Setting the record straight
Follows of the Weatherston trial will recall the defence claimed Sophie attacked Weatherston first, and cited as evidence the mention in her diary how she had “attacked a previous boyfriend”. The ex-boyfriend was not called by the defence to testify, and put this into context. He has e-mailed me details, to remove what he sees as a stain on Sophie’s character. He believes Weatherston only invented the “Sophie attacked first with scissors” defence after his lawyers read about the previous “attack” in her diaries. He writes:
The facts are thus:
1. We had been having an argument, and as people sometimes do I was really winding her up.
2. She got frustrated and scratched me.
3. She then promptly burst into tears and apologised profusely for having hurt me.There was no punching, kicking, or anything else of any kind.
Without knowing Sophie and I, it’s also quite hard to get a sense of just how ridiculous the situation was. I’m 6 feet tall, 220 pounds and combat trained. She was around 53kg, 5′5” or so, and couldn’t have fought her way out of a paper bag. I actually laughed when she ‘attacked’ me because it was so ridiculous.
I think it is great that he wants to set the record straight.
It illustrates once again how vile the defence strategy was. He comments:
So, anyways, now that the trial is over this may never come up, but if it does it would be good to set the record straight and remove any perception created by the defence that Sophie was somehow prone to attacking her boyfriends. I also feel somewhat guilty because without that incident the defence would never have thought to invent this complete fabrication about Soph attacking Clayton with scissors.
I’m a bit surprised the prosecution did not call the ex-boyfriend as a rebuttal witness. Perhaps they thought no-one in their right mind would believe Weatherston’s story.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Thanks for the update.
I had wondered about the veracity of the claims, especially when the Judge noted some of her misgivings with this evidence in the summing up.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:28 pm
I think most of us are of the opinion that Weatherstons defence was the most repugnant thing we’ve seen for some time.
In short, he,s not convincing anyone of anything except his guilt.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Yes Murray, I entirely agree that it was repugnant, however I also think the judge bears some of the blame as it was in her discretion not to allow Weatherston to run provocation as a defence, especially where there was a weak evidential basis for it, (even more so after reading comments by her ex BF). The judge has a history of pretty bad decisions and she has cast provocation in an unecessarily bad light. It is an important acknowledgemnt that in some circumstances, ordinary people lose self control. I add that this case is not one of them.
However, by way of hypothetical example, without provocation, if Sophie’s mum went into the room during the attack and knocked Weatherston out with a baseball bat, that would be self-defence. However, once Weatherston was clearly incapacitated (and thus no longer a threat), if she hit him again on the head to intentionally kill him after what he had done to Sophie (an ordinary human response to such evil), that would be murder requiring (under present caselaw) a life sentence. If she could rely on provocation, it would certainly succeed and the judge could sentence her to anything they saw fit from a discharge without conviction through to a fine, community service, or jail for any period up to and including life, if the circumstances required.
Provocation must stay, albeit perhaps not in its present form.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
ernesto – I agree that there is justification for provocation as a defence. The ‘what if’ you gave as an example is a good one. It does need to be a test of what a ‘normal’ person would do. That test seems to hodl up in a lot of other areas of law.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Seems like the prosecution did a good enough job, although most of the work was done by Weatherston himself. I thought from the moment I heard he was testifying in his own defense that he was going to harm his case more than anything the prosecution could say. Could anyone on the jury have failed to notice that he was unrepentant, and fail to be sickened by his attempt to basically say that Sophie was asking for it? To hear about his life at great length would not stir sympathy at all, it would serve to massively increase the feelings of contempt for him, as, by the sounds of it, there was nothing the least bit remarkable about anything that happened to him. He did not portray a life on a collision course with this particular destiny at all, like some abuse victims might, but rather seemed to be a very lucky person with a good family and good prospects.
I’m most surprised that he didn’t go for an insanity defense. It seemed insane for him to take the stand in the way that he did, just as the crime itself sounds insane, like a psychotic break.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Provocation still seems like an acceptable defense to me. It just didn’t apply in this case, as 11 average people could clearly see. None of Sophie’s actions were sufficient provocation for what happened to her, and it seems to me that this is a triumph of the jury system because it shows that an unsophisticated idea of right and wrong is perfectly capable of getting the right verdict. I actually feel less trusting of the ability of judges to know right and wrong from this case than I do of juries.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Ben,
He wasn’t insane. The tests for insanity weren’t met.
