Maxine Carr and Ian Huntley are the Tabloid candidates to replace Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in the pantheon of evildoers. The fact that Carr was not much more than a battered and abused woman under Huntley's domination hasn't deterred those tabloid rags from trying to spur the whole nation into a self-righteous witch burning.
Summer is drawing to a close now, and just like every other summer that I can remember we find that the headlines are taken up with the death of children. Milly Dowler has found herself shunted from the pages. The dismembered torso of the child found in the Thames is barely mentioned. The baby who was left to drown in it's buggy in Wales has been all but forgotten. There is now a double murder that has horrified people like nothing that has been seen before (or at least, horrified like nothing that was seen before last summer). Just over 2 weeks ago, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman went missing. Their bodies, still officially unidentified, were found on Saturday last. Somewhat uniquely in this kind of high profile case, the suspects were identified and questioned before the enquiry changed from missing persons to murder. By all rights this should have been a cut and dried, open and shut case whereby the two murderers are reviled, condemned, judged, and sent down. Not that that would have been any comfort to the parents of Holly and Jessica, but it would at least have been something. Now it seems that matters are getting complicated.
The two people who were arrested, Maxine Carr and Ian Huntley, both worked at the same school attended by Holly and Jessica as teaching assistant and caretaker respectively. This alone sent a thrill of revulsion through me. Whilst I appreciate that (unfortunately) murder victims are generally killed by people whom they know, this seemed like a desperately horrifying betrayal of trust. People send their children to school every day on trust that they will be safe, and that the people employed by the school will care for them. It seemed to me that the school had employed the modern day equivalent of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady. It was assumed by many that the two would be charged, and that a sorry (yet, God help us, familiar) tale would be recounted at the inevitable trial.
Then, yesterday, there were a series of announcements that wrong footed everybody. Firstly we were told that Huntley had been charged with the girls' murder, but also that he had been detained under the Mental Health Act of 1983, and that he was being held in Rampton Secure Hospital. Then we were told that Carr had been charged. Not with murder, but with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. What are the implications of these decisions? Like everyone else, I can only speculate based on the limited and confusing facts available. I don't claim to have any special insight into what might be going on, but I would like to try and make sense of it.
Firstly, we have Huntley. As things stand, and assuming his guilt, he is the sole murderer of Holly and Jessica. I'm sure that I wasn't the only one who assumed that the girls had been murdered by a paedophile, but now I am no longer certain. The main thing that puts doubt into my mind is the fact that he is being detained in a secure mental hospital. There is also the fact that the girls' bodies have yet to be formally identified. Is this because he committed acts of such appalling savagery that a post mortem was unable to determine the cause of death? It's an awful thought, but I suspect that the truth is somewhat more mundane (or as mundane as a double murder can be). We've just had 2 weeks of hot and humid weather in England, and if one assumes that the girls were murdered not long after their abduction then their bodies will have been left to decompose during that time. Hence the inability to identify both them and the cause of death.
That is the first part of the fog that is obscuring the events in Soham. Huntley's detention at Rampton is another. Basically, under the MHA, 2 doctors must state in writing that they believe Huntley has a psychotic disorder which makes him a danger to himself and/or others. The doctors at Rampton have anything up to 6 months to assess him and find out what, if anything is wrong with him (apart, of course, from the fact that he has probably murdered two children). What must this man have told the police during questioning that led them to consider the possibility that he is not fit to stand trial?
There seem to be a few of possibilities here; one is that he is genuinely mentally ill. Another is that this is merely a ploy by Huntley to avoid standing trial. Finally, it may be that the police wish to utterly eliminate the possibility of Huntley using the Insanity defence at trial, and so they are having him assessed by the doctors best able to determine whether or not he is psychotic.
I wouldn't like to say which, if any, of these possibilities is the most likely. But I do know a little bit about Rampton, and I know that the people who are held there are (in the words of a consultant who used to work there) "really, truly, properly insane". So if we assume that his insanity is real and not faked, and if one recalls the TV clips showing a calm yet concerned Huntley saying that he feels so helpless as to what to do about the disappearance of the girls, not to mention the uniqueness of the police sectioning him before charging him, a picture does begin to emerge. It tends to suggest a man that has completely disassociated himself from what he did to such a degree that he believes utterly that he did not commit the crime.
I find this relevant because of the current archaic laws concerning insanity in a criminal case. To paraphrase the MacNaughton legal rules, to make use of a defence of insanity, Huntley will have to show that he did not know what he was doing or that he didn't know that it was illegal. I would assume that the doctors at Rampton are now trying to determine whether this is indeed the case.
