Lawyers for a woman sentenced to 10 years in prison for manslaughter have said they are “appalled and gobsmacked” that she will remain in prison six months after her murder conviction was quashed.
And after all, it's not as if she's innocent, is it?
Farieissia Martin was convicted of murder after stabbing Kyle Farrell, 21, in November 2014. She was jailed for life with a minimum term of 13 years, but the ruling was quashed last year after judges ruled that new evidence had emerged that was not heard in the first trial and a retrial was ordered.
The Crown accepted Martin’s subsequent guilty plea to manslaughter and on Friday the same judge sentenced the 28-year-old, who has already served six and a half years, to 10 years for manslaughter.
He passed a further sentence of nine months for possessing a mobile phone and a razor blade while in prison.
Sounds like prison is absolutely the right place for her.
Lawyers for Martin said she was a victim of domestic abuse.Then she should have left him, and not stabbed him in the chest during an argument.
Harriet Wistrich, Martin’s appeal solicitor for Birnberg Peirce and director of the Centre for Women’s Justice (Ed:Aha! An activist in silk...), said she was “appalled and gobsmacked” at the sentence, comparing the length of the sentence with that of Anthony Williams, who received a five-year sentence for manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility after strangling his wife.
She said Martin’s two children, who were aged one and two at the time of the killing, had been sentenced along with their mother.
Sounds a lot more like the justice system has protected them, doesn't it?
She got the retrial after doing six and a half years of a thirteen year stretch? Surely she would have been released by a parole board in a couple of months anyway?
ReplyDelete"Then she should have left him, and not stabbed him in the chest during an argument."
I wonder. Had he survived, would she have done her time and them immediately got back together with him?
Whilst I accept that there are some for whom this is unfortunately true, "victim of domestic abuse" does seem to be a get-out-of-jail-free card for an increasing number of homicidal wives.
ReplyDeleteFew homicidal husbands seem to benefit from - or even make - this claim.
"Had he survived, would she have done her time and them immediately got back together with him?"
ReplyDeleteThey do seem to have some sort of death wish, don't they?
"Few homicidal husbands seem to benefit from - or even make - this claim."
Yes, it's curious - if it doesn't occur to them, surely it does to their defence brief?