Sara Sharif murder: ‘sadist’ father and stepmother jailed for life

[Jeff Robinson]

It’s cases like this that make me understand why people want the death penalty. The perps richly deserve to die for their heinous acts and keeping them alive serves no useful social function - either for society or them. They will never, and probably never could, be reformed. And nothing they could ever do could make up for the evil they’ve done.

Ultimately I am against the death penalty for a whole host of institutional reasons, but it’s got nothing to do with thinking depraved monsters like this have a right to life, they forfeited that right through their heinous acts.

 

[tim]

It wasn't you I meant, it was Spymaster. Anyway, I'm sure they'll get beaten up in prison, people will know who they are and what they did.

It is not acceptable for anyone to be beaten, tortured, or murdered, including those who have beaten, tortured or murdered themselves.

Prisons should be safe places for all those incarcerated. It is not the role of others incarcerated to violently punishment other prisoners as some posters here seem to expect and hope. The latter need rehabilitation and an opportunity to start a new life upon release and not be put in the role of avengers on behalf of broader society.

 

[Spymaster]

The latter need rehabilitation and an opportunity to start a new life upon release and not be put in the role of avengers on behalf of broader society.

Rehabilitation and a new life upon release for people who've done what this pair have done?

Fuck that.

 

[Lotte]

I don't know how you can rehabilitate people who murdered and tortured a little girl to death. We're not talking drugs or petty crime, this was ongoing and calculated.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

That's like saying there's no way you can guarantee you can stop eating sandwiches.

Of course you can.

Yes. The ‘they’ll want the death penalty for shoplifting next’ argument isn’t a convincing one.

Personally I’d have absolutely no qualms with these two bastards being offed. Or anyone guilty of similar crimes against little kids for that matter.

 

[tim]

Rehabilitation and a new life upon release for people who've done what this pair have done?

Fuck that.

I was specifically refering to those prisoners who some think should be acting as latter day Kapos, punishing those seem as more heniously criminal than themselves on behalf of society at large.

 

[tim]

I don't know how you can rehabilitate people who murdered and tortured a little girl to death. We're not talking drugs or petty crime, this was ongoing and calculated.

Maybe you should reread my post

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It is not acceptable for anyone to be beaten, tortured, or murdered, including those who have beaten, tortured or murdered themselves.

Yep this. It's quite simple really. It's not about who or what they are. It is about who and what we are.

Plus I don't want a state granted the power to kill people. Full stop.

So there it is, we're stuck with having to incarcerate some really appalling people. And it should be done the best way it can be done. None of these thoughts of revenge help the victims of such awful acts, past or future.

 

[Petcha]

On the home schooling issue. Which the judge raised at the end of his comments. He wasn't saying he opposed it. Just that it's completely unregulated. Something I didn't know anyway. You can just pull your kid out of school apparently with no evidence of any ability to actually school them. I gather there's some legislation going through at the moment to correct that.

One of my friends homeschools his two boys with his partner. I was over at their place recently, and they're lovely little lads... but so so different to kids of their ages that I know. Even their language is quite different, they seem to have their own, their English isn't great tbh. But they were happy and I refuse to judge. They preferred playing cards to playing playstation. I liked that. And were all over their dad.

But it should totally be monitored, although I get that the reason some people (like my friend) home school is because they don't trust the system, so it's tricky.

 

[Spymaster]

None of these thoughts of revenge help the victims of such awful acts, past or future.

If helping the victims of such awful acts is your metric, then there's no point in even imprisoning the perpetrators. That doesn't help the victims either.

 

[Thora]

I highly doubt there's going to be much of anything put in place to monitor or regulate home education. There's no money for social workers, I can't see there suddenly being money to put in a whole system for monitoring home education.

 

[tim]

I highly doubt there's going to be much of anything put in place to monitor or regulate home education. There's no money for social workers, I can't see there suddenly being money to put in a whole system for monitoring home education.

Yes we can afford to spend billions on the army, navy and airforce and upon renewing our nuclear bombs, but we can't afford basic protection of vulnerable children and adults, even, as in this case, one if the richest counties in the country.

 

[petee]

i have no more sympathy than anyone else does for the perps here, but

They will never, and probably never could, be reformed.

is a thing one can't know, and that forms the basis of lots of opposition to the death penalty.

 

[Spymaster]

i have no more sympathy than anyone else does for the perps here, but



is a thing one can't know, and that forms the basis of lots of opposition to the death penalty.

"Reformed" doesn't come into it. These two tortured a little girl to death.

If it could be guaranteed that they'd spend the rest of their lives ending wars and curing cancer, they should still be executed.

 

[Lotte]

I get why some people homeschool - there are kids who absolutely cannot cope with mainstream education, or are hardcore school refusers, for instance. But taking your kids out of school and homeschooling them because you don't want them to mix with non-white or non-Christian kids, there's a trans teacher at the school and you don't want your kids being 'indoctrinated' (and yes, this has happened), or because you worry teachers will find out you've been abusing them, is a whole nother ballgame.

