Anna Marshall On March 6, 2015 another woman using the “battered woman” defence walked free from an Australian court after being found guilty of the manslaughter of her former de-facto husband and father of her child. Although the jury found Jessica Silva guilty of the manslaughter of James Polkinghorne, the kindly Jessica Silva walks free from court James Polkinghorne – stabbed to death by Jessica Silva judge, NSW Supreme Court Justice Clifton Hoeben found that although she did not intend to kill Mr Polkinghorne, she did indeed intend to “cause him grievous bodily harm “, but nevertheless allowed her to walk from the court with just a good behaviour bond. Evidence was given that Polkinghorne was high on “ice” and making threats to Silva and was involved in an altercation with her father and brother on the street in front of her parent’s house when Silva went inside, grabbed a…
murder
Anna Marshall It was an offer he couldn’t refuse. Paul Snabel had been partying all night. In the early hours of the morning of November 11, 1989 his girlfriend Karen Randall phoned and said, meet me for sex. The sun was rising as Karen’s sister Donna picked up Paul Snable and drove him to a remote property in rural Victoria. He had no inkling that this was to be his last day on earth. For Paul Snabel was heading into a trap set by four murderous women. Irene Maslin Karen Randell Donna Randell Rhona Heaney Randall had wanted to permanently end the on-again off-again relationship with Paul Snabel but he was infatuated with her and kept phoning her and calling around. By October 1989, Randall didn’t want anything to do with her former lover. But he persisted and continued to phone her. It was a fatal mistake. Randall called a…
For years, police and authorities turned a blind eye for for of being branded racist
A story of rampant child abuse—ignored and abetted by the police—emerged out of the British town of Rotherham in Yorkshire in August 2014. Until then, its scale and scope would have been inconceivable in a civilized country.
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Rotherham teenage mother Laura Wilson, was brutally murdered by her Muslim lover, Ashtiaq Ashgar, for exposing their secret relationship to his family and bringing shame on the traditional Pakistani Muslim family. Ashgar had sworn Laura to secrecy because he was just using her for sex while his family were planning an arranged marriage for their son with a girl from Pakistan |
Its origins, however, lie in two related factors, firstly what one Labour MP called “not wanting to rock the multicultural boat” and secondly, the fear by police, council authorities and social workers of being branded as racist.
The Labour council of Rotherham stands accused of ignoring child sex abuse on an unimaginable scale for 16 years.
Children (almost entirely white British girls) as young as 11 were trafficked, beaten, and raped by large numbers of Pakistani Muslim men in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, the council commissioned review into child protection revealed.
At least 1,400 children were subjected to appalling sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, the report found.
Children as young as 11 were raped by multiple perpetrators, abducted, trafficked to other cities in England, beaten and intimidated, it said.
And shockingly, more than a third of the cases were already known to agencies.
But according to the report’s author: ‘several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist’.
The landmark report exposed widespread failures of the council, police and social services.
By Anna Marshall On 4th March 2006, Claire Margaret McDonald gasped and burst into tears as a Victorian Supreme Court jury found her not guilty of the execution style murder of her husband, Warren John McDonald. The court was told that McDonald had donned camouflage gear and lay in wait with a high-powered rifle for her husband to approach. She fired six shots, mortally wounding her husband. McDonald successfully used the “battered woman syndrome” defence, claiming she had suffered years of abuse at the hands of her husband. Within days, Queensland woman, Susan Falls, having probably read the media reports of Heather McDonald’s stunning acquittal, decided to execute her allegedly abusive husband in the same fashion, in what prosecutors would describe as a cunning, calculated murder. Falls paid a friend, Anthony Cummings-Creed $5,000 to buy a 22.calibre pistol with silencer on the black market. Rodney and Susan Falls Christopher Cummins-Creed supplied…