G'day there HASBEEN...

A terrible case for sure. The deaths of eight vulnerable little children, at the hand of Raina THAIDAY, mother of seven of the victims, will always beguile and fascinate public attention. One area I thought I might reassure you - These six psychiatrists would take quite a bit of convincing by this women, to back her Counsel's Defence. And I'd doubt very much if she was to see the light of day for a very long time, if ever. My 'direct experience' with 'forensic psychiatrists', they're a tough lot and not easily taken in by either rhetoric, spin or undertakings, believe me. In the medium term this women will have gallons of 'Largactil' (the Psychiatrist and Psycho. Nurses friend) injected into her, reducing her to a very compliant state indeed.

Someone made a comment they'd rather be locked up for 20 or 30 years with people who might be still worth talking to, I take it, it was a 'throw away line', gaols are notoriously tough places in which to survive, even a female boob, with racism and violence being predominant?

I'm not entirely sure what Defence her Counsel employed as to her alleged culpability to eight counts of murder. I've not followed the matter. My initial thoughts were they invoked the 1843 McNAGHTEN Rule as their primary Defence to murder? There are several Defence's to Criminal Capacity on the grounds of Mental illness; such as, Insanity, Automatism and Intoxication. A Defence to Criminal Capacity, is a very difficult Defence to mount. The burdan lies entirely with the accused, to prove that at the time of the murder; 'he was labouring under such a defect of reason'...? I'll not bore the readers by citing the entire 'Rule' but it is the judicial 'test' if you like, used in Australia's adversarial system of criminal jurisprudence.

Yeah I know, the law 'seems' to be an ass, but it's the best we've got!

o sung wu wrote: “One area I thought I might reassure you - These six psychiatrists would take quite a bit of convincing by this women, to back her Counsel's Defence. And I'd doubt very much if she was to see the light of day for a very long time, if ever. My 'direct experience' with 'forensic psychiatrists', they're a tough lot and not easily taken in by either rhetoric, spin or undertakings, believe me.”

Thank you!

The idea that everyone working in the public service is interested only in how they can keep their jobs alive and continue to suck on the public teat, even to the detriment of the public’s safety and the course of justice, is absolutely nuts.

Anyone who thinks that such a shoddy system could exist has absolutely no idea of how it actually works.

Hi there LEOJ...

I too share your obvious derision for all branches of the media, especially when there's an inadvertent assignation between the media's 'Front Page' and the truth. Years back I always perceived journalism to be a noble profession, even a 'calling' if you like, for some idealistic people?

Today, I look upon the media and many of those in it, to be substantially flawed and utterly fallacious. Both from a moral perspective, and their apparent inability to tease out the real facts and details of a newsworthy occurrence or incident, in order they may be accurately recorded, and disseminated to the public at large, in a timely manner.

And very recently, I understood, there were approximately 110 or so journalists, retrenched from both the Sydney Morning Herald, and the 'Melbourne Age'. Ostensibly because of falling circulations? Or are the public just fed-up with some of the rubbish that hitherto, now passes as 'quality journalism' complete with inaccuracies and errors in the reporting of important news items?

Nothing new with the media...this American case from the late 1800's.

http://murderpedia.org/female.B/b/borden-lizzie.htm

The case was memorialized in a popular skipping-rope rhyme:

Lizzie Borden took an axe

And gave her mother forty whacks.

When she saw what she had done

She gave her father forty-one.

Folklore says the rhyme was made up by an anonymous writer as a tune to sell newspapers. Others attribute it to the ubiquitous, but anonymous "Mother Goose". In reality, Lizzie's stepmother suffered 18 or 19 blows; her father, 11 blows.

The Electronic Whorehouse has never let truth get in the way of a good story. But 6 psychiatrist...that sounds like the opening line of Monty Python sketch on the Spanish Inquisition.

G'day there ALBIE...

I've repeated this little quote previously, apropos the efficacy and probity of the media - The former Commissioner of the Federal police, Major General Ronald GRAY/GREY, a decorated Vietnam veteran and by all accounts a staunch disciplinarian, was quoted saying (publicly); he'd rather face a Bn of NVR's than speak with the media, because with them, (the NVR's in combat) were very much a known quantity. Speaks volumes I reckon. I bet the weather, up there in fantastic Darwin would be terrific at the moment?

Cheers...Sung wu.

Well, conceivably, this particular individual could be stabilised, within about 3 months.

Alternatively, she may suffer until the day she dies.

However, since the advent of 2nd generation anti-psychotics in the 90's much can be achieved to restore a significant measure of good health to people who suffer from some form of psychotic disorder.

So, if the individual concerned is able to be stabilised, one of the first things that she is going to have to deal with is what she has done (with a more lucid mind-set)

..

The key to understanding this is to understand the nature of altered states of consciousness, and how in such states the mind interprets in a very different way to that which we consider to be "normal."

So for example, in a paranoid state of altered consciousness, an individual may be watching television, and hear a noise from the neighbours at the same time a crackle of interference comes over the tv screen. The mind then "reasons" that the cause of the interference occurred as a result of the neighbour.

Now, as confident you all are of your own thought processes as you read this, know that in altered states that the compulsion to accept what one's own mind is telling you is equally if not more profound. One of the reasons for that is is that with the advent of some altered states of consciousness comes also a significant failure of the so-called "executive functions" of the mind.

Then, usually consistent with the individual's own personal upbringing and beliefs, with the mind perhaps desperate to provide an explanation for the seemingly "paranormal" activity, a delusional belief may develop.

So for example, I'm under surveillance and my neighbour is with the CIA, or the neighbour has supernatural powers etc.

It reminds me of the Ancient tale of Hercules, who apparently under the influence of enchantment by an Evil Goddess, hallucinates and misperceives his family confusing them for the enemy and puts them all to the sword, leading to the "Trials of Hercules" as he attempts to atone for his misdeeds.