Media/court coverage of parents who kill

Nermal

lozenges wrote: »

So based on a single study performed over 40years ago we should discredit the entire field of psychiatry?

‘Discredit the whole field’ is putting words in my mouth. But it certainly means that a ‘diagnosis’ on the basis of self-reported symptoms should not be relied on in a criminal trial. I cannot find any record of attempts to repeat it, but neither has there been any advance in those 40 years that would prevent exactly the same thing happening.

lozenges wrote: »

Do you accept that delusions and psychotic breaks are real conditions?

Almost certainly, yes. But I have no way to be sure of their existence or diagnose them, and neither does anyone else, regardless of their qualifications. On that basis, why shouldn’t people who claim to have them should receive the same sentence as anyone else?

splinter65

Nermal wrote: »

‘Discredit the whole field’ is putting words in my mouth. But it certainly means that a ‘diagnosis’ on the basis of self-reported symptoms should not be relied on in a criminal trial. I cannot find any record of attempts to repeat it, but neither has there been any advance in those 40 years that would prevent exactly the same thing happening.



Almost certainly, yes. But I have no way to be sure of their existence or diagnose them, and neither does anyone else, regardless of their qualifications. On that basis, why shouldn’t people who claim to have them should receive the same sentence as anyone else?

So in a nutshell you would prefer to ignore professional medical opinion and diagnosis and just send seriously ill people to prison as if they weren’t seriously ill at all.
I see.
Do you apply this total disregard of medical opinion in favor of your own opinion to all spheres of medicine or just psychiatry?

DexyDrain

It was reported from the inquest that Alan Hawe was likely suffering from depression and/or psychosis when he murdered his family. Strange that psychiatry has regained respectability and reliability in time for this discussion.

hatrickpatrick

I'm not going to post it here as it would obviously be contempt of court, but what strikes me as odd about this case is that the court ordered anonymity even though the names of both the mother and the deceased were widely reported in the media at the time of the incident, and that the papers today have been allowed to give a timeline as to when the incident occurred which leaves practically no doubt as to which case is being referred to. I find it very odd that they'd order anonymity in a case in which thanks to previous reporting, the cat is very much out of the bag. Everyone I've spoken to about this case knows full well who was involved due to the extensive media coverage of the discovery of that poor girl's body at the time, the arrest of the mother, and how upsetting it was for the first responders in the Gardaí and emergency services.

lozenges

DexyDrain wrote: »

It was reported from the inquest that Alan Hawe was likely suffering from depression and/or psychosis when he murdered his family. Strange that psychiatry has regained respectability and reliability in time for this discussion.

You can't detect psychiatric disorders from an inquest. They are not organic illnesses.

Alan Hawe murdered his family. Someone who has the foresight to transfer money to his relatives to avoid it going to his wife's family is able to conceptualise the future consequences of his actions.
Having a history of mental illness, or even an active mental illness such as depression does not mean that everyone with those conditions are unable to distinguish right from wrong or understand the consequences of their actions.
In contrast someone having an acute psychotic episode has lost contact with reality and is not able to either understand right from wrong or the consequences of their actions.

DexyDrain

lozenges wrote: »

You can't detect psychiatric disorders from an inquest. They are not organic illnesses.

Alan Hawe murdered his family. Someone who has the foresight to transfer money to his relatives to avoid it going to his wife's family is able to conceptualise the future consequences of his actions.
Having a history of mental illness, or even an active mental illness such as depression does not mean that everyone with those conditions are unable to distinguish right from wrong or understand the consequences of their actions.
In contrast someone having an acute psychotic episode has lost contact with reality and is not able to either understand right from wrong or the consequences of their actions.

The director of the Central Mental Hospital reviewed all of the medical notes and concluded that Hawe had progressed to a ‘severe depressive episode with psychotic symptoms’.

You can’t say for sure he transferred money to avoid it going to his wife’s family, we haven’t seen the note. He may have transferred money to pay for the funerals for all we know and would be less likely to have details for the in-laws.

