This woman was jailed not because she was a danger to society but because of the precepts of the law (see in bold below).

How is this ethical?

Story..
A British mother who gave her brain-damaged son a lethal injection of heroin to end his suffering was jailed for life for his murder on Wednesday.

Frances Inglis, 57, admitted killing her 22-year-old son Tom in November 2008 because she did not want to see him suffer — but denied murder.

She told the court he was in a "living hell" after suffering severe head injuries when he fell out of a moving ambulance in July 2007, and insisted she had acted "with love in my heart".

However, Judge Brian Barker told the Old Bailey court in London: "We can all understand the emotion and the unhappiness that you were experiencing.

"The fact is that you knew that you intended to do a terrible thing. You knew you were breaking society's conventions, you knew you were breaking the law, and you knew the consequences."

The jury found Inglis, of Dagenham, east London, guilty of murder and attempted murder — she had first tried to end her son's life in September 2007.

She was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of nine years in jail.

During the trial, Inglis wept as she described her despair at the "horror, pain and tragedy" of her son's helpless condition, telling the court: "For Tom to live that living hell — I couldn't leave my child like that."

She admitted ending his life but said: "I did it with love in my heart for Tom, so I don't see it as murder."

However, prosecuting lawyer Miranda Moore said in her closing statement: "It is a tragic case but it is not a defence to murder to end someone's life to put them out of their misery."

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/100220 ... heroin-jab

Comments please..

With respect, if he was really brain dead would he have been able to suffer a living hell?
And if he was brain dead was it murder?
It sounds a very severe sentence in any case. We've had a couple of mothers here where I live who've killed their babies and got off scott free.

Well, it’s an emotionally very difficult case.

But there are a few relevant facts which came out at the trial, but which don’t appear in this report.

- Tom was brain-damaged, and couldn’t speak, but he wasn’t necessarily unaware of his condition. He never sought assistance to die, or indicated any kind of consent to what his mother proposed, but he had no idea that she intended to kill him. The view that Tom could not bear to live the life he was living was his mother’s view, but there’s no evidence that it was Tom’s.

- Tom’s condition was not terminal. His initial prospects for a substantial recovery were seen by at least some of his medical team as good. His mother refused to accept that prognosis. She was convinced that the doctor was lying. His progress was slowed after his mother’s first attempt to kill him, which resulted in a heart attack and some oxygen deprivation, but even then heis condition was neither terminal nor irreversible at the time when she succeeded in killing him.

- Tom’s mother insisted that he was in unbearable pain, but the medical evidence was that his condition was not painful.

- She was described by witnesses as being “constantly frantic and crying and just in a crazy state. You couldn't speak to he." and “. . . mad and so upset. She couldn't be consoled. She was flailing her arms about. When I tried restraining her I could smell drink on her breath.” “To Frankie her son was dead once he fell from the back of an ambualance.” This was not her state of mind at the time of the killing, but for months beforehand.

This is a tragic case, but it seems to me that Inglis killed her son as much – or more - to relieve her own distress as his pain. Accepting that her assessment of her son’s condition was honest, it doesn’t appear to have been accurate. The case is a difficult one, but it seems to me to point to some of the reasons why we need to be wary of legalising euthanasia – namely, the possibility that people will be euthanized on the basis of flawed and inaccurate judgments, and the possibility that people will be euthanized to relieve the (emotional, but very real) pain of others, rather than their own pain.

Given the injury was caused by negligence of emergency services, and that she'd been entrusted a second time with her son's care after her first known attempt to end his life; his death was caused by a two pronged failure of the system as well as the mother's mental health.

After the first attempt she should've been in the care of a psychiatrist and he should've been taken into care by the system.

The trauma any mother would suffer hearing the fault causing the injury, lack of consideration for the shock, coupled with his recuperative care is barbaric.

Questions:
Did she witness the accident?
Why was the ambulance called in the first place?
Where's the father?

Why wasn't a care facility provided as a compensatory measure for the failure of emergency services to ensure the mother had time to recuperate from the shock and adjust to her young son's future?

I also question the motive for his prognosis.

It sounds to me that she went over the edge which I believe any psychiatrist could substantiate.

