Mr Sharratt said McKoy is committed to his family and had been a carer for his mother and grandfather while growing up. His partner gave birth to their son four days after the attack.
"He knows he is going to miss out on the formative years of his son's young life, " said Mr Sharratt, "but is it possible that he could have a sentence that allows him to play a part in his upbringing but that reflects the seriousness of this offence?"Oh, yes. The usual excuses. Well, maybe he has done wrong, but who’s to say that he can’t be a good influence on his chi…
Oh.
Sentencing him at Croydon Crown Court today, Judge Warwick McKinnon said he had "no alternative" but life imprisonment. The decision sparked ugly scenes as Zarak's furious father Cavell McKoy confronted the judge, shouting that the outcome had been "set from the beginning" as security staff dragged him from the room.
His son then stood up in the dock and shouted toward the judge "suck your mum, rudeboy" before leaving the court.Well. So much for that.
This is another example of something I can't understand.
ReplyDeleteHow can you shoot someone 14 times and be cleared of attempted murder, as he was sentenced for wounding they accept he did it.
Hope rude boy went down for 20 before parole.
ReplyDeleteWaste of skin that will forever be a burden on the taxpayer ! Let's hope he upsets someone inside big time.
ReplyDeleteI'm puzzled by Channel, do you think she was meant to be Chanel or Channelle, or was she concieved on a booze and baccy cruise to Calais.
ReplyDeleteHope he bumps into a real-life Theodore Bagwell.
ReplyDeleteHow can you shoot someone 14 times and be cleared of attempted murder, as he was sentenced for wounding they accept he did it.
ReplyDeleteBecause while the mens rea for murder is intent to kill or cause GBH (and firing a gun at someone definitely qualifies as the latter), the mens rea for attempted murder requires intent to kill, which is notoriously difficult to prove (the defence can argue that the criminal intended only to grievously wound the victim, not actually to kill them, and short of a witness to testify that they were yelling 'I'm going to kill you you bastard!' (or, more prosaically, that they had expressed their intent to kill beforehand, or that they had been going around afterwards saying how glad they were they had done it) its almost impossible to prove that to the standards of criminal conviction.
In this case as he was sent down for life anyway there likely would have been no difference in sentence had he been charged with attempted murder, so the CPS was right to go for the charge that it could prove more easily.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the detailed explanation, but the link to the story said that he was 'cleared' and therefore I presume he was actually charged with it.
I suppose if he fired one shot you could argue that it was an attempt to wound (not that I would accept that) but 14 times could not be argued that way surely.
Thanks for the detailed explanation, but the link to the story said that he was 'cleared' and therefore I presume he was actually charged with it.
ReplyDeleteAh, possibly they went with both charges then just in case they could get a jury to convict on attempted murder, but with the wounding charge as a backup.
I suppose if he fired one shot you could argue that it was an attempt to wound (not that I would accept that) but 14 times could not be argued that way surely.
'My client was in the grip of rage, and he wanted to hurt the victim, yes, but kill? No. Did he act recklessly? Yes. Did he act in such a way that, if he had been thinking clearly, he would have realised could well have led to the victim's death? Yes, he did, and he regrets it very much. But did he, either in that moment, before, or after, actually want the victim to die? No, he did not. In his anger he wanted to lash out and harm, but not, never, to actually kill.'
And then the burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove that that is wrong, and, as above, it's very difficult to prove mental states beyond reasonable doubt unless you have a witness (or a recording, or something) of the person actually confessing to what their mental state was.
The defence just has to provide a plausible — not probable, not even especially plausible, just something not completely ridiculous — explanation for the defendant's actions which doesn't involve the intention to kill, and then it's up to the prosecution to prove otherwise.
It may seem odd, but it's the logical result of the burden of proof in criminal cases being on the prosecution, and the standard of proof required being so that the jury is sure ('beyond reasonable doubt' in the old phrase). The defence doesn't have to prove he didn't want to kill, it only has to sow the seed of that reasonable doubt.
And when it comes to mental states, which can't be directly observed and don't leave physical evidence, that doubt is easy to sow.
You don't want to change it because we think it's quite good that the British legal system works this way, where an adversarial lawyer forces the state to prove its case in front of an impartial judge and jury — better, anyway, than, for example, the French system were the prosecution and the magistrate work hand-in-hand.
And in practice, as cases like this show, it hardly ever actually leads to a miscarriage of justice, because in cases when it matters there are usually other charges that can be brought of equal seriousness so the criminals do get properly punished and justice is done.
(Though occasionally you do get something totally bizarre like the Pistorious verdict (obviously not UK law, but the system is similar-ish, I think) — how is firing four shots through a locked door not at the very least an attempt to cause GBH? — but I have already typed enough).
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThanks again for the great response.
It's a little clearer and as you say it's not like he got off with it completely.
"How can you shoot someone 14 times and be cleared of attempted murder..."
ReplyDeleteI know..!
"Hope rude boy went down for 20 before parole."
And then deportation.