18.05.1995

Thornton referred to Appeal

SARA THORNTON, who was given a mandatory life sentence five years ago for the murder of her violent and alcoholic husband, was told  two weeks ago by Michael Howard that her case is to be referred back to the Court of Appeal. This will be a major victory for Thornton, who is seeking to have the charge reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of provocation.

The case highlights the way women are treated by the legal system; in particular, it exposes the discrepancies between the treatment of male and female domestic killers and over the legal definition of provocation, which appears to ‘favour’ men.

Malcolm Thornton, a former police officer, had a consistent history of violent and abusive behaviour towards Sara and her daughter, Louise, which was aggravated by his chronic alcoholism. He was due to appear in court for attacking her when she stabbed him in the stomach with a kitchen knife, as he lay in a drunken stupor.

At her trial Sara’s lawyers did not put forward a defence of provocation - even though the evidence for it was a mile high - because of the ‘time lapse’ between the provocation and the killing. Instead, they relied upon the defence of ‘diminished responsibility’ - ie, pretend you are mad. Sara was not permitted a real defence.

The injustice was cruelly compounded when Sara discovered that a man, at the same court, had been given a two-year suspended sentence after killing his “nagging” (as the Judge put it), alcoholic common-law wife.

As the Sara Thornton case and others since demonstrate, the legal and judicial system contains many elements of sexism. This is hardly surprising, when you consider that judges are recruited almost solely from the public school, ‘old boy’ network, which is infamous for its bigotry and intolerance. This will continue as long as capitalism uses women as a reserve army of cheap labour - consigning them to home, family and the institution of bourgeois marriage (up until recently, rape within marriage was legally ‘impossible’).

Communists will never miss an opportunity to expose the rotten, corrupt, sexist, anti-working class nature of ‘our’ legal system and look forward to the day when it is abolished by revolutionary decree.

Frank Vincent