The Final Nail In The Coffin Of British Justice..?

Though by now, I wouldn't have thought there was room to drive another in...

Sally Challen, 66, was jailed for life in 2011 for the murder of her husband Richard, 61, the previous year.

She was freed last year after the Court of Appeal quashed her conviction in light of new evidence that she was suffering a psychiatric illness at the time of the killing.

A travesty of justice, I said at the time. Because she didn't fight back while he was attacking her, she hammered him to death while he sat unsuspecting at the table eating the meal she'd cooked him.

But I didn't expect this.

She had been stripped of her right to inherit the family estate under rules that prevent offenders from benefiting from their crimes.

However, a High Court judge decided yesterday the rules should be waived in Mrs Challen’s case.

Beyond belief! And despite the judge attempting to infer that this one verdict doesn't set a precedent, of course it does.

Judge Paul Matthews, who analysed arguments about the inheritance claim at a hearing in Bristol, said her late husband’s behaviour ‘was by turns contemptuous, belittling, aggressive or violent’.

He added that Mr Challen’s behaviour over 40 years had contributed to his own death because, without it, ‘the claimant would not have killed him’.

It's like divorce courts don't exist, isn't it? Like Mike at 'Orphans', I believe the jury got it right the first time. This was no spur of the moment killing, this was a planned execution.

And to blame the victim for it is, well...

The High Court heard that, although the inheritance ruling means the estate – estimated at £1million – now goes to her instead of her sons, she does not intend to reclaim it, having brought the case to claim back a large sum of inheritance tax.

So not only is she cheating justice, she's cheating you and me, the British taxpayer, into the bargain...