Then we have Carr. As I write this, it would appear that she isn't a murderess. Rather she is a foolish woman who did a stupid thing to cover for the man whom she loves (or at any rate, believes that she does). At her first appearance at the Magistrates Court this morning, the usual rent-a-mob showed up to leech some of the high tension and emotion from the aftermath of this dreadful situation in order to fill their otherwise empty lives. Maybe if people like them expended more effort putting their own lives in order rather than using somebody else's tragedy to pass their time, then the world in general would be a better place, but I digress.
As you may have guessed, I have some sympathy for Maxine Carr. Only up to a point though, as she would appear to be responsible in part for prolonging the agony of Holly and Jessica's parents. Yet before anyone rushes to condemn her for protecting Huntley, I would say this; I have seen a lot of women stand by their men, despite the fact that their men are responsible for beating them, mentally and emotionally abusing them, destroying their self esteem, and generally reducing them to the level of a timid and unquestioning piece of chattel. If we're saying that it's Carr’s fault for allowing Huntley to do that to her (and again, I'm making the assumption that he did), then one may as well say that rape victims are asking for it, or that battered wives had it coming.
I would also point out that there is a degree of uncertainty about the events leading up to Huntley and Carr being questioned. Their are conflicting reports of what happened; some say that they handed themselves in voluntarily, others that they were taken by police from the home of Huntley's father. There is, at the moment at least, the possibility that Carr went to the police first, and Huntley's detention followed soon afterwards. If that is the case, and if the home circumstances of Carr and Huntley are as I suspect, then she is to be as much praised for her later courage as she is to be reviled for her earlier cowardice.
Of course, as I have said this is all merely speculation. We have the luxury of being able to examine such facts that are available and then draw our own conclusions. Though having written this, I am now beginning to see why it is easier to simply condemn the accused out of hand. To try and look at what happened, to attempt to see beyond the grief felt by those who loved the girls, or beyond the vitriol yelled by those who were strangers to them, raises uncomfortable questions about a society in which tragedy's like this can happen. Is it any wonder that we usually cast about for a scapegoat to explain the murderous behaviour of these people? Maybe it's our way of protecting ourselves from answers that we don't want to hear.
Wednesday 21 August 2002
Wednesday 14 August 2002
Fear is the mindkiller
For some reason, I was in a state of utter terror when I wrote this one. I like to think I hid it well....
Normally, when I write these things, I find that whatever it is that was on my mind and thus worrying me tends to recede into my background thoughts and leaves my brain free to consider such weighty matters as why it's really good that women wear skimpy clothing during summer. With my last rant, I hoped that I could ease off the paranoia about Dubya's dad starting a war by proxy. Not forget about it altogether you understand, I just wanting it to stop blazing white-hot streaks of fear across my cerebellum and allow me to get on with being a lecherous git. Of course, life is never that simple and so here I am again to add something more to what I wrote last time. Whether it's to make me feel better or to make you feel as uneasy about the future as I currently am...well, it's a little from column A and a little from column B. Anyway, regardless of that I think I've got reason to be unsettled. Now let me tell you why....
It's not exactly the world's best-kept secret that America wants to and is almost certainly going to attack Iraq. I've already talked about their possible reasons for wanting to do so, so I'll not retread that path. What I do want to talk about are the possible consequences of such a war. And you should really brace yourself, because I have one or two funny ideas about that. For the record, I don't mean funny ha-ha either.
Okay, so the current situation is that Iraq has, as it's leader, a murdering scumbag who treats the ethnic minorities of his country (Kurds and Marsh Arabs) as target practice. They are second-class citizens and they are vulnerable to whatever jolly little scheme enters Saddam's head. America wants to depose Saddam and replace him with a leader more to their liking. Iraq is a Muslim country. As I'm sure you know, Osama bin Laden's aim has been to unite the whole Muslim world against America. Thus far, he has failed in this. When USA attacks Iraq it is my belief that bin Laden will get his wish. And why do I think that? One word; Israel.
Israel has as it's leader a murdering scumbag who treats the ethnic minorities of his country (Palestinians and Israeli Arabs) as target practice. They are second-class citizens and are vulnerable to the whims of the fat nazi who runs the country. He's finally starting to show his true colours by trying to expel from Israel the families of any suicide bombers. This is illegal under the Israeli constitution, mirrors the actions of the Nazi Party in the 30's in it's methods to get rid of unwanted elements from the country, and is about the closest parallel I've ever seen for the saying "Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted". Israel is not a Muslim country. America supports the government of Israel.
