after she fell into unconsciousness.

Now, this action is (IMO, and apparently in the opinion of the jury also) wholly incompatible with that of a man whose sole innocent intent is to perform an erotic asphyxiation act upon a sexual partner, with the sole aim of heightening her sexual arousal. Once she'd been choked unconscious - a point which cannot fail to be noticed by the one doing the choking, on account of the fact that she'd have become limp and unresponsive with her eyes closed - the "aim of the game" would clearly and obviously have been surpassed.

Someone whose sole intent was to assist in the heighened sexual arousal of his sex partner would have released his grip at that point (or at most, within several seconds thereafter), in order to allow his partner to regain consciousness. But what the man in this case did instead was to carry on choking the limp, lifeless body of Millane for many dozens of seconds further. There can (again IMO, and apparently in the opinion of the jury also) be no other explanation for this than that he must have intended to cause Millane serious injury or death. And that's murder.

'And the striking evidence which convinces me (and, it would appear, the trial jury) that this man must indeed have had the intent to seriously injure or kill Millane at some point before he caused her death is - as I've argued so, so many times before - as follows: he must by definition have continued to apply a strong choke hold to Millane's neck for a very considerable period of time after she fell into unconsciousness.'


'as I've argued so, so many times before - as follows: he must by definition have continued to apply a strong choke hold to Millane's neck for a very considerable period of time after she fell into unconsciousness.'

Yes, 'so many times.' But don't let that stop you.
 
It appears that some here find this whole concept rather difficult to figure out and understand.

With the apparent result that they still believe it's entirely reasonable to suppose that the defendant convict in this case might simply have slightly innocently misjudged the whole sexual-choking thing, with the unintended consequence being the wholly-accidental death of Millane......... :rolleyes:

'It appears that some here find this whole concept rather difficult to figure out and understand.'

Remarkable insight you have there old chap.
 
Karen Ingala-Smith, the chief executive of the domestic violence charity Nia, said: “Women don’t die from rough sex. Women die because men are violent to them.”

Are you saying it was my fathers fault my mother died of cancer?
 
Firstly, it doesn't strike me as a mess at all. It's far from uncommon in high-profile cases for other alleged victims to come forward on account of the publicity related to the first trial (sometimes these latter accusations are untrue, sometimes they're true....), and for the person on trial subsequently to go on trial a second (and even third or fourth) time on charges arising from these later accusations.

In particular, we've seen lots of this around the whole "metoo" movement and around investigations/trials related to historic sex offence accusations. And very often, the defendants concerned are well-known public figures. While it's clearly not wholly desirable for, e.g., Rolf Harris to have gone on trial again on additional historic sex offence charges, at a point when I'd venture to say that every single adult in the UK knew very well that he'd been convicted on several similar charges in his first trial.... this is the point when the judge's instructions to the second (and third, etc) jury are absolutely critical: the judge must compel the jury, in the most severe terms, to assess the defendant's guilt or non-guilt purely upon evidence and argument put to them in this particular trial, and not to let their opinion be coloured by knowledge of the outcome of previous trials (although E&W law increasingly allows - under very strict circumstances - for "similar fact" evidence to be introduced to indicate a pattern of repeat offending).

So I don't see any particular issues around the man who's just been convicted of Millane's murder subsequently standing trial again on fresh criminal charges (provided, as I said, the trial judge directs the jury explicitly and firmly).


And also, I'm not sure what you mean by "The trial will be very important for his attempts later at parole". This man is 100% guaranteed to receive a life sentence for the Millane murder - the only issues to resolve are a) whether - and if so, by how much - any psychiatric reports or other issues contribute to an adjustment in the number of years he must spend in prison before even being considered for parole. But that number of years is effectively certain to be well in excess of 10.

So the issue of parole has zero short-term (or even medium-term) relevance here. The only issue in which his near-term release from prison would be relevant is around any appeal he lodges, and if he's subsequently granted leave to appeal. However, I'd say that even if this happens, there's also virtually no chance that the Court of Appeal would grant him parole pending his appeal being heard. Furthermore, I'd say that even if he's granted leave to appeal, and his appeal successfully quashes his conviction in favour of a retrial, there's still a very low chance that he'd be released on bail pending such a retrial.
Extended post that is worthy of attention, but I am mindful of the immediate reincarnation as villain of Amanda Knox, Mark Lundy et al.
This guy is a serial fabricator for a specific purpose, and I totally refute the notion it is to one day kill for thrill and get away with it.
He is now a described villain, yet game theory affords him leeway for any applied scientist.
 
