Murder or manslaughter

I found it hard to engage with either of them. Sally Challoner did not inspire any sympathy for some reason. I understand how her husband's behaviour impacted on her over many years. I think manslaughter was probably the right verdict.

He treated her like dirt. She put up with it because she had no self worth. She clung to him even though he was having affairs which she knew about. Then she snapped.

How to judge? Murder, probably.

I don’t know the case, but sounds like it was premeditated if she went back after a year with a hammer. Makes it murder, completely understandable, but murder nonetheless.

They had been seperate for a year, she went to his home to discuss a reconciliation and took a hammer with her .

I disagree with it, personally.

In my view, it was a premeditated act; she went equipped to kill and bludgeoned her victim in a gratuitously violent way.

As far as I understand it, the grounds for reducing her sentence to manslaughter was based on the notion that she was suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness at the time of the attack which gave her the diminished responsibility.

A change in the law meant that she could use this as new evidence.

She asked for a retrial, which was granted, but the CPS decided that the murder conviction should be dropped to manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility without her having to be retried. Not sure why the retrial was dropped (unless the CPS feared she'd be found guilty of murder again perhaps? )

I believe it was the right decision in this case. She'd suffered years of abuse at the hands of her husband and was living in fear of what might happen in the future.

Kill or be killed perhaps.