I hope it's becoming very clear what I'm driving at, but humour me by letting me spell it out. If America invades Iraq in a supposed war on injustice and terror whilst Ariel Sharon continues to follow his dreams of an ethnically pure Israel, and does so by continuing to bomb, shoot, and expel non-Jews from Israel, the Muslim world will NOT be happy. "So what?" you might think. And to be honest, I can see your point. The Muslim world seems to have been in an almost terminal state of unhappiness for as long as I can remember. And who can blame them? Their leaders are almost entirely composed of a small group of hyper-rich dictators. In general, the regime's they live under are oppressive, and Islamic in name only. Who's to say that the Muslim world won't do it's usual act of making a lot of unhappy noises before rolling over like good little lap dogs and keeping the oil flowing?
Maybe they will, and I hope that that is the case should America get it's war (because, for all my posturing, I like a peaceful life as much as the next man). But I can see trouble ahead. Most of the people of the Middle East have rather different opinions about the west in general, and America specifically, than their leaders. During the last Gulf War, Iraq fired missiles at Israel. Not one Middle East country supported Iraq. Yet their were people dancing in the streets in Egypt when they heard this news. This time around, not one Middle East country supports America (well...Kuwait and Quatar do. They are both tiny little Gulf States and their influence on the Muslim world is minimal). So if Iraq was to fire missiles at Israel this time, do you suppose that other Middle Eastern countries would be quite so restrained? Especially with fundamentalist Islam being so widespread at the moment?
Even if we assume that the Moslem governments act with restraint, who is to say that those same governments will stay in power? The likes of Egypt and Saudi Arabia have a big problem with right wing fundamentalist Moslems. Thus far, those governments have tried to keep a lid on the fundamentalists by being ever more oppressive and authoritarian. This can only work for so long because all you are doing is containing the pressure. One of the more popular fundamentalist mantras is that America is out to destroy the Moslem faith, and doesn't care about the injustices meted out to Moslems by ungodly governments who use their supposed faith to Allah as a cover for doing America's (or, if you like, the Great Satan's) dirty work. An attack on Iraq coupled with continued support for the butcher Ariel Sharon by America would give the fundamentalists (in their eyes) cast iron proof that this is indeed the case. And if their governments choose to do nothing about it? Then it is the sacred duty of every Moslem to defend his brothers. Lest you think that I'm being melodramatic, the Shah of Iran found out about the power of fundamentalism when he was sent running from the country he had ran as a dictator after the Islamic Revolution there in the 70's.
An awful lot of Islamic countries have authoritarian governments in power, with a populace who are content with their lot thus far, but whom are vulnerable to the sway of rather more radical Muslims. From Indonesia in the East through to Algeria in Africa and almost every country between those two fall into this category. What I am suggesting is that, by invading Iraq and ignoring the brutality in Israel, America is unwittingly providing the spark for a powder keg that covers half of the planet. Can you imagine the effect of a revolution occurring in most of these countries over the course of a few months? Just think of it; once one revolutions kicks off in one country, another would follow, and then another. Do you have that picture in your head? Okay then....can you then imagine how America would react to revolutions that would see unfriendly governments put into place in all of these (co-incidentally, primarily oil producing) countries?
It's not pretty at all, is it? If, as I suspect, the Islamic world explodes in a frenzy of righteous and fundamentalist ire, then America will be the big loser (well...Israel would probably be the bigger loser as it may well cease to exist within a few years of these events). I say this because the oil will stop flowing, and the American economy will nose dive. America will not take this lying down. They will fight to get back access to the oil that their economy needs. Hence we have America being directly opposed by Islam. Almost exactly the situation that bin Laden wanted and that Dubya said he would avoid in fact. The last time that America tried to stop a domino effect of countries replacing their leaders with governments unfriendly to the US was in Vietnam. Most of the rest of the world was sensible enough to let America behave like a bloody idiot during that conflict, and things are shaping up to be the same here. Or they would be, were it not for the fact that the west's economy is America's economy. If their's goes down the tubes, then so does ours. So will we just dumbly accept that? Nope. Would we side with Islam against America? What do you think?
