Tag Archives: mrs justice thirlwall

The Philpott case: at last, a reminder of the reality

By Stephen Tall | Sat 6th April 2013 - 1:45 pm

The debate over the Philpott case has raged all week, but mostly at a tangent to the reality of the case.

Thanks to Grace Dent’s stellar column in today’s Independent, I’ve finally read through Mrs Justice Thirlwall’s summing up. It’s concise, shrewd, plain spoken, unsparing: no legalese, just clear sense.

It returns this case to where it belongs: an individual story of one man’s obsessive compulsion to dominate and possess all those around him, in particular ‘his’ women. It’s well worth reading the whole judgment in full.

However, there are three sections I wanted to highlight…