Guilty or Ill

If she were my daughter Annie I would have picked up on her "issues" long before she reached this stage. I would know her very well and would have been able to work out that the accusations were false. I would have told her to get a life and hopefully to lose weight too.

Gilly, if one has a daughter with a mental disorder sadly it is not as easy to halt their behaviour by saying get a life .

I agree the men and their families suffered but if this woman has family who care for her they too will have suffered

Whether she is ill makes no difference to the fact that she is guilty, and can't be allowed free to do this to other innocent parties.
Hopefully she will get any help she needs, as I would say that nobody in their right mind would enjoy this kind of attention.

Yes I know that Annie I don't know why I added that comment, just feel angry to be honest.

I suppose its something to take into account before committing a crime: your own family will suffer.

I don't think it's fair to compare the suffering of her family caused by her actions. False accusations that she chose to make, with the suffering of those poor men and their families who were victims of her evil lies.

If it were my own daughter, I would expect her to be held to account for her actions. She was as a child, and that will always be the case. Its how decent people are.

Problem is Missadventure if she has a personality disorder she won't have the ability to think ahead and think of consequences

Whilst I can understand people's anger it is not ALWAYS parents fault, yes some kids can be very let down by family but I have known very caring and extremely well adjusted parents have a child that 'goes wrong' and it is very easy to say I wouldn't have had that when you don't know what you would have done in the situation we all think we know we would have acted this way or that but when in the middle we don't know at all. Things are never as black and white as we would like or expect them to be
Gillybob you are still seeing it though a well adjusted persons eyes and how you would behave and how you would expect your kids to behave but obviously this young lady was not well adjusted and as Anniebach originally said must have if not a mental health problem certainly a brain that functions differently to normal and some disorder as it s not rational behaviour

Maybe she has what would be diagnosed as a 'personality disorder', in which case, according to NHS Choices,

"Treatment for most personality disorders usually involves a course of psychological therapy. This normally lasts at least six months, often longer, depending on the severity of the condition and other co-existing problems."

I feel it's unlikely that she will get a long course of treatment like this in prison, I believe it is often not successful anyway...

Yes, I know what you're saying bluebelle: my own daughter has had her share of problems and done things that have been very far removed from my own values, and those I tried to instil. Not my doing, and certainly nothing that I would make light of, or take responsibility for as her parent. But everyone has to face the consequences of their own actions, as this girl must, whether she is a repugnant liar, or someone who needs help. It seems that somehow her being ill mentally should let her off the hook, when I don't agree it should.

No one is saying I think that she should be let off the hook at all but trying to understand what is frankly extraordinary behaviour - as I said earlier, trying to understand is not condoning or excusing

Fair point, Maryeliza.
I would assume the girl has some issue with needing attention - a bit like munchausans, or something?

I feel sure that she will have undergone exhaustive tests prior to sentencing to ascertain whether she was ill or not. From what we are told it is clear that she isn't mentally ill.

I don't agree it's clear 'Oriel' at all. As someone said upthread, many many prisoners have a range of mental health problems. Assessment beforehand would be about capacity and competence to be tried not the wider issues of mental health unless she was of course obviously bipolar or schizophrenic and noone's suggested that. We simply haven't got the range of mental health provision that is needed to cope with the range of mental health needs in the general population, let alone prisoners.

I suspect BlueBelle is correct in suggesting this young woman has a personality disorder of some type. As a younger woman I'd feel it was unfair when psychiatrists diagnosed someone with a PD and said they didn't have a treatable m.h. condition. Life and professional experience led me to a position where I now accept that diagnosis. It's also true that whilst adverse experiences in childhood won't help a vulnerable personality, some people develop a PD despite having been loved and cared for in childhood.
Psychological treatments are available but there is no guarantee of success, they're expensive and take a good period of time. The patient needs to recognise they have a problem and be motivated to cooperate with treatments.

I can't recall the figures but a large number of prisoners, particularly female prisoners, have mental health problems.

Yes, many prisoners do have mental health problems but those problems might not have caused them to commit the crime which led to their imprisonment.

I would have thought that if this woman suffered from a personality disorder or other form of mental illness her defence lawyers would have argued this case very forcefully. It appears they did not.

Well we have no way of knowing really do we? All I can say is that I still think her behaviour demonstrates that she is not mentally healthy and there will probably be no resolution to her problems in prison.

I think the same maryeliza

Going to prison is a punishment. One which she richly deserves.
I don't think time or money should be wasted in her dealing with her mental health problems. Also being mentally Ill, does not make you a liar like she is.

Do you really mean prisoners shouldn't have their health care needs met? That if they are suicidal we should let them kill themselves? That if they have appendicitis we should let them die in agony? That would make us collectively as a state worse than the prisoners themselves. And excessive and wanton lying can be ( not saying it always us) but can be a form of mental illness. And yes prison is a punishment, refusing to meet prisoners' health needs is definitely not part of the punishment.

I am not saying that prisoners should not be treated, If you read my thread properly you would see I was talking in the singular, meaning her.
What she did was vindictive. I have not the slightest interest in finding excuses for her.

There are far worse prisoners than her but that's actually irrelevant I feel. Once someone is in prison, whatever they've done, then they should have access to healthcare (both physical and mental). In fact the evidence of the state of prison healthcare is that it is not overall adequate. And again I would say, there is a difference between trying to understand why someone behaved as they did and making excuses for them.

From what has been reported it seems clear what her motives were - the judge was very clear that she was a serial liar and enjoyed playing the victim. As well as costing hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal and policing fees, she herself was also paid £11,000 by the criminal injuries board for the 'trauma' she suffered.

I don't think she deserves any sympathy. My sympathy lies with those who have had their lives wrecked by her wickedness.

Who is giving her sympathy?

I think there's a lot more to this case than we're told. So the case against the man who has served 2 years in jail, was heard in court, where there would be medical reports and a lawyer presumably to represent her, and they jointly managed to convince the judge and jury that this particular man had raped her. That takes some doing. There would have been interview after interview and medical examinations. Then there were the police officers and detectives, all fooled by this one woman? I find that very hard to believe. So many others have been duped in the procedings against this one man alone.

She clearly has a lot of issues, but it seems to me she was allowed to perpetrate the lies through the incompetence of others. There must have been someone who noticed the pattern of accusations. Her actions will make it very difficult for real victims of such crimes to be believed.