Perhaps I'm being a little sneaky in making that Vietnam comparison; for what it's worth, I don't actually believe that America and the west would lose the potential conflict I've outlined. Then again, maybe I'm just biased. But even assuming a military victory for the west, what I do think we'd do is set the scene for decades of international terrorism where the targets would be any and everything western. It would be a situation not unlike the nightmarish Perpetual Conflict scenario that Hitler dreamed of when invading Russia (he hoped that the Slavs and Russians would continually wage low key terrorist war against Germany. This would keep Germany on it's toes and ready for battle at all times). If you want me to raise the paranoia stakes further still, then I'd draw your attention to the fact that China would probably stay out of any conflict between Islam and the west, thus leaving it all fresh and dandy whilst the two sides whittle each other down to nothingness. And would anyone care to place bets on what might happen then?
In the midst of all this knuckle whitening and excessive worry, about the only positive thing that I can draw from this is that, if we are facing WWIII in the face, then it'll probably not be in Europe again (after all, we hosted the last 2 so it's only fair for another continent to host this one. World wars should be like world cups; a different host nation for each one...) and it'll probably not be a nuclear conflict. This is probably an inappropriate thought for someone who has just spent a couple of hours writing an essay on why I think the world is teetering on the cusp of an epic shitstorm, but why can't we just be nice to one another? Ah well... here's hoping I'm wrong about all of this.
Normally, when I write these things, I find that whatever it is that was on my mind and thus worrying me tends to recede into my background thoughts and leaves my brain free to consider such weighty matters as why it's really good that women wear skimpy clothing during summer. With my last rant, I hoped that I could ease off the paranoia about Dubya's dad starting a war by proxy. Not forget about it altogether you understand, I just wanting it to stop blazing white-hot streaks of fear across my cerebellum and allow me to get on with being a lecherous git. Of course, life is never that simple and so here I am again to add something more to what I wrote last time. Whether it's to make me feel better or to make you feel as uneasy about the future as I currently am...well, it's a little from column A and a little from column B. Anyway, regardless of that I think I've got reason to be unsettled. Now let me tell you why....
It's not exactly the world's best-kept secret that America wants to and is almost certainly going to attack Iraq. I've already talked about their possible reasons for wanting to do so, so I'll not retread that path. What I do want to talk about are the possible consequences of such a war. And you should really brace yourself, because I have one or two funny ideas about that. For the record, I don't mean funny ha-ha either.
Okay, so the current situation is that Iraq has, as it's leader, a murdering scumbag who treats the ethnic minorities of his country (Kurds and Marsh Arabs) as target practice. They are second-class citizens and they are vulnerable to whatever jolly little scheme enters Saddam's head. America wants to depose Saddam and replace him with a leader more to their liking. Iraq is a Muslim country. As I'm sure you know, Osama bin Laden's aim has been to unite the whole Muslim world against America. Thus far, he has failed in this. When USA attacks Iraq it is my belief that bin Laden will get his wish. And why do I think that? One word; Israel.
Israel has as it's leader a murdering scumbag who treats the ethnic minorities of his country (Palestinians and Israeli Arabs) as target practice. They are second-class citizens and are vulnerable to the whims of the fat nazi who runs the country. He's finally starting to show his true colours by trying to expel from Israel the families of any suicide bombers. This is illegal under the Israeli constitution, mirrors the actions of the Nazi Party in the 30's in it's methods to get rid of unwanted elements from the country, and is about the closest parallel I've ever seen for the saying "Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted". Israel is not a Muslim country. America supports the government of Israel.
I hope it's becoming very clear what I'm driving at, but humour me by letting me spell it out. If America invades Iraq in a supposed war on injustice and terror whilst Ariel Sharon continues to follow his dreams of an ethnically pure Israel, and does so by continuing to bomb, shoot, and expel non-Jews from Israel, the Muslim world will NOT be happy. "So what?" you might think. And to be honest, I can see your point. The Muslim world seems to have been in an almost terminal state of unhappiness for as long as I can remember. And who can blame them? Their leaders are almost entirely composed of a small group of hyper-rich dictators. In general, the regime's they live under are oppressive, and Islamic in name only. Who's to say that the Muslim world won't do it's usual act of making a lot of unhappy noises before rolling over like good little lap dogs and keeping the oil flowing?