It’s just a starkly different response to similar medical opinions.

SusieBlue

DexyDrain wrote: »

The director of the Central Mental Hospital reviewed all of the medical notes and concluded that Hawe had progressed to a ‘severe depressive episode with psychotic symptoms’.

You can’t say for sure he transferred money to avoid it going to his wife’s family, we haven’t seen the note. He may have transferred money to pay for the funerals for all we know and would be less likely to have details for the in-laws.

It’s just a starkly different response to similar medical opinions.

The woman in this case was definitively diagnosed by two independant professionals who assessed her.
There is a big difference between that, and saying Alan Hawe was "likely" suffering from a severe depressive episode, after his death when he couldn't even be evaluated.

Trying to point score saying men have it worse than women because of those two specific cases is in extremely poor taste when they have very little in common.

ohnonotgmail

DexyDrain wrote: »

The director of the Central Mental Hospital reviewed all of the medical notes and concluded that Hawe had progressed to a ‘severe depressive episode with psychotic symptoms’.

You can’t say for sure he transferred money to avoid it going to his wife’s family, we haven’t seen the note. He may have transferred money to pay for the funerals for all we know and would be less likely to have details for the in-laws.

It’s just a starkly different response to similar medical opinions.

But he never actually met Hawe. all his info was second hand. the lady in this case was diagnosed in person by multiple psychiatrists.

GoneHome

https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2019/1024/1085444-courts-mother/

Murder your own child but get released on bail, ffs this country at times....................

Faugheen

GoneHome wrote: »

https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2019/1024/1085444-courts-mother/

Murder your own child but get released on bail, ffs this country at times....................

I see the phrase ‘not guilty’ has no meaning to you.

please god she gets better soon eh, back to her kids.

who she was safe to mind at the time and will soon be safe to mind again, according to the experts responsible for her care when she was a psychotic who killed a child and are happy to plead her case in court

my objection to the idea of "not guilty by reason of insanity" and the ensuing coverage in a case like this is that it reduces the crime and the victims to a symptom of the person on trial.

the mental health lobby (be that advocacy for sufferers or the industry based on it) dont give two hoots for the child dead here.

if this woman was a known risk, she shouldnt have had custody of children. if she was not responsible for her actions, then someone must be responsible for her access to do this. otherwise what?

"nobody is to blame"

bull****.

and i can live with the projections of my monstrosity from anyone who doesnt like it- as the product of a home where parents weren't particularly fit to raise kids but our welfare was secondary to their diagnosis and treatment.

high five to the experts and high fives to anyone chuffed to bits for her successful defence. i guess there's just nothing to be done when a mental patient kills a kid, huh? i mean whoever could have guessed she was a risk?

none of the experts anyway, but let's pretend that their word is iron when it comes to court.

stinks.

Gatling

Faugheen wrote: »

I see the phrase ‘not guilty’ has no meaning to you.

By reason of insanity - why would she be detained /committed if she is innocent

SusieBlue

Gatling wrote: »

By reason of insanity - why would she be detained /committed if she is innocent

For her own safety and the safety of others, until she is mentally stable and well again?

SusieBlue

SusieBlue wrote: »

For her own safety and the safety of others, until she is mentally stable and well again?

why was she out to do it in the first place, under this reasoning?

debok

SusieBlue wrote: »

For her own safety and the safety of others, until she is mentally stable and well again?

How she released on bail. Is she mentally stable now until they find a bed for her?

ohnonotgmail

Gatling wrote: »

By reason of insanity - why would she be detained /committed if she is innocent

for treatment.

SusieBlue

[Deleted User] wrote: »

why was she out to do it in the first place, under this reasoning?

I see nothing in the linked article that suggests that any psychiatrists, doctors or indeed Gardaí were aware of the woman’s psychosis before she committed the crime.
It was only discovered after the fact when her mental state was evaluated.

