Dissing The Dead

I have been meaning to do this for a while, but the original (and subsequent) post disappeared. But thanks to the sterling work of CoralPoetry, I have a copy of Terry Hamblin’s reprehensible and sickening attack on Sally Clark on the occasion of her premature death. So here we go, a fisk of the latest person to earn The Appalling Strangeness’s Worthless Cunt tag.

He begins:

“Sally Clark, the mother who was imprisoned for 3 years for killing her two infant sons, but later released following a campaign to discredit the medical witness against her”

Nope, following a campaign to prove her innocence. The discrediting of the medical witness was a pleasant and just side effect.

“has died under suspicious circumstances.”

Well, no, she died before her time. May not be usual. But is hardly unprecedented. Or that suspicious.

“News outlets are hinting at suicide”

Actually, the news outlets I saw quoted a family source who said Sally had been in poor health for some time, but don’t let details stand in your way, there, Terry.

“and that she was known to have had an alcohol problem and to have been a depressive.”

What, so everyone who is a depressive and/or an alcoholic commits suicide, then? Is that what you are trying to hint at? Because alcoholism and depression are very (and perhaps increasingly) common and to my knowledge, there has not been a sudden or proportionate rise in the number of suicides. Perhaps it is just easy for the likes of Terry to judge those who suffer from those problems. Rather than try to understand or empathise with them.

“So far response in the correspondence columns of the major newspapers has been that the ordeal of unjust imprisonment had driven her to it.”

Again, no proof of suicide. The general implication of the coverage and commentary on Sally’s premature death was that three years in prison, so soon after the deaths of her babies and with the stress and trauma of being classed as a child killer in one of our penal institutions, may have broken Sally. But fuck me, Terry, that would break all but the stoutest of hearts. How would you feel after the death of your children, being imprisoned for their murders, and then having to ensure the taunts of your fellow inmates and the constant threat of violence? I am guessing: not great.

“I wonder. Perhaps she was possessed by guilt that she really had killed her kids and remorse that she had brought down two eminent professors of paediatrics in getting the decision reversed.”

Already dealt with this. But I would reiterate - I hope Sally did not give a flying fuck about the ignorant medical charlatans who condemned falsely to two life sentences.

“I have not followed the case closely”

So why, *precisely*, do you feel you can comment on it so negatively just after Sally Clark died?

“but it seems to me that anyone who attacks motherhood is on a hiding to nothing, even if the mother is a lawyer.”

What?

What the fuck?

The false conviction of Sally Clark was not an attack on motherhood. It was an attack on Sally Clark. And as the woeful expert witness career of Roy Meadow shows, people are more than willing to convict mothers. Also, Sally was a solicitor, not a lawyer. Small point, I know, but still important, I would argue.

“There has been a prolonged and vituperative attack on the concept of Munchausen-by-proxy”

Which, by my understanding, is a symptom (albeit a highly destructive and awful symptom) of a wider mental disorder rather than a disease in itself. Making Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy the motive for double murder is a flawed diagnosis.

“and the doctor who videoed a mother harming her child in hospital was attacked for an intrusion into privacy.”

Yep, quick question, but what *precisely* does the above have to do with Sally Clark? It is an entirely separate incident, and entirely separate case. It has nothing to with the argument, and is irrelevant to the erroneous and flawed conviction of Sally Clark and her subsequent tragic death. The doctor in the case mentioned above was attacked for getting it right. The doctor(s) in the Sally Clark case got it wrong.

“It may be that Sally Clark was entirely innocent.”

Uh-huh, that was the conclusion of the court when the full facts of the case came to light.

“I suspect we will never know the truth.”

Perhaps not. So maybe we should go with the judgment of the court after, at the risk of repeating myself, the full facts of the case came to light.

“However, being declared innocent by a court doesn't make you innocent any more than being declared guilty by a court makes you guilty.”

Absolutely right. But what is your alternative, Terry? Because in this country, being declared innocent means you are innocent. For libel purposes, anyway.

“I rather suspect that more people are falsely declared innocent than are falsely declared guilty.”

Yep, the concept of “beyond reasonable doubt”, designed to save the innocent from circumstantial evidence. And if the full evidence had been known when Sally was first on trial I believe she would never have been convicted.

To publish this sort of hurtful, ignorant bullshit so soon after the death of someone is offensive in the extreme. I have no issue with calling people, such as our Dear Leader, total cunts. But – if they didn’t have far better things to do that construct retorts to a right-wing ranter – those people have the right of reply. I would never, ever, publish a mix of insults and total lies on the occasion of the death of the likes of Blair or Miliband.

And you know the reason why? I still see those people as human beings – stupid, flawed, fuckwitted twats, to be sure – but still human beings. So when they die, I will show them some respect, because they were humans at the end of the day, and will have loved ones who will mourn their passing. I can empathise with that. Because I still have some sort of emotional connection with the human race.

However, judging by these crass comments, Hamblin has no emotional connection to humanity. And it is the same as the cold, brutal emotional detachment from fellow humans that allowed Meadow to spout the statistical bollocks that allowed Sally Clark to be convicted in the first place.