Inglis: 'Mercy killing' case adjourned
A surprise turn of events happened in Court 4 of the Royal Courts of Justice this morning.
The Lord Chief Justice and two fellow High Court judges were there to hear an application by Frances Inglis against her murder conviction. The judges were ready and the case was set down for the whole day. Ready too were the barristers and solicitors for the Crown and the defence.
The only person not ready was the applicant herself. A letter emerged yesterday in which Frances Inglis stated she wanted alternative counsel - effectively sacking her legal team.
Inglis had been found guilty in January of the murder and attempted murder of her brain-damaged son, Thomas. She injected him with heroin because she said she wanted to release him from a "living hell".
Speaking from behind the bars of the dock today, Inglis told Lord Judge, "I don't feel I'll get a fair hearing if it goes ahead now. There are a lot of issues I'd like you to consider regarding the trial and it would be sad if that was denied."
The judges agreed to adjourn her application for permission to appeal against conviction, but no new court date was set.
Lord Judge asked who she wanted to represent her. Inglis replied that it was an "elderly" barrister who was well-known at the Old Bailey and whom she'd met two years before.
Lord Judge pointed out that if the barrister could not be located or was unable to take the case, then leading counsel would be appointed on her behalf.
The judges, when they eventually hear the application, will have the chance to review the evidence and the punishment.
Although Inglis was given a mandatory life sentence, Judge Brian Barker imposed a minimum term of nine years. This follows in 2002 concerning the tariff for murder.
These state that for murders with mitigating circumstances, such as where the offender believes the murder is an "act of mercy", minimum terms of eight or nine years are "justified".
So-called "mercy-killings" do not automatically lead to such a lengthy sentence. In 2007 He suffocated her with a plastic bag and pillow.
But there appear to be significant differences between the two cases. Patricia Lund had been determined to kill herself. She wrote suicide notes on the day of her death before taking huge numbers of painkillers. Frank Lund only reluctantly agreed to help his wife end her life. : "If you had not agreed to suffocate your wife, she would have committed suicide very shortly afterwards." Furthermore, medical evidence showed that the overdose would have killed her, without medical intervention.
By contrast, Thomas Inglis had been in a coma since falling from an ambulance in 2007 and suffering serious brain damage. Unlike Patricia Lund he was unable to express his own views.
At Frances Inglis's trial, evidence was given that she had refused to believe doctors who said Thomas was showing signs of recovery. Inglis injected her son with heroin, but he survived. A year later, when she was on bail for his attempted murder, she barricaded herself into his room and again injected him with heroin. This time, she succeeded in killing him.
Judge Barker described Inglis as a "devoted mother". But he said, "You cannot take the law into your own hands and you cannot take away life, however compelling you think the reason."
Both Inglis and Lund were strongly supported by their families. Frances Inglis's two surviving sons were in court today. After her trial, her eldest son Alex called for "mercy killings" to be dealt with under different rules to murder.
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