In this regard, the sentence is far from accurate. Given her undiagnosed mental health state, it should be manslaughter coupled with an insanity plea. Additionally, they have charged her with the previous attempt which given the fact they were aware of her first attempt, doesn't seem right.

Christine:

He wasn’t brain dead, or anything like it.

Phil73:

She hadn’t been “entrusted a second time with her son’s care”. She was on bail for a charge of attempted murder. He had been transferred to a different hospital to be treated for the injuries done to him in the first attempt. She wasn’t supposed to see him, and in fact had to assume a false identity in order to get into the hospital for the second attempt. Ironically, the transfer to the second hospital made this easier, since nobody at that hospital had seen her before.

There clearly was a failure here, but it wasn’t the failure of entrusting the boy to her care.

She did not witness the accident.

The ambulance was called because the boy was involved in a fracas outside a club and (along with others) was injured. The police were also called. He apparently didn’t wish to be taken to hospital, but the judgment seems to have been that he wasn’t in a fit state to take decisions of that kind, and the paramedics took him anyway. (It seems, reading between the lines, that his competence may have been impaired by drink or drugs, rather than by the injuries he sustained in the fracas.) He was resistant and (again, reading between the lines) opened the door and jumped out of the moving ambulance.

The father and mother have been divorced for many years, but were on civil terms with one another. The father was unaware of the mother’s intention to kill the boy, but is now supporting her.

As to what psychiatric care was offered to the mother, I don’t know. From the reports, it is unlikely that she would have accepted psychiatric care. It wouldn’t amaze me to learn that, after the first attempt, consideration was given to sectioning her – detaining her compulsorily for treatment - on the grounds that she was a danger to herself or others, but I don’t know whether there were any efforts in that regard.

I’m not sure why you question the motive for the consultant’s prognosis.

I don’t know whether “any psychiatrist could substantiate” that she was mentally ill. Grief is debilitating, but it is not a mental illness. Presumably she and her legal team will have considered a plea of diminished responsibility, but they don’t seem to have advanced that plea.

From the commentary in the UK media, there seems to be a general view that, whether or not the verdict was correct, the sentence is excessive. I suspect there’ll be an appeal against the sentence.

Peregrinus wrote:

... The view that Tom could not bear to live the life he was living was his mother’s view, but there’s no evidence that it was Tom’s ...

If the mother terminated her son's life while her son wished to live, then I believe his mother acted unethically towards her son.

Please note I have used the words "... his mother acted unethically towards her son ..." to limit my comments to the mother and son only, and purposely exclude the wider human race or other people etc.

Isn't it then a question of mental health in terms of dellusion..

Airzone:

“Please note I have used the words "... his mother acted unethically towards her son ..." to limit my comments to the mother and son only, and purposely exclude the wider human race or other people etc.”

Not sure I understand your point here. In generally, we see killing somebody – with very lmited exceptions – as a wrong not just against the person killed, but against the community at large. That’s why it’s a crime, investigated by the police and prosecuted by the prosecuting authorities, and not merely a civil wrong to be pursued – if they care to – by the family of the person killed.

Are you saying that in this case you would make an exception, and see Mrs Inglis’s wrong against her son as being a private matter that does not concern the rest of the community (and for which, it follows, she should not be prosecuted)? Or have I misunderstood you?

Phil73:

We’d need to think carefully about what we mean by “delusion”. Is everybody who believes something which is untrue, and who believes it without adequate evidence, suffering from a delusion, and so mentally ill, and not legally responsible for actions motivated by their mistaken belief? I think not.

Delusion can be a symptom of mental illness, but it doesn’t have to be. If we’re arguing that Mrs Inglis’s delusion (about the gravity of her son’s condition) is a symptom of mental illness, what is her illness?

I think there are strong grounds here for invoking mercy. Life with a tariff of nine years seems very harsh for someone who acted under grave emotional distress, and who almost certainly presents no threat to anyone else. God knows how I would cope if I found myself in her situation.

But I find it difficult to say that she has done nothing wrong. She has killed somebody who, quite possibly, did not want to die; somebody whose condition, without her intervention, might well have improved. She rejected opinions which disagreed with her own view – both the opinions of professionals, and the opinions of others who loved Tom. She took upon herself the responsibility of making decisions for Tom which, even if Tom couldn’t make himself, should have been shared with others.

