People's reactions to Harold Shipman on the event of his death have interested me. It's said that he was an evil man, and I suppose by definition, he was... but of course, it's never that black & white, is it?

Are evil people truly evil, or as much victims as the people who's lives they destroy? Did Harold Shipman make a concious choice to be a murderer, or was it simply a behaviour affecting affliction he had?

I refuse to believe that anybody would conciously decide "Right, I think I know what I want to do with my life... I'll be a serial killer." However, Harold Shipman and other serial killers were villified as if they did.

In the case of other mental illnesses where behaviour is affected, for example, tourette syndrome, are helped and supported with their affliction, and provision is made for them in society.

When someone with tourette screams a profanity in the middle of a supermarket, they aren't held accountable for their actions. It's an illness they were born with, or that developed within them, and no fault of their own. So why was Shipman blamed for all those murders? Is it not feasable to think he was just as much a victim as the many people he killed?

So why is he villified? Why do we slap a big "Evil" sticker on his forehead and lock him in a room for the rest of his life? Why is he not offered all the same support as other people with behaviour changing mental afflictions?

Good idea, give him some counselling and send him home. You have to ask did he know what he was doing was wrong, which I strongly believe he did, if so, no excuses. You can only take do-gooding so far.

Kormiic spouted:
Is it not feasable to think he was just as much a victim as the many people he killed?


Erm, no.

I find it amazing that Shipman kills himself and gets himself a top level inquiry. There are dozens of people who have killed themselves while on remand or serving short sentences for relatively minor offences. They usually get a 10 minute investigation and an apology from the Prison Service if they're lucky.

Intersting point Kormy!
Its like when Im on the bus... and Im touching myself... I know its wrong... But I just cant help it? I know Im a very very bad man and I need help!

:haha::haha::haha: _^^_

Do you think he killed himself or someone helped him out? It's fair to say in all likelihood he was afflicted with mental illness but in prison he had access to specialists trained to help people in his situation + you need to keep people like this in prison for their own safety and that of the general public.

Lil' al spouted:
people like this in prison for their own safety and that of the general public.

People like this should maybe be isolated from the public, but what's the justification of persecuting someone as an evil villain when they're simply a victim of circumstances?

Maybe Harold Shipman was a truly evil man who saught pleasure by murdering little old ladies, or maybe he was just some poor guy who was born with or developed a disorder. I don't think the current justice system cares either way.

I think what you have to remember here is the impact of the persons actions on the victim differs wildly here.

Person in supermarket with tourettes syndrome says "Arse Crackers" really loudly and licks the floor a few times. This is an involuntary outburst, ie, they dont intend to do it. Victim suffers the following effects. 1) Puzzlement at why the person is licking the floor, 2) Some mild offence at the word Arse Crackers, 3) Amusement that someone just shouted "Arse Crackers" in a supermarket.

GP murders potentially 215 elderly people, using the tools of his trade to carry out the deed. Victim suffers the following effects. 1) Death.

I was talking about this to a friend last night. Surely to be able to go about your daily business whilst murdering 10 people a year for 20 years indicates that there was an element of ration to Dr Shipman.

As far as I understand it, he didnt have a secret laboratory where he was creating the ultimate human form out of parts of deceased geriatrics. He has never revealed his motive, so you cant say whether or not he was mentally ill or not. However, he would have undergone rigorous psychiatric testing and observation whilst in custody, and if he WAS psychiatrically unbalanced would have been placed in a top security hospital, and not a prison. This leads me to believe that he was rational and coherent, and most likely as sane as you or I, just with extremely misguided moral boundaries.

You explain to me how you support a man in the community who murdered 215 people and stop him doing it again and I will tell you what prisons were invented for.

Unfortunately, you cant chemically castrate a murderer and stop them from killing. Its just not the done thing.

As far as I know there has never been any defence offered by Shipman, his legal team or his family that he was suffering from any form of mental illness. That being the case, he was deemed fit to stand trial. This he did and was convicted on overwhelming evidence. I'm quite happy to accept in this case that he was guilty as charged.

What did concern me slightly was that numerous news broadcasts yesterday referred to him as "Britain's Worst Serial Killer". Surely he was "Britain's Best Serial Killer".

Venison Weird spouted:
What did concern me slightly was that numerous news broadcasts yesterday referred to him as "Britain's Worst Serial Killer". Surely he was "Britain's Best Serial Killer".

In that he was the most effective, yes. You couldn't ever refer to a serial killer with a positive term such as 'best' though.

You sannot make provisions for serial killers to be rehabillitated or returned to society, they have to be locked up for life, the concequences are far too appaling to even consider a release, see what heppened with the 'costa killer',

tried and convicted of some brutal attacks in london, released, then went on to kill at least 2 women in spain!

Serial killers do deserve some sympathy for the tragedy that has become their lives, but they just cannot function safley in society they HAVE to be locked up until they die. there is no other viable soloution (apart from being put to death, which is not really an acceptable choice)

I never said anything about rehabilitation and release. That is quite silly. However, I refuse to believe any sane person would simply choose to kill someone without a compelling motive, unless there is some kind of urge they succumb to that is beyond their control.

