No logic in Privy Council manslaughter decision

THE EDITOR: Are the Law Lords screwball thinkers or what? A man beats three women to death, is convicted, sentenced to death appeals to the Privy Council which substitutes his murder conviction and subsequent death sentence to a finding of guilty of manslaughter!

Why? Because he had previous “good character”? So, if the man had a string of convictions for petty offences it would be quite in order to hang him? What logic is this? He beat three women to death! How does “manslaughter” come into it? To beat a person to death requires a sustained, determined, violent attack. Even the first murder could, by no stretch of the imagination, be deemed spontaneous, after which the murderer says ‘Oops, sorry, I didn’t intend that’. The man attacked and continued the attack until his victim was helpless. He then repeated his actions twice, on two other defenceless women, and the Law Lords deem this ‘manslaughter’? ie a careless and accidental loss of life. I repeat: What kind of thinking is this? Where does it leave crime suppression in this country? Where does it leave the defence of women? Where does it leave the families of the victims?

On another matter. The intimidation or even terrorising of retail staff in a small store on Charlotte Street and the beating up of the security guard by three shoplifters, where the police turned up only 45 minutes later begs the question once again as to why a uniformed police presence is not deemed essential on each and every business day on this busy (and lawless) street. One would think that the cutlass murder of a shop assistant over the matter of a $1 ball point pen would have convinced authorities that this was obviously necessary. Not so?

GEOFF HUDSON
Port-of-Spain