Saturday, October 25, 2014

Another Disaster

We saw another case involving a tragic death the other day, in what is known as a one-punch manslaughter. I can't go into detail, but a man punched another, who fell backwards onto a concrete pavement, hitting his head. The victim suffered a fractured skull, occasioning brain damage. The assailant came into court in custody,  charged with a Section 18 GBH With Intent but the prosecutor said that the doctors were expected to cease life support within 24 hours, and that the charge was likely to change to manslaughter. There was no application for bail.

What a total tragedy. If only people realised just how fragile the human skull can be, and how vulnerable the brain within.

That was the last involvement of the magistrates' court, as the case will now be sent to the Crown Court in a matter of a few days.

8 comments:

  1. What is it with one-punch assaults? They seem to be so much more prevelent these days. I'm in Australia where there have been several 'one-punch' deaths and many cases of permanent brain damage. The penalties have been increased and politicians have hopped on the band wagon by labelling them 'coward punches' (although uncontrolled aggression doesn't seem to be an issue of either cowardice or bravery to me). They still occur. One of the victims was the son of friends. Apart from the tragedy of his sudden loss they had the horror of watching him suffocate when his life support was switched off. No-one had told them he would die that way.

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  2. Does anyone not know just how fragile the human skull can be? As with most crimes, the assailant doesn't consider the possible consequences. To the victim or himself.

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  3. Aren't these just allegations for the moment?

    Kate Caveat

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  4. Having watched 'Cops' quite often people who have been Tasered go down with a thud. After all they also fall helplessly onto the ground.
    Do these ever die?

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    2. Hold on Joe Public. The article says, "He is the seventh person to die after being shot with a Taser since they were introduced in Britain in 2003". That's totally different to the deaths being "attributed to the use of taser". In fact no Coroner has yet to have taser as a cause of death that I know of.

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    3. Jimbob: There is one case in the USA where a Coroner has attributed death to the use of the TASER up to March 31, 2014. Naturally, all the interested parties contest or support that verdict.

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  5. Anonymous: yes, but probably much more rarely than the press would like to think: Fox AW, Payne-James JJ. Conducted energy devices: Pilot analysis of (non-) attributability of death using a modified Naranjo algorithm. Forens Sci Internat 2012; 223: 261-265.

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