Extended post that is worthy of attention, but I am mindful of the immediate reincarnation as villain of Amanda Knox, Mark Lundy et al.
This guy is a serial fabricator for a specific purpose, and I totally refute the notion it is to one day kill for thrill and get away with it.
He is now a described villain, yet game theory affords him leeway for any applied scientist.

Have no idea what game theory is, but common sense says he still has name suppression due to other charges and "purely rumour" says they might be rape, so she is a bit up in the air at the mo'
 
Have no idea what game theory is, but common sense says he still has name suppression due to other charges and "purely rumour" says they might be rape, so she is a bit up in the air at the mo'
Game theory is important. It requires rogue genes to ensure scepticism. Accused is non conformist and dangerous, yet we should accommodate his life in order to feel righteous about our lives.
 
Probably not in NZ where in the Millane trial the prosecution were allowed to make the unproven claim about the timing of the photos.



1) You do know, don't you, that the photos were, in fact timed?

2) You do also know, don't you, that the timing of the last few of the photos - which depicted Milane lying with her eyes closed - was shortly after the timing of his internet searches for the area in which he subsequently dumped her body?

Any observations about the above?
 
'And the striking evidence which convinces me (and, it would appear, the trial jury) that this man must indeed have had the intent to seriously injure or kill Millane at some point before he caused her death is - as I've argued so, so many times before - as follows: he must by definition have continued to apply a strong choke hold to Millane's neck for a very considerable period of time after she fell into unconsciousness.'


'as I've argued so, so many times before - as follows: he must by definition have continued to apply a strong choke hold to Millane's neck for a very considerable period of time after she fell into unconsciousness.'

Yes, 'so many times.' But don't let that stop you.



I only keep repeating it because certain posters within this thread keep seeming unable to recognise and understand it, and keep attempting arguments which are fundamentally at odds with it.......
 
'It appears that some here find this whole concept rather difficult to figure out and understand.'

Remarkable insight you have there old chap.



Not sure what you meant with the condescension..... maybe your efforts would be better served in figuring out the critical areas in this case properly.
 
Extended post that is worthy of attention, but I am mindful of the immediate reincarnation as villain of Amanda Knox, Mark Lundy et al.
This guy is a serial fabricator for a specific purpose, and I totally refute the notion it is to one day kill for thrill and get away with it.
He is now a described villain, yet game theory affords him leeway for any applied scientist.


I am having difficulty understanding what you mean here.

Quite apart from my difficulty in understanding, I'd make the general observation that people are convicted or acquitted in criminal trials based solely on the evidence introduced into those trials. If the evidence, taken in totality, is only compatible with guilt (which is effectively another way of saying that guilt has been proved BARD), then the person must be convicted. If the evidence, taken in totality, can reasonably be consistent with anything other than guilt, then the person must be acquitted. Simple as that.

And in the case which is the subject of this thread, I argue that the totality of the evidence is solely compatible with a scenario in which the man must have had the intent to do, at the very least, serious injury to Millane; and he caused her death. This therefore passes the test for murder, and he should have been found guilty of murder. And he was. I don't think a miscarriage of justice took place here.
 
Someone suggested earlier in the thread that he had also been charged with a separate crime of rape against someone else and the name suppression was to prevent prejudice of that trial. If that's the case I suspect that's past praying for now. The rape trial is probably hopelessly compromised.
Ah, thank you; I must have missed or misunderstood that earlier.

I'm surprised the rape case, if that's what it is, wasn't dealt with first in that case. Even if it meant halting the murder trial.
 
I really don't know if that's the case, or if it's been confirmed. It may just be speculation. But it's a speculative possibility that makes sense of the name suppression, when nothing else does. There may be logistical reasons why a separate offence couldn't be tried first.
 

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