 

[Thora]

I get why some people homeschool - there are kids who absolutely cannot cope with mainstream education, or are hardcore school refusers, for instance. But taking your kids out of school and homeschooling them because you don't want them to mix with non-white or non-Christian kids, there's a trans teacher at the school and you don't want your kids being 'indoctrinated' (and yes, this has happened), or because you worry teachers will find out you've been abusing them, is a whole nother ballgame.

So what do you do - interview parents first and check that they have the right views?

 

[two sheds]

i have no more sympathy than anyone else does for the perps here, but



is a thing one can't know, and that forms the basis of lots of opposition to the death penalty.

no we can't know that, but I don't think we can take the risk that they fool any parole board to get out and do similar again.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I highly doubt there's going to be much of anything put in place to monitor or regulate home education. There's no money for social workers, I can't see there suddenly being money to put in a whole system for monitoring home education.

And doing so as a knee-jerk response to one appalling case, which might have happened anyway and probably should have been prevented anyway within the existing system, is pretty much bound to make for a disproportionate response.

They could just ban home-schooling. It's banned in Germany. Can't see that happening either, though.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

no we can't know that, but I don't think we can take the risk that they fool any parole board to get out and do similar again.

Why not?

Spymaster might be surprised to hear that I partially agree with him on this point - I think some people are likely beyond rehabilitation and need to be kept apart from the rest of us for good. But why can't we trust a system to monitor and decide on an ongoing basis as they do, for example, in Norway?

 

[Petcha]

So what do you do - interview parents first and check that they have the right views?

This is the bill going through at the moment..

Parents of most vulnerable children to lose automatic right to home education

A new bill in parliament will give local councils the power to intervene and demand school attendance if a child's home environment is found to be unsafe.

news.sky.com

 

[two sheds]

In this case I think the risk is just too great - if they were freed and went on to do something similar.

 

[two sheds]

Why not?

Spymaster might be surprised to hear that I partially agree with him on this point - I think some people are likely beyond rehabilitation and need to be kept apart from the rest of us for good. But why can't we trust a system to monitor and decide on an ongoing basis as they do, for example, in Norway?

In this case I think the risk is just too great - if they were freed and went on to do something similar it would be grotesque.

 

[ouirdeaux]

They could just ban home-schooling. It's banned in Germany. Can't see that happening either, though.

They could certainly make it tougher. The onus would be on the family to show why it's necessary. If the child has genuine problems with attending school, this would be documented. If there aren't actual reasons, it wouldn't be allowed.

I'm sure some families would be able to educate their children better than the local school could do it. But there would be many who couldn't, even leaving the obvious nutcases who think the schools are a ticket to hell out of it. Compulsory schooling exists for a reason, and shouldn't be a lottery.

(Yes, I know it can be a lottery the way things are, but that's not a reason to increase the odds against children.)

 

[Lotte]

So what do you do - interview parents first and check that they have the right views?

Other than banning homeschooling completely, which won't happen, I have no idea.

 

[Thora]

This is the bill going through at the moment..

Parents of most vulnerable children to lose automatic right to home education

A new bill in parliament will give local councils the power to intervene and demand school attendance if a child's home environment is found to be unsafe.

news.sky.com

That doesn't mention anything about parents' views?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

They could certainly make it tougher. The onus would be on the family to show why it's necessary. If the child has genuine problems with attending school, this would be documented. If there aren't actual reasons, it wouldn't be allowed.

For many home-schoolers, it's more about the parents objecting to the way schools operate and not wanting that for their children. So that would be quite a shift from the current position of toleration to one that demands justification.

 

[ouirdeaux]

You'd have thought that even without this sort of law, withdrawing a pupil who was known to be at risk at home would rings all sorts of bells.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You'd have thought that even without this sort of law, withdrawing a pupil who was known to be at risk at home would rings all sorts of bells.

Yes, that's my feeling about this. Sara was let down by the current system because it didn't work properly. That's what needs fixing.

 

[Spymaster]

Why not?

Spymaster might be surprised to hear that I partially agree with him on this point - I think some people are likely beyond rehabilitation and need to be kept apart from the rest of us for good. But why can't we trust a system to monitor and decide on an ongoing basis as they do, for example, in Norway?

I couldn't give a toss about the likelihood of rehabilitation.

Some crimes are so heinous that the perpetrators must forfeit any idea whatsoever of ever being part of normal society again. The logical extension of this forfeiture is execution.

The Norwegian system disgusts me.

The notion that Anders Breivik could ever be released is an odious affront to decency.

 

[PTK]

It’s cases like this that make me understand why people want the death penalty. The perps richly deserve to die for their heinous acts and keeping them alive serves no useful social function - either for society or them. They will never, and probably never could, be reformed. And nothing they could ever do could make up for the evil they’ve done.

Ultimately I am against the death penalty for a whole host of institutional reasons, but it’s got nothing to do with thinking depraved monsters like this have a right to life, they forfeited that right through their heinous acts.

"keeping them alive serves no useful social function - either for society or them."
Well, so now we have to serve a "useful social function" to be be kept alive, do we?