Agreed, they should be locked away from society, but why are they put in the same system of punishment as much more rational motivated criminals? Seems like it could be punishing someone for being a victim.

where should they go then? i'm not sure what you are getting at there, and to fail to punish them for the horrific crimes they commit would be a failing of the justice system. Yes they are mentally ill, but they are damaged beyond repair, and anything short of locking them up for life is unsafe. Unsafe for them as much as anyone else

What does anybody gain by punishing Harold? You think the nation gains anything by watching a man suffer? Would that not make you just as bad, if not worse than him?

i reckon he believed that these people were just too old and useless and a burden on society, so he bumped them off
i also believe he was sane

lol!

I'm surprised nobody has come up with the other excuse for being "evil" yet.

It's in my Genes milord.
I can't help killing people, it's what my body has been programmed to do at a cellular level.

Thus spake Kormiic:
I refuse to believe that anybody would conciously decide "Right, I think I know what I want to do with my life... I'll be a serial killer."
Why do you refuse believe that? The more time goes on the harder it is to maintain that refusal.

All sorts of psychos believe they are just the person to go around sorting the wheat from the chaff and then disposing of the chaff. Timothy McVeigh, September 11, there are plenty of examples of people being killed in a cold and systematic way.

Shipman's suicide was not a reversal of his policy of knocking off the frail, it was a continuation of it. He must have realised either a) his position was deeply wrong, he had no right to make the assessment let alone take the action he took, or b) that his position was hopeless and that death was the only way he could free himself of the prison system.

I agree with hugo when he said:
i reckon he believed that these people were just too old and useless and a burden on society, so he bumped them off
i also believe he was sane

As an individual Shipman deserves as much sympathy as each of his many victims, and that sympathy seems to be missing from your posts Kormiic.

When someone with tourette screams a profanity in the middle of a supermarket, they aren't held accountable for their actions.
Society is big enough to cop a profanity now and then. If people aren't safe from supposed carers then society itself isn't safe.

No system "cares" Kormiic, the whole idea of any system is either to take the care out of a process, or create a synthetic approximation of "care". The system should focus on damage limitation first, treatment second. If you're a homicidal maniac and you're locked up (in an asylum or a prison) then your damage is limited to yourself. Normally prisons are designed to make it impossible to hang yourself, don't know why it didn't work here.

Treatment is a consideration only when a dangerous individual is removed from society as a whole. Now the conditions of that detention, what happens while said individual is detained - that is something on which I am neither qualified, nor prepared to investigate too deeply.

i just heard of it today, ibet guards hung the wanker.
he got the "death penalty, ohio lethally injected a vicious robber murderer today, seem's this one 'under the table lethal injection
[quote he who lives by the sword, dies on a noose[/quote]

The nature of evil?

Psychological.

Excuses.

it's always "them" what did it.

has anyone ever said that he might have been a sufferer of the munchen thingy by proxy? you know like that beverly allit woman who killed those kids?

and im not sticking up for him at all incase anyone thinks i am, just asking a qeustion.

evil bastard.

It has been said today that it's possible he killed himself knowing that his wife would then get his nhs pension due to him being under 60. I must admit when i saw her and his son on tv yesterday i felt quite sorry for them because im sure they musn't have know what he was doing when he was killing these old people.

AnthillMob spouted:
has anyone ever said that he might have been a sufferer of the munchen thingy by proxy? you know like that beverly allit woman who killed those kids?

and im not sticking up for him at all incase anyone thinks i am, just asking a qeustion.

evil bastard.

Not that Im aware of, and Im sure they would have considered it as an option. No, they tend to give diagnoses of Munchausen by Proxy to well meaning mothers who take their kids needs seriously and push to get them support. As opposed to the ones who dont take their kids needs seriously, and push them downstairs to get attention. But thats a whole seperate issue.

As for the pension, I think its wrong for her to get the pension, despite the fact that she probably had no idea what her husband was up to. The reason I think it was wrong, is that she has stuck by her husband throughout all this, which whilst an admirable show of loyalty, I feel strongly it's a misguided one, and whilst you can't help who you love, you can decide if you condone their behaviour or not.

People pour scorn on women who stay with their husbands after he's hit them the once. She stays with hers after he bumps off 215 old dears and gets a £100,000 handshake and 10,000 a year to toast his passing with, and from a moral perspective, I think that's a bit shit, and it does make me wonder about her motives. Which might be a bit harsh, but I don't care.

Shipman was proved to be sane.
He knew what he was doing, he knew the pain and hurt it would cause, he knew what would happen to him if he was caught.
He then made a " choice ".
" Yes, I will kill these people ".
The guy could tell right from wrong, and decided to do it anyway.
That's why they found him fit to stand trial.
There was no compulsion to kill, he made his own desicions.

I understand where you're coming from, but if his actions where motivated by something he had no control over, then why did he not seek help/feel guilt that stopped him leading a normal life and cause him to confess? There may be an underlying reason why he killed, as i don't see how a person in a perfectly sane mental state would do what he did, but he understood what he was doing, and moreso he chose to cover it up.

jemm spouted:
It has been said today that it's possible he killed himself knowing that his wife would then get his nhs pension due to him being under 60. I must admit when i saw her and his son on tv yesterday i felt quite sorry for them because im sure they musn't have know what he was doing when he was killing these old people.

I'm sure they didn't know, but despite the overwhelming evidence against him that emerged, they still insist that he's innocent. I also remember reports at the time that during the court proceedings against Shipman they were heard giggling in court, so fuck them.