BBC journalist Ray Gosling confesses "murder by compassion" on TV show

[garbon]

Gays killed by gays... I guess it would be more efficient that way, rather than inventing a whole system of camps

What do you think HIV is?

[DGuller]

Gays killed by gays... I guess it would be more efficient that way, rather than inventing a whole system of camps

What do you think HIV is?

God's punishment?  

[garbon]

God's punishment?  

Alas, Reagan was not a god.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Wow that's really amazing. Don't know what to say.

Murdered gay and Mart doesn't think of anything to say?

[The Minsky Moment]

And anyway, they have only his word for it. The doctor wasn't a witness to the act, and the police will need an autopsy made on a man who actually was within hours of dying from AIDS.

I'm no limey Barrister, but I'll bet sterling to doughnuts the brit criminal courts admit voluntary confessions in criminal cases.

[Barrister]

[Agelastus]

I don't know why he has decided to admit it; there's pretty much a "don't ask, don't tell" attitude building up over here about such cases.

Give it another ten years and the law will get amended to allow the right-to-die anyway.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Well....that's not something you see every day.

[DGuller]

God's punishment?  

Alas, Reagan was not a god.

He was God's tool.

[DisturbedPervert]

He needs the money from selling his story.

Just think of the stories he'll be able to sell after going to prison

[Drakken]

And anyway, they have only his word for it. The doctor wasn't a witness to the act, and the police will need an autopsy made on a man who actually was within hours of dying from AIDS.

I'm no limey Barrister, but I'll bet sterling to doughnuts the brit criminal courts admit voluntary confessions in criminal cases.

If he pleads guilty, yes they could. If he doesn't, for whatever reasons, doesn't the requirement of evidence still holds to validate that the confession is genuine and a crime has actually taken place? After all, he might be lying, fantasizing, or seeking attention. How can someone pleading not guilty be prosecuted relying only on his confession without either physical evidence or an able witness?

And I see very well Gosling pleading not guilty as a court referral for a constitutional defence, pleading that the current law on "murder by compassion" is unconstitutional. This does exist in Canada as well, in which an accused may plead that the law as written is unconstitutional or goes counter to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

One possible reason that he might be confessing is that the doctor, the only person who might have been a Crown witness on the crime scene, has died, and thus Gosling is the living only person to know the truth and feels safe enough to speak openly about it.

[Martinus]

And anyway, they have only his word for it. The doctor wasn't a witness to the act, and the police will need an autopsy made on a man who actually was within hours of dying from AIDS.

I'm no limey Barrