Abused women are punished for fighting back...
SINCE 1990, when I co-founded Justice for Women, I have come across countless cases of men killing women for spurious reasons. In fact, a woman in this country is killed by a current or former partner every two days. Far less common, however, are cases of women killing men for spurious reasons. I’m not someone who would routinely believe any woman who has decided, for whatever reason, to hit out at a man and pretend she has endured violence, but it is extremely rare for a woman to kill a male partner unless they have experienced sustained domestic abuse. I believe Penelope Jackson is one of those women.
There is clear evidence that she was abused. Penelope had a tattoo on her behind that said “Property of David Jackson”. She had suffered sexual abuse, was bullied, had been head butted. He throttled her several times on a cruise holiday because she didn’t order him coffee after dinner. He controlled her every movement and made her feel like she was nothing. He did not have to do this every day, she was in constant fear of his sporadic and irrational outbursts.
Men do not do this in plain sight, they do not attack their partners in public or in
‘They are Jekyll and
Hyde characters’
front of grown-up children, but they do do it in the home.they are Jekyll and Hyde characters, not bad through and through. Other relatives may believe they know a man, they may even be close, but they are not in a relationship with him.they can never know what it is like to be an intimate partner to him.
Penelope’s actions, when police came, have given the impression she is “pure evil”, as her sister-in-law described her. Her lack of remorse and vitriol is shocking for some to see, but I have witnessed so many women judged on the basis of their traumatic responses. In one case, in the 1980s, Sarah Thornton killed her very violent husband and when the police came she nipped one of their bottoms and started giggling.
Often what we see at these times of great stress is a reaction of irrationality, and this can lead the public to believe she is a bad woman.this can be stoked by grieving relatives, who understandably are distressed and will not have it that their loved one has been abusive.
As a society, we don’t like it when a woman doesn’t behave “womanly” – when she isn’t loving, or upset or subservient.the court felt Penelope Jackson should have been howling with remorse, screaming that she loved him.
But why? She hated him in that moment.when something horrific like this happens, the majority of women I have spoken to don’t even remember the fatal act. It is the trauma blocking out a rational response.that is my understanding of Penelope Jackson.
She has been sentenced to life with a minimum of 18 years for murder. Now I don’t advocate for a second giving her a get-out-of-jail-free card, but in my view this isn’t a murder. It is manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility due to domestic abuse.
Men are routinely given lenient sentences for unlawfully killing a woman. Anthonywilliams strangled his wife to death five days into the first lockdown and claimed he had been depressed because of coronavirus restrictions. He received five years and was convicted of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. Sam Pybus was jailed for four years and eight months for strangling Sophie Moss to death during sex because he claimed she liked it.
Neither of these reasons is stronger than years of sustained coercive control and abuse, yet they got less than if they had knocked their partner down while driving drunk. Swap Sam Pybus with Sophie Moss and would she have got under five years? No way.
Women grow up knowing violence against them is minimised, that this is a completely and utterly unjust world. Men have the excuse of being provoked: by nagging, by an affair, by a partner’s attempt to leave.women receive no such luxury. There is no normalisation of female violence.
Penelope has been portrayed as cruel, vicious and violent.all the years of abuse she suffered have been whitewashed by her final act.
Women will be afraid to come forward, not because they fear they are going to kill their partners, but that they may be treated in the same way and the violence they have endured will be diminished or dismissed.
Penelope Jackson’s conviction gives a message to women everywhere that male violence is not serious and that if they fight back they will be severely punished – even more so because of their sex.
I don’t believe this woman is a murderer. I don’t believe that she is a threat to society. And I don’t believe she received a fair trial.
Justice Forwomen will be campaigning on her behalf for her to get an appeal and a fresh hearing, not just for her, but for all women suffering domestic abuse.