Agreed, your final paragraph changes things. There's no doubt she was driven. However...

Again, it appears mental health has not been duly considered.

And, I find the case too exact on the point of law where in so many other cases charges are often alleviated due to Mental Health conditions.

And I agree, if it was allowed that such a case be dismissed or lessened on the grounds of her mental health it could easily be seen as an open door to those supporting euthanasia, a cause I do not support except in extreme cases.

Dellusion.. that her son had no future
Trauma.. seeing her son suffer, tube fed..
Shock.. the sheer cause of the injuries

All the above could've been treated if she had been scheduled. Given her complete ignorance of any one else's point of view, I would say she was clinically depressed and as a result was a severe mental health issue which should have been picked up.

It seems the law applied to people by Police under the mental health act bears no standard.

I'd ask this question, how much can you ask someone to take, given her plain honesty and what I see as a blatant failure of Police under the Mental Health act, it seems she deserves reprieve.

The police don’t administer the Mental Health legislation; how could they?

It seems to me that there are three points in this sorry story where Mrs Inglis’s mental health might have been considered.

First, when she initially had to deal with the shock of learning of her son’s injuries. We know, from the newspaper reports, next to nothing about her state of mind and her actions at this time. In general, though, the people who might have addressed her own mental health needs at this time are herself, her family and her own medical advisers. Unless she engaged in behaviour at this time which drew her to the attention of the police or other authorities as a danger to herself or others – and we have no indication that she did – I wouldn’t expect anybody outside that circle to be involved. I don’t see, on what we know, that we have any basis for criticising the medical, police or prosecuting authorities here.

Secondly, when she first tried to kill her son. We know that she was charged, so the matter was treated as a legal/criminal one. This doesn’t mean, though, that it wasn’t also treated as a mental health issue. The two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, a significant proportion of people who commit crimes have mental health issues, and correspondingly people with (certain) mental health issues are at increased risk of criminal offending. So the fact that the matter was dealt with as a crime doesn’t mean that it wasn’t also dealt with as a mental health issue.

But, I agree with you, it certainly should have been addressed as a mental health issue at that time. Was it? We don’t know. We do know that she wasn’t sectioned, but that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t seen, she wasn’t assessed, she wasn’t offered treatment, she didn’t accept treatment. For all we know, she was treated; indeed, her agreement to accept treatment could well have been (part of) the reason why she wasn’t sectioned.

Thirdly, when she did kill her son and was charged with murder, the issue of whether to plead insanity or diminished responsibility will have come up. It doesn’t appear from the reports that the issue was put to the jury. This will have been primarily her decision, and there’s nothing in the reports to suggest that she was incompetent to make that decision.

There may well have been no medical evidence which would have supported a plea of that kind. The fact that somebody commits a crime under appalling mental and emotional stress is not in itself evidence of mental illness or personality disorder.

They do in Australia, in terms of deciding who should be scheduled and conveyed for further evaluation.



She's just made the decision to kill her son.

With regard to criminals suffering mental health, it's estimated that 80% of people in jail in Australia suffer a mental illness, therefore all these matters must be re-assessed for intent. Medical professionals are charged such that any failure can be deemed malpractice. The fact that an illness is not detected also falls under malpractice.

On your third point a woman has killed son after a tragic and serious injury, not a man in the street or as a result of a violent crime.

With so much the break down of family values and the anthropological place of men as the pillar of strength I cannot understand how a court would not attribute diminished responsibility on that point considering the circumstances. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly responsibility has been placed on women, whilst it is upheld women suffer a certain frailty.

The circumstances are leading that in a state of shock and with depressed reason she may have accepted the conclusion that her son's life was over, which if self-perpetuating, could have lead her to believe she'd found conclusive evidence sufficient to take the action she took. Remembering of course we are talking about a crime of passion, or a mercy killing. But the UK is harsh on such issues. What's her previous record, where did she live, she was a nurse which further leads to knowledge of his prognosis, one I do not believe carried weight simply because of the cause and liability of the accident causing the injury, an unfortunate downfall of public health is this risk of liability.

There are three issues I have identified in this discussion I would like to comment on:

1) Was the mother killing her son ethical?

This is a very difficult question to answer. If the mother felt that her son was suffering as a result of his sad accident, then her decision is understandable in some sense. She clearly cares for her son and wanted to help him, her intentions, I believe, were good. The outcome, maybe not so, maybe.

The potential for her son to recover from brain damage is a powerful argument. How likely he was to recover and to what extent he was likely to recover needs to be considered. Additionally, the level of brain damage and how that has affected his life, that is also relevant. Another question may be; in his state, is he capable of deciding if he wants to continue to live? And, did he make any comments in his past about what he wanted if he was to be brain damaged in an accident?

Additionally, there is of course the more utilitarian approach of asking whether valuable resources should be used to maintain the existence (and sometimes that all it is, an existence) of a brain damaged person when their contribution to society is questionable and when those resources could be used to greater good somewhere else. Obviously, the potential for the son to recover (and to what extent he is likely to recover) is also relevant here.

Was the sentencing of the mother ethical?

Jail was created to

1) provide a consequence for illegal actions

2) remove a person who is a danger to themself and/or others

I believe the first point is valid. She has broken the law, there must be a consequence. I believe the second point is not valid in this case. From the evidence and information we have, it appears the crime was committed specifically against the son. The likelihood of another one of her children becoming brain damaged is very small. She does not appear to be a threat to the general community, only to her son. Having said that, she has broken the law, and a consequence must follow. A community service sentence, or something else more appropriate would be preferable.

Is legalising euthanasia a good idea?

If anything, this case is a good example of why euthanasia should be legalised. At present, individuals are forced to go behind the law and act alone. There is no regulation, no checks and balances, just, like in this case, no counselling, no outside objective eye, just blind passion. I would suggest there may have been a better outcome for the mother (and the son) had she been able to access a legalised, regulated framework that could evaluate the case from an outside, reasonable perspective and make an ethical decision based on clearly stipulated policies and regulations. If the mother had been able to talk to someone about this option and a specialist trained in this area could talk to her about how her case fits with company policy and why this is so, perhaps the mother could have received the support she needed to make the right decision and act within the law.

Not so. In my own state, involuntary committal can only come following an examination by a psychiatrist in an authorised hospital, and such an examination can only be undertaken on referral by a medical practitioner.

Obviously somebody has to ask the medical practitioner to make the referral, and that somebody could be the police, but it is much more usually the patient’s family. Even if the patient’s behaviour has brought them into contact with the police, it will still normally be the family who ask a doctor to refer the patient for psychiatric examination. The role of the policy typically does not go beyond suggesting to the family that they should do this. I don’t think the situation is very different in other states. It’s not accurate to say that the police administer the mental health legislation.



Two points:

First, an awful lot of people who are charged with murder have made the decision to kill the victim. This isn’t evidence of mental illness or diminished responsibility. In the circumstances of this case, many advocates of mercy killing would say that Mrs Inglis’s actions were entirely rational and understandable, and not at all suggestive of mental illness.

Secondly, Mrs Inglis hadn’t “just” made that decision. She had made (and implemented) that decision months before. Even if she were mentally ill at the time – and the mere fact that she killed her son is not proof of that - it doesn’t follow that she was ill at the time of her trial, and so not competent to take decisions about her own defence. Bear in mind that when insanity or diminished responsibility is pleaded, it is normally pleaded by the decision of a defendant who has been judged competent to stand trial. Mrs Inglis took control of her own defence, and instructed her own lawyers, and there is nothing in the newspaper reports to suggest that, at the time of the trial, she was not competent to do so.


Well, you raise an interesting question here. Assuming that somebody suffers from a mental illness, does it follow that they cannot form the kind of intent necessary for criminal responsibility?

This isn’t the view of Australian law. Interestingly, it also isn’t the view of an awful lot of mental health advocates. Automatically to strip somebody who is mentally ill of all responsibility for their decisions and actions is also to strip them of all capacity, all autonomy. It dehumanises and marginalises them in a very profound way.

In general, from a legal point of view mental illness or mental impairment only provides a defence if it is so profound that the patient cannot understand his own actions, or cannot control his own actions, or cannot perceive that they are considered to be wrong, or if the patient suffers from a delusion which, if true, would justify his actions This normally requires a fairly severe degree of mental illness.

