What I'm watching (Part 1)

To be fair, the list of “really quite good films that Bruce Willis is in” is long, but there is definitely a “despite” in there somewhere.

7 posts were merged into an existing topic: The Wonderful World of Turntable Design AKA: Dave’s Fugly World Of TT Wank

Des. ITV

I remember the case although didn’t pick up on the detail at the time but Fucking Hell!

Some fine acting in this piece which was uncommonly good for an ITV drama. Gripping and macabre in equal measure. Well worth a look and raises some interesting questions about calculated malevolence or just insanity and how a jury might decide which is which.

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I really enjoyed that some quality acting in it.

The Pembrokeshire Murders is also very good. One of the ladies I look after lived in the same street as the killer as a child. So I had a few stories of him not being very nice even as a young 'un.

Although I understand why they did it, I find it bizarre that Neilsen couldn’t get away with pleading insanity.

Call me old fashioned, but putting dead bodies under floorboards, then getting them out when you come home from work, bathing them and putting them in clean underwear so you can watch telly together, isn’t normal.

Sodders may disagree.

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There seemed to be a fear that, through diminished responsibility, he could have been convicted of man slaughter rather than murder and therefore possibly have become eligible for release after 15 years. I don’t know the ìns and outs of the legal system but I fìnd it difficult to believe that insane people can’t be locked up inďefinitely. Isn’t that what places like Broadmoor are for?

Primarily with that bit.

I knew someone who was found guilty of a crime while insane, asked she was in Broadmoor for decades, only released into a less secure facility shortly before her death.

I don’t know if she was given an indeterminate sentence or simply sectioned for so long though. It may be that the issue is one of perception rather than safety - through insanity he could have been locked away forever, but the perception needed to be of a life sentence.

Sutcliffe was in Broadmoor - Weird Nilsen didn’t make the grade?

Certainly from the programme it struck me that Nilsen was much closer to how I’d categorise criminally insane than Sutcliffe was. But both deserved locking up & the key throwing away. If we aren’t to have capital punishment, and we shouldn’t, then that’s surely the only alternative.

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Mental illness is curable, potentially, so those who are convicted when their state of mind is affected are always open to release if this is resolved.
Prison v secure hospital.

Behaviour problems and personality disorders are not the same thing, and many people who are seemingly mad are just exhibiting a different way of thought.

It’s all about whether that affectation stops a person having the ability to form the specific intent at the time of the crime.
Some prisoners have blips and get sectioned, but it’s only about their capacity at the time of the crime for any sentencing decision.

For murderers, every one of them gets life.
You are under a life sentence even if you are released after your minimum term, and can still be recalled to Prison.
Insane murderers are detained indefinitely for tratement. That detention persists unless their illness is cured…

Without getting TLDR, diminished responsibility is a specific defence and is a distinct from just being insane!

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Not sure if it was in the series on telly, but apparently the pot he used for boiling the heads in, he also used to make the Xmas curry for where he worked.
Think it was in the Brian masters book Killing for company.

His flat was up for sale when I was working around the corner.

No need to get the drains checked :+1:

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The series does include Brian Masters and his visits to Nilsen while he was on remand. The boiling pot did feature although they didn’t mention the curry detail.

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Iirc he worked at the job centre in kentish Town. Was a long time ago I read it, so could be wrong.

Watch the series, you’ll be gripped by the first ad break. The way David Tennant portrays him really is chilling.

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Thats correct, my first boss when I moved to London had dealt with him when she had been looking for staff.

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Fascination with this cunt is creepy.

Agreed. As it is with Jack the Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, Harold Shipman, Fred West etc But if society doesn’t take the trouble to understand what circumstances allow these sorts of people to get started and do what they do then such things will keep occurring. I’d hope that there was at least a little more understanding & help nowadays (social services, benefits, accommodation etc) for the types of people Nilsen was preying on in the 80’s & more awareness of how his sort groomed their victims so that such things were at least a little less likely to go unnoticed for so long.

I agree people working in the field should certainly investigate and learn what they can for future benefit - As far as public interest is concerned, perhaps he shows humanity what we don’t want to be? Perhaps that helps society? If it is not about these things then maybe it’s just *questionable morbid attraction?

*I do wonder what the payoff is in nourishing the mind with this kind of diet?