In
sentencing Helen Milner to 17 years non-parole as part of her sentence, Justice
David Gendall commented that “murder by poisoning has always been seen as
amongst the most pernicious of crimes”. Poisoning is of course the preferred
mode of despatch for women killers. Yet when Milner’s treatment is compared
with that of New Zealand’s male murderers, her trial and sentencing appear
disproportionate at best and unjust at worst.
In 2005, murderer Peter Wayne Ryder was released on parole after
serving 11 years of his life sentence. To refresh your memory, Ryder murdered a
10-year-old child by beating him to death over a two-day period after noticing
$5 was missing from his wallet. Ryder immediately went on to reoffend and was
returned to prison. In 2013 he was again released on parole and again went on
to reoffend, this time attacking his ex-partner.
Many will recall the shocking murders of Christine and Amber
Lundy by husband and father, Mark Lundy. Like Milner, Lundy was found guilty of
murder on largely circumstantial evidence. Unlike Milner, however, Lundy was
granted the right to appeal his convictions, first to the Court of Appeal and
then to the Privy Council. Furthermore, despite being found guilty in two
separate trials, Lundy will be given the right to apply for parole after
serving 17 years - less time than Milner. Lundy’s wife and daughter were beaten
to death with “something resembling a hammer”, apparently a less abhorrent
crime than “pernicious” poisoning.
The disproportionate sentencing of women for serious crimes has
been widely documented and championed by Justice for Women in the UK and the
National Organization for Women (NOW) in the US. In 2008, the UK Government
removed the widely used ‘crime of passion’ defence available to men who
murdered their wives if they could demonstrate their actions were because their
wives had failed in their duties. Previous, allowed, defences have included,
for example, a meal not being cooked on time and “nagging”.
Unlike their UK and US counterparts, women convicted of murder
in New Zealand are unable to turn to an advocacy agency to articulate their
plight. Instead they must rely solely on the legal system, a defence and the
judgement of a jury. However, in cases of complexity or where gender norms are
not always adhered to, this becomes a sometimes difficult business. For
example, in the case of Vicky Calder, a reputable, middle-class, biologist and
academic there were two lengthy and complex trials before she was finally
cleared of murdering her husband by poisoning in 1994. Most defendants have
neither the stature or status needed to garner the extended consideration of a
trial jury.
While bias in the sentencing of women is generally accepted by
most commentators, it is neither reliably unfavourable or predictable. Indeed, much research on
the comparative treatment of women and men in sentencing has focused on the
leniency shown to women. This sometimes occurs where there has been
consideration of parental responsibilities or reflects the perception by some
in the judiciary that women respond better to rehabilitation.
However, in situations where women deviate from social norms, their treatment is often worse. Convicted child killers like Myra Hindley, found responsible for multiple murders, became an icon of evil. Her defence of being influenced by Ian Brady, failing to persuade either the all-male jury or the public at large. Even today Minnie Dean, the only women to have been executed in New Zealand, is referred to as the “Baby Farmer”. Dean was famously hung in 1895 after being tried for the of three, possibly more, children in her care. Evidence of the painfully high levels of infant mortality among the often infirm and invariably neglected children that were fostered to baby farmers at the time featured little in her trial. Women who are found guilty of infanticide have historically received harsh treatment by the courts and Dean was no exception, despite protesting her innocence to the end.
In looking at some of New Zealand’s more notable
female murderers, we can gain insight in to not only the circumstances that help
make a women murder, but also perceptions of women in New Zealand society at a
given time.
The cases of Tracy Goodman and Natalie Fenton are particularly startling examples of an apparent lack of compassion or even understanding within our judiciary and wider society. Indeed, it is in our response to these women and their crimes that we get the best insight and clearest reflection of society’s view of women criminals and what we expect from women in general.
"She is an evil vindictive bitch and deserves what she gets"..."Her only redeeming benefit is her stupid"..."She has all the atributes of a dog except loyalty"..."She is a cookie-cutter psychopath"..."this evil ugly bitch"
These are some of the comments made on the blog following Helen Milner’s sentencing. In fairness, a small amount of browsing will also find references to Mark Lundy being fat. But our enthusiasm for spectating social deviance has not lessened since the seventeenth century witch trials.
It was witnessing the media response to Milner that my interest in public perceptions of women criminals was first peaked. I had returned to New Zealand after twenty years living in the UK and was still catching up with current affairs. I recall sitting in front of the TV and watching the trial of the “Black Widow” with a mix incredulity and distaste. The headline status given to the trial, day after day after day. Stories of Milner from friends and foe alike, salacious recollections presented as fact. And the images - angry, dark, ugly – always of Milner either as she sat scowling in the dock or filmed as she jumped in to her car, trying to escape an ensuing TV team, issuing threats as she drove off.
