| Film Details | 06 - The Battered Woman - 14m 41s |
|---|---|
| Notes | |
| Age Rating | 15 (strong footage/language, possibly including violence and sexual imagery) |
| Synopsis | Covers the invention of Battered Woman Syndrome by Lenore Walker and its misuse as a legal defence when women murder their husbands. Includes the Deepak Ahluwalia story, a man killed while he slept by his wife Kiranjit Ahluwalia using a substance similar to Napalm. • What exactly is a “battering”? • Attempts to change UK law to allow pre-meditated murder by women • The "cycle of abuse" • Media coverage of DV |
| Interviewees | Stephen Fitzgerald, National Organiser of the Mankind Initiative Men’s Charity. Angry Harry, Psychologist and Men’s Rights activist, angryharry.com. Simon, Psychologist and Writer. [identity protected] Fireman, London Fire Brigade. This man's identity has been disguised in order to protect him from sanction by his employer for speaking the truth about Fire Brigade policy with respect to equal opportunities. All interviews recorded in 2004 |
In the event of any issue with playback, this film can also be found here.
An English accent really does make people sound smarter! Hats off to the makers of this film. I don’t need to get a doctorate…I just need to move to London.
that’s great.
Do you really think the accent helps? I don’t.
Hi
I have been recently “Convicted” of Assault, but it amazes me that I was the one being abused by my ex-wife who had drink, drugs & other psychological issues I get convicted because she told the Police first & she is a woman.
I am please that this web site exists & although I do believe it is a losing battle it is worth the shot you are taking as not enough is being done to help, protect man. (I do appreciate that women are abused but men are too)
A very enlightening website & all my family & what is left of my friends will also find this site interesting.
Thanks
Napalm is the name for a number of flammable liquids that have been used in warfare. Often it is jellied gasoline. Napalm is actually the thickener in such liquids. When it is mixed with gasoline, the thickener makes a sticky incendiary gel. It was developed by the U.S. in World War II by a team of Harvard chemists. The team leader was Louis Fieser. The name Napalm has comes from the ingredients that were first used to make it. Coprecipitated aluminum salts of naphthenic and palmitic acids. These were added to the flammable substance to cause it to gel.[1] http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm
In fact, this vile female killer used caustic soda and petrol to kill her husband.
As you may recall from the first article in this series, Mrs Ahluwalia suffered domestic violence at the hands of her husband during the 1980s. She received various injuries over the years and could provide a wealth of evidence to support her claims of domestic violence. In March 1989, her husband was having an affair with a female work colleague and he taunted Ahluwalia about the relationship. In May 1989, Ahluwalia’s husband informed her that the marriage was over and he was leaving her. He also demanded £200 in order to pay a telephone bill and threatened to beat her in the morning if she could not provide the money by then. A few days before this, Ahluwalia had bought some caustic soda with a view to using it upon her husband. She also brought a can of petrol. During the night, Ahluwalia poured about 2 pints of the petrol into a bucket, lit a candle on the gas cooker and carried these things to the bedroom where her husband was sleeping. She was wearing an oven glove for protection and carrying a stick. She threw the petrol into the bedroom, lit the stick from the candle and threw it into the room. Her husband suffered significant burns and died several days later. At her trial for murder, she claimed the defence of provocation but was unsuccessful because her loss of self control was not sudden. She therefore received a mandatory life sentence. On appeal to the Court of Appeal, the conviction for murder was quashed and a re-trial ordered. This was because the appeal judges decided that Ahluwalia might be able to claim diminished responsibility on the basis that she was suffering from battered wife syndrome. When the matter returned to the Crown Court for trial, the prosecution accepted a guilty plea to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Ahluwalia was sentenced to a period of imprisonment but released immediately due to time she had served since her first trial.
Diminished responsibility became a defence to murder in 1957 and still stands as the law on this area. However, the Coroners and Justice Bill includes proposals to amend the defence of diminished responsibility.
The current law states that a person who kills another person when suffering from an abnormality of their mind which causes them to suffer from substantially impaired mental responsibility for their acts or omissions should be convicted of manslaughter rather than murder.
“In the case of Ahluwalia, it was accepted that battered wife syndrome, which is now a recognised mental condition of learnt helplessness where somebody suffers domestic violence over a period of time, was an abnormality of mind. It was accepted by the prosecution that the fact that Ahluwalia was suffering from battered wife syndrome substantially impaired her mental responsibility for the killing of her husband.”
http://www.langleys.com/Services/Commercial/News-and-Views/How-the-Law-Changes—Part-2.aspx