Tuesday 24 November 2009

How do you define murder?

An article on yesterday's BBC news related to yesterday's Panorama. It was about murder convictions for people who were not directly involved in the violence and there was an interview with the mother of a murderer who felt an injustice had been performed. There was also an interview with the wife of Garry Newlove who was kicked to death by a gang outside his home in Warrington. She thought that justice had been done.

So are you a murderer if you stand by and watch the person next to you murder someone? The law obviously says this is a possibility. I don't have any knowledge of the detail of this attack, but what I do know is that if I stood next to a someone who was killing someone else then I would feel guilty if I did nothing. I may even feel guilty if I did my best to stop it, and I would find it really hard to feel innocent.

We should let the courts decide who is the murderer. If we have a law that says bystanders are always innocent then that law is not just.

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