Why would she not be ‘out to do it in the first place’, when no one, least of all herself, knew she was even mentally unwell and experiencing psychosis?

SusieBlue

debok wrote: »

How she released on bail. Is she mentally stable now until they find a bed for her?

How would I know the answer to such a question? If they released her until they have a bed for her she’s presumably being monitored and under curfew, and she probably isn’t considered to be an immediate danger to herself or anyone else.

However that’s pure speculation and I don’t know the answer to it any more than you do.

debok

SusieBlue wrote: »

How would I know the answer to such a question? If they released her until they have a bed for her she’s presumably being monitored and under curfew, and she probably isn’t considered to be an immediate danger to herself or anyone else.

However that’s pure speculation and I don’t know the answer to it any more than you do.

Sorry didn't mean to quote you.You can Untwist your knickers now

DexyDrain

SusieBlue wrote: »

The woman in this case was definitively diagnosed by two independant professionals who assessed her.
There is a big difference between that, and saying Alan Hawe was "likely" suffering from a severe depressive episode, after his death when he couldn't even be evaluated.

Trying to point score saying men have it worse than women because of those two specific cases is in extremely poor taste when they have very little in common.

It’s not in poor taste to compare how psychiatric reports were treated differently in two cases in commentary here and elsewhere. It’s not appropriate to try and shame people for pointing out the glaring inconsistency of people commenting on similar cases.

Firstly, you cannot be diagnosed ‘definitively’ with a non-organic mental disturbance, as pointed out above. Both the Hawe inquest and this court case were trying to determine the culprit’s mental state before and at the time of the crime. How they present afterwards is not reliable enough to say someone was ‘definitively’ suffering psychosis in the past. It’s an opinion. They were both retrospectively disgnosed. In one case it was based on prior medical history, the nature of the crime and the suicide note. In the other it was based on how a person charged with murder, who had killed their own child, presented afterwards and on their medical history.

Graces7

SusieBlue wrote: »

For her own safety and the safety of others, until she is mentally stable and well again?

and for treatment. Mental illness can be treated.

Graces7

DexyDrain wrote: »

It’s not in poor taste to compare how psychiatric reports were treated differently in two cases in commentary here and elsewhere. It’s not appropriate to try and shame people for pointing out the glaring inconsistency of people commenting on similar cases.

Firstly, you cannot be diagnosed ‘definitively’ with a non-organic mental disturbance, as pointed out above. Both the Hawe inquest and this court case were trying to determine the culprit’s mental state before and at the time of the crime. How they present afterwards is not reliable enough to say someone was ‘definitively’ suffering psychosis in the past. It’s an opinion. They were both retrospectively disgnosed. In one case it was based on prior medical history, the nature of the crime and the suicide note. In the other it was based on how a person charged with murder, who had killed their own child, presented afterwards and on their medical history.

Your entire post is based on a serious error. Period.

lozenges

Hawe is dead so speculation about his mental state can only ever be that, speculation. His behaviour to me from media reports does not seem consistent with an acute psychosis but it will never be possible to know with any degree of certainty.
This lady on the other hand has been assessed in person by two psychiatrists, who have taken into account not just self reported symptoms but also evidence from people close to her and her GP that her mental state was deteriorating prior to this incident.
Somewhat different.

DexyDrain

lozenges wrote: »

Hawe is dead so speculation about his mental state can only ever be that, speculation. His behaviour to me from media reports does not seem consistent with an acute psychosis but it will never be possible to know with any degree of certainty.
This lady on the other hand has been assessed in person by two psychiatrists, who have taken into account not just self reported symptoms but also evidence from people close to her and her GP that her mental state was deteriorating prior to this incident.
Somewhat different.

According to the reporting of the inquest he had a history of depression since 2008, had recently been to ten sessions with a counsellor and his GP had prescribed sleeping tablets. His GP said he turned up after washing his feet in bleach because of a possible fungal infection. The expert psychiatric report said his depression had deteriorated and showed signs of catastrophising and delusional behaviour. Not so different.