Maybe they will, and I hope that that is the case should America get it's war (because, for all my posturing, I like a peaceful life as much as the next man). But I can see trouble ahead. Most of the people of the Middle East have rather different opinions about the west in general, and America specifically, than their leaders. During the last Gulf War, Iraq fired missiles at Israel. Not one Middle East country supported Iraq. Yet their were people dancing in the streets in Egypt when they heard this news. This time around, not one Middle East country supports America (well...Kuwait and Quatar do. They are both tiny little Gulf States and their influence on the Muslim world is minimal). So if Iraq was to fire missiles at Israel this time, do you suppose that other Middle Eastern countries would be quite so restrained? Especially with fundamentalist Islam being so widespread at the moment?
Even if we assume that the Moslem governments act with restraint, who is to say that those same governments will stay in power? The likes of Egypt and Saudi Arabia have a big problem with right wing fundamentalist Moslems. Thus far, those governments have tried to keep a lid on the fundamentalists by being ever more oppressive and authoritarian. This can only work for so long because all you are doing is containing the pressure. One of the more popular fundamentalist mantras is that America is out to destroy the Moslem faith, and doesn't care about the injustices meted out to Moslems by ungodly governments who use their supposed faith to Allah as a cover for doing America's (or, if you like, the Great Satan's) dirty work. An attack on Iraq coupled with continued support for the butcher Ariel Sharon by America would give the fundamentalists (in their eyes) cast iron proof that this is indeed the case. And if their governments choose to do nothing about it? Then it is the sacred duty of every Moslem to defend his brothers. Lest you think that I'm being melodramatic, the Shah of Iran found out about the power of fundamentalism when he was sent running from the country he had ran as a dictator after the Islamic Revolution there in the 70's.
An awful lot of Islamic countries have authoritarian governments in power, with a populace who are content with their lot thus far, but whom are vulnerable to the sway of rather more radical Muslims. From Indonesia in the East through to Algeria in Africa and almost every country between those two fall into this category. What I am suggesting is that, by invading Iraq and ignoring the brutality in Israel, America is unwittingly providing the spark for a powder keg that covers half of the planet. Can you imagine the effect of a revolution occurring in most of these countries over the course of a few months? Just think of it; once one revolutions kicks off in one country, another would follow, and then another. Do you have that picture in your head? Okay then....can you then imagine how America would react to revolutions that would see unfriendly governments put into place in all of these (co-incidentally, primarily oil producing) countries?
It's not pretty at all, is it? If, as I suspect, the Islamic world explodes in a frenzy of righteous and fundamentalist ire, then America will be the big loser (well...Israel would probably be the bigger loser as it may well cease to exist within a few years of these events). I say this because the oil will stop flowing, and the American economy will nose dive. America will not take this lying down. They will fight to get back access to the oil that their economy needs. Hence we have America being directly opposed by Islam. Almost exactly the situation that bin Laden wanted and that Dubya said he would avoid in fact. The last time that America tried to stop a domino effect of countries replacing their leaders with governments unfriendly to the US was in Vietnam. Most of the rest of the world was sensible enough to let America behave like a bloody idiot during that conflict, and things are shaping up to be the same here. Or they would be, were it not for the fact that the west's economy is America's economy. If their's goes down the tubes, then so does ours. So will we just dumbly accept that? Nope. Would we side with Islam against America? What do you think?
Perhaps I'm being a little sneaky in making that Vietnam comparison; for what it's worth, I don't actually believe that America and the west would lose the potential conflict I've outlined. Then again, maybe I'm just biased. But even assuming a military victory for the west, what I do think we'd do is set the scene for decades of international terrorism where the targets would be any and everything western. It would be a situation not unlike the nightmarish Perpetual Conflict scenario that Hitler dreamed of when invading Russia (he hoped that the Slavs and Russians would continually wage low key terrorist war against Germany. This would keep Germany on it's toes and ready for battle at all times). If you want me to raise the paranoia stakes further still, then I'd draw your attention to the fact that China would probably stay out of any conflict between Islam and the west, thus leaving it all fresh and dandy whilst the two sides whittle each other down to nothingness. And would anyone care to place bets on what might happen then?
In the midst of all this knuckle whitening and excessive worry, about the only positive thing that I can draw from this is that, if we are facing WWIII in the face, then it'll probably not be in Europe again (after all, we hosted the last 2 so it's only fair for another continent to host this one. World wars should be like world cups; a different host nation for each one...) and it'll probably not be a nuclear conflict. This is probably an inappropriate thought for someone who has just spent a couple of hours writing an essay on why I think the world is teetering on the cusp of an epic shitstorm, but why can't we just be nice to one another? Ah well... here's hoping I'm wrong about all of this.
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