I am not so certain that the provocation defence is doomed however. There may be some circumstances were it may be able to continue as notwithstanding what the Law Commission say, and I will be re-reading their papers, there are some circumstances were the reasonable person may be provoked to the extent that control is lost leading to the death of another party.
In any event the removal of the provocation defence will not stop the deceased in a murder or manslaughter trial being maligned. Robin Bain is an example.
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Alex, I didn’t say he was insane, but I do think that an insanity defense would have been a better option. You say the tests were not met, but that would be up to the jury to decide. They didn’t even bother to contest it, which seemed incredibly stupid. Their own witness damned him – why did they put that guy on the stand at all, a total gift to the prosecution.
Personally, being a bit of a soft lefty, I struggle to see how he could have been in his right mind. In fact I struggle to see that he’s even in his right mind now, since his perceptions of right and wrong are so much at variance with everyone else’s.
But then, I’m not averse to the idea that some people really are just bad. The expert defense witness said he wasn’t insane, and that kind of suggests that they couldn’t find anyone to say it, so the best they could come up with was someone prepared to say that he had a narcissistic personality. Which is far from insane, it’s actually pretty normal. It’s called being a selfish shit.
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I posted this on another thread, as I see the defence of provocation as being valid.
Any reasonable person can be provoked into actions they later despise themselves for.
A commentator today talked about this case and put the supposition that if someone had entered the room while weatherston was carrying out his murderous deed, and killed weatherston to prevent or put a stop to the attack, surely this would be an act that would attract the defence of provocation.
Am I being too simplistic?
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:52 pm
lofty (267) Vote: Add rating 0 Subtract rating 0 Says:
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
“A commentator today talked about this case and put the supposition that if someone had entered the room while weatherston was carrying out his murderous deed, and killed weatherston to prevent or put a stop to the attack, surely this would be an act that would attract the defence of provocation.”
Interesting. I got into a conversation about this at a party last night, and I raised a similar scenario. My example had someone killing Weatherstone after he had clearly already killed Ms Elliot, so that the plea of “I was defending Sophie’ would not apply. The people I was talking to pointed out that it could still be self-defence, because he might want to kill you for witnessing the murder. But I still think it’s a worthwhile line of enquiry – suppose, for instance, if a friend of hers had shot him while he was being led away by police.
It’s worth thinking about this before we decide that the defence of provocation has no merit.
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Yes kahikatea I think the issue raises more questions than answers, I am no lawyer so cannot presume to understand the legalities, but I do know for sure that if it was me that walked in on someone attacking one of my children, I would have a bloody good crack at killing the bastard, and the provocation defence would become my mainstay.
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Lofty, I think if you walked in on them while they were actually doing it, you would have a better defence than provocation – the defence that you were defending your child by killing his/her attacker.
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Yes I suppose so.
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I said:
However, by way of hypothetical example, without provocation, if Sophie’s mum went into the room during the attack and knocked Weatherston out with a baseball bat, that would be self-defence. However, once Weatherston was clearly incapacitated (and thus no longer a threat), if she hit him again on the head to intentionally kill him after what he had done to Sophie (an ordinary human response to such evil), that would be murder requiring (under present caselaw) a life sentence. If she could rely on provocation, it would certainly succeed and the judge could sentence her to anything they saw fit from a discharge without conviction through to a fine, community service, or jail for any period up to and including life, if the circumstances required.
Provocation must stay, albeit perhaps not in its present form.
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:28 pm
I agree that there is a valid defense of provication, but in this particular case I was actually refering to the mans manner and his self indulgent five day live story during which he tried to show us how clever he was and how bad she was. Very little of what he presented had anything to do with his self defense argument.
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Do we have ‘temporary insanity’ as a defense here? Or is that what the provocation defense is meant to be?
It seems to me that it should probably be there, but the standards should be extremely high. As with P-induced psychosis, or drunken driving leading to death, the question arises of ‘to what extent is the perpetrator responsible for having put themselves in the position where they were a danger to others?’ If you have hot temper, and you know it, then even going around to someone’s house to have a screaming argument at them could be seen as a form of premeditation (particularly if you are in the habit of carrying a knife).
