Letter: Legal provocation

Sir: This week a British court decided once again that a man who killed his wife as a result of her alleged or proven adultery was not guilty of murder, but of manslaughter on the grounds of provocation ('Man jailed for killing wife over sex diary', 27 July). Judge Neil Denison told Dennis Spelling, 'you were a good husband and your wife let you down'. He was jailed for four years.

There are countries which permit the public stoning of adulterous wives. No doubt our judges would condemn them as barbaric. Yet the sexual attitudes which underpin such executions are different only in degree from those which inform many British judges' summings up and instructions to juries. The idea that a woman's infidelity or promiscuity justifies male violence is deeply rooted in British culture.

Recent research on domestic violence carried out by Middlesex University found that 28 per cent of women surveyed had been beaten by partners. It also revealed, not just that 19 per cent of 480 men surveyed admitted to having struck their partner, but that 63 per cent saw violence against their partner as an option.

Any man who is disposed to kill his wife, or who in delivering beatings is indifferent as to her survival, will know that in a British court he is unlikely to be found guilty of murder. Only 26 per cent of wife-killers receive life sentences, while of the tiny minority of women who kill their husbands, some 40 per cent receive life sentences. It seems that murderous husbands who cite a standard provocation defence, such as the wife's adultery, persistent 'nagging', or 'taunts about his sexual prowess', have a fair chance of being seen off with a pat on the back, and a couple of years.

Wife-killing, and other domestic violence, should not be seen as private action by individual men, but as a political and social phenomenon rooted in sexism and the relative economic powerlessness of women. It is not enough to demand that the definition of provocation be broadened to take account of those women who kill partners after years of domestic violence. The law must recognise that women who choose courses of action at variance with the wishes of their partners have the right to do so without fear of beatings or death.

Yours sincerely,

JEAN CALDER

Brighton