What struck me most about Milner’s trial was that, no matter how clear the evidence was, or was not, at her trial, we, the public had seen and heard very little of it and yet were more than prepared to find her “guilty”.
As I delved deeper into the research around women killers, I learned we were not always the society we seem to have become. The story of Alice May Parkinson is a case in point. Parkinson shot her would-be fiancé, Burt West, four times on 2 March 1915 before turning the gun on herself. West died a few days later while Parkinson survived. Parkinson was tried and found guilty of manslaughter with a recommendation of leniency from the jury. This was disregarded by the court and Parkinson was sentenced to life with hard labour.
Let us consider for a moment the response to Parkinson in 1915 - penniless, desperate and abandoned, driven to kill – with Natalie Fenton in 1999 – exploited, abused, penniless, child prostitute who killed one of her “clients” when she was just fifteen years old.
Parkinson’s case was taken up by the New
Zealand Truth newspaper along with left-leaning political groups,
trade unions and feminists, culminating in public meetings and petitions and
eventually released in 1921.
Contrast this with Fenton, branded
New Zealand’s youngest female killer and, perhaps not surprisingly, preferring
prison after a brief and unsuccessful period on parole. No public meetings were
held to end child prostitution, no judgements were made of Fenton’s victim, a
man who openly boasted that he liked sex with underaged girls. Perhaps most
worrying, no-one even seemed particularly surprised by Fenton’s circumstances.
This may in part be because women
criminals are more common and their crimes more serious. The past 30 years
there has been a dramatic increase in the rate of female offending, including
violent crime. This is an international trend and highlights the changing role of
women and the new demands upon them. But there are also some interesting
emerging trends.
As elsewhere, New Zealand women are
appearing in court more often for serious violent offending. Between 2007 and
2014 about 20% of all NZ homicide convictions were female compared with 13%
between 2000 and 2006 and only 10% between 1988 and 1993, suggesting that
violent offending by women has doubled over the past twenty years.
Furthermore, violent crime by women is
increasing in frequency and seriousness. While it remains true
that most violence is committed by men, where domestic violence is concerned, most
of us would probably be surprised to learn that the level of partner violence committed
by women is at least as high as it is among men.
A longitudinal study of around 1000 males and females born in Dunedin in 1972 – 1973 found that not only did females report having assaulted their partners more often than men, men reported more often being victims than women. This surprising finding needs to be seen in the light of the overwhelming evidence showing male violence is more serious and women are twice as likely to be injured in domestic violence incidents and three times as likely to be killed.
Another palpable difference in the
treatment of men and women offenders is the way women suspects are sexualized.
Helena Kennedy, legal counsel for Myra Hindley, points to the trial of Amanda
Knox, both by the judiciary and the media as being instructive. Every detail of
Knox’s sex-life was examined during her trials while the confession and
prosecution of her co-accused was all but lost. Knox was accused of
promiscuity, of being HIV positive, accused of deviance and generally hounded
by a sex-obsessed media.
Anne Jones, author of the most
authoritative work on this subject, shares Kennedy’s observations. Jones
suggests that women murderers unleash “moral panics” in the public and even
suggests their elevation often coincides with advances in women’s equality. She
references the trial of Ruth Ellis – the last woman to be hanged in England. After
being found guilty of murdering her lover in 1955, a time when women were being
shooed back into domesticity after the war, Ellis was easy fodder for
misogynist elements in the media. Jones’s theory, Kennedy writes, has most
potency in the legal response to women who are involved in political crusades,
or are fighting for equality - women who most seriously confront male
authority.
Kennedy is both observant and informed and the examples she provides are as compelling as the cases are wide ranging, be it nineteenth century suffragettes or modern-day Jihadists. The treatment of women remains a powerful barometer for society and women’s place within it.
So what is the picture in New Zealand
and what does it tell us about who we are today and how we got here? In the
following chapters we will look at New Zealand’s most “notorious women killers”
to see what insights can be gained from our response to, and treatment of,
these women. Because we are considering these women and their crimes
chronologically, it may also be possible to gain some insight into how New
Zealand society has changed over time…or not.
References
Jeffries, S. (2001)
Gender Judgments: An Investigation of
Gender Differentiation in Sentencing and Remand in New Zealand. Christchurch. University of Canterbury.
Nagal, I. &
Johnson, B. (1994). The Role of Gender in a Structured Sentencing System: Equal
Treatment, Policy Choices, and the Sentencing of Female Offenders under the
United States Sentencing Guidelines. USA. The
Journal of criminal Law, Vol. 85, No 1. Northwestern University, School of Law.
Greg Newbold Crime, Law and Justice in New Zealand.
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