You can argue that the legal standard is wrong, and needs revision. But not many people would argue that the proper rule should be that simply to be mentally ill absolves people of all responsibility for what they do, however terrible


Women are more likely to be diagnosed with mental illness than men, but this does not mean that women are assumed to be less legally competent or responsible than men. If Mrs Inglis didn’t herself have a mental illness or a mental impairment then the fact that she is a woman, and that many other women do, is not really relevant.

I do think the circumstances you point to are relevant here. You have to have enormous sympathy for Mrs Inglis, and also to recognise the fact that she is no threat to society; she has killed probably the only person she will ever kill. But I think those considerations go not to the question, not of whether what she did was wrong, but to the question of how, given that it was wrong, society should respond. Her sentence seems altogether too harsh to me. But I’m not convinced that this means an acquittal would have been the right judgment.

Totally agree, excellent conclusion. I think this will open up euthenasia anyway, women have that self-sacrificial drive/expectation.. and the sympathy that goes out to her especially given her honesty will win over a lot of people hearts in the debate.. But what an administrational nightmare although you're solution above seems to cover the bases..

Peri... I agree with your comments.

With regard to those incarcerated suffering from mental illness their sentence must be reviewed according to what they can be legally held responsible for in order to ensure adequate therapy is received, least of all to ensure conditions aren't worsened.

Most people whose lives descend to such an abysmal condition suffer some sort of disassociative disorder, one that does not mean they do not know what they're doing is wrong, but one that suggests the use of the word 'know' is incorrect. They may suspect what they're doing is wrong, but not understand the reasons or the view the highest level of society has of their behaviour.

I’m not sure that this is “a good example of why euthanasia should be legalised”, though it certain does open up some areas for discussion.

I pointed out above that it illustrates one of the dangers of euthanasia. Mrs Inglis was not in physical pain, but she was in psychological pain – very real pain, acute pain. And, I suggest, she may have killed her son not so much to relieve his pain as to relieve her own. I accept the point that legalising euthanasia may enable us to create a framework in which that danger can be identified, I don’t think we can assume that it will necessarily do so.

But, assuming that the UK had in place a euthanasia regime which successfully recognised this danger and ensure that patients were not euthanized to relieve relatives’ pain, then under that regime it would not have been possible to euthanize Tom because (a) he was not in pain and (b) his prospects for recovery were good. So Mrs Inglis would have faced exactly the dilemma she did in fact face; watch Tom (as she thought) suffer unbearably, or kill him unlawfully.

Arry suggests her actions might have been different “if she had been able to talk to somebody” and “if a specialist trained in this area could talk to her”, the outcome might have been different. But, in fact, there was no reason why she couldn’t talk to somebody, and consult specialists; legal restrictions on euthanasia do not prevent this, and it goes on in practice all the time. I know from my own experience in a place where euthanasia is not legal that medical and social work staff can talk sensitively, frankly and openly about a patient’s experience and prognosis, about decision-making, about end-of-life issues, about what is and is not possible, etc. All that is a normal dimension of good palliative care. I also know from the newspaper reports that in this instance end-of-life issues for Tom were being discussed before he died (though I don’t know how much Mrs Inglis was involved in those discussions)

I’m not saying that the best advice and counselling was available to Mrs Inglis. But, if it wasn’t, that wasn’t because euthanasia is illegal in the UK.

I don't believe she tried to alleviate her own pain as much as she sought to stop her son's which may have been coupled with her consideration of future pain, a fact that may have set in after her first attempt given the secondary brain damage and the fact that she'd caused it. God knows how she felt but I would guess it made her condtition pathological.

The fact that she has a long road ahead to realise the potential recovery of her son, will be very hard considering she'd already considered him better off dead. Lord, knows in the way my son has suffered given his birth state and presence, I've had times of no hope, still do, so I can completely sympathise, I think it's a maternal thing, and the rationality expected of women to 'keep up' in this world creates a direct conflict with the other anticipated feminine state, a very dangerous combination.

So how much society is responsible given the absolute rule of law, and how much she is is a matter of judgment.

The sentence is far too severe, although primarily necessary in order to stop an influx of similar cases. So I don't know where to go other than to drag it out in Court and let it die in the media who often love, although not so much in this case, to paint the picture which stirs up the most trouble.