The truth is often lost anyway, since violent acts are often shrouded in the mystery of lost memory and falsified evidence. Weatherston could have put scissors in the dead girl’s hand, he could even have stabbed himself with them first to make it look real. Or in the constructed example of the mother avenging her, who could really know except through confession, which blow it was that killed him, and what the intention of the blow was, or if he was incapacitated at the time? How often does one hit someone over the head with a baseball bat, to get a feel for what a killing blow feels like? How many of us have been in life-or-death struggles to know exactly how much violence is too much?
But sometimes there are pretty clear-cut cases – anyone can see stabbing and mutilating a defenseless girl hundreds of times is too much, even if we might think a punch in the mouth was warranted (I don’t think that, but I’m aware of a lot of people who do think like that).
July 23rd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Very difficult to know what one would do if confronted with this sort of situation, but if it happened to me I’d like to think that if possible I would incapacitate the offender but I wouldn’t want to kill them. I’d rather they faced justice and not me. I wouldn’t rule out killing someone if the situation warranted it but I’d avoid it if possible.
I think it gets dicey if you killed someone after the imminent danger had passed. If you killed out of revenge, retribution, even anger, that moves into the same territory of the offender.
An admittedly unlikely scenario – you arrive on a scene just after a murder of someone in your family and due to “provocation” kill the offender, if someone related to the offender then arrived could they be justified killing you?
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:10 pm
What a good guy. He has set the record straight and confirmed that Sophie in no way contributed to her fate. I just hope that if Weatherston thinks about an appeal his advisors point out a few more home truths are now in the public domain. Thank you who ever you are and when I think of Sophies ex boyfriend I will think of an honourable man who cared enough to make sure the truth came out
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:55 pm
“An admittedly unlikely scenario – you arrive on a scene just after a murder of someone in your family and due to “provocation” kill the offender, if someone related to the offender then arrived could they be justified killing you?”
Never a problem Cerium as long as you always make sure you have at least two shells in your gun.
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Knowing my nature, if I came upon the scene of a murderer or rapist who had damaged MY child, my heart might burst in the attempt to murder the person responsible. I would not think about consequences then or later. If I suceeded in my attempt, that knowledge would keep me “comfortable” enough in jail if a jury found me guilty of murder. I might wish they hadn’t but c’est la vie. Law is just, after all, the Law, not necessarily justice.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:48 pm
OK, I see it this way.
This impotent prick always thought he was better than he was ,had delusions of his ability,in short ,thought he was a senior in his field of chioce.
Problem was he was far from it.
Work was going from bad to worse and as his partner was moving on from him and upward ,above what ever sick evaulted scenario his warped world was in his mind.
He murdered her because she was already way above his level and his tantrum ended in her demise.
The trial was his last chance,in his mind, to try and show everyone he was the interlectial he never was, not before and not during the trial.
In the end it was a master stroke for the family of the deceased, as he came across as what he was ,a sad little wanker,not worthy of sympathy and quite simply pathetic.
I wish the Eliott family all the best wishes for there future,good New Zealanders who never ever deserved this in their lives
As for the defense lawyer,I hope you remember your part in this disgrace for along time, because I wont forget the level of your professionalism, it was poor.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:06 pm
DF “It illustrates once again how vile the defence strategy was.”
As a layperson I make no comment about the strategy chosen, its efficacy or otherwise. I do comment on your use of language, though – ‘vile’ is very prejorative, and implies moral failure and perhaps unprofessionalism within the defence legal team. Was that your intention?
Frankly, alex Masterley I’m surprised he doesn’t pass the test for insanity.
[DPF: It is clear to me that the defence strategy was set by the defendent, not his lawyers.]
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Knowing my nature, if I came upon the scene of a murderer or rapist who had damaged MY child, my heart might burst in the attempt to murder the person responsible. I would not think about consequences then or later.
Once again, this is justifiable force and is a complete defense, not a provocation defense. If you kill someone who was attacking your child you are not guilty of a crime if the steps you took to save your child were reasonable. If you killed someone because you flipped out after he or she refused to babysit your child (the Rongonui case) then that is one in which a provocation defense could apply. If you chase after a tagger with a knife and the tagger winds up dead (the Bruce Emery case) then that is also a defense in which provocation could apply.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:47 am
Some thoughts on the provocation defence. http://sundaybreakfast.tumblr.com/post/147544277/i-should-really-stop-watching-the-nightly-news-in-the
Basically if it’s abolished there seems to be enough flexibility in the law for judges to respond to mitigating circumstances. If they don’t suck that is.
July 24th, 2009 at 9:52 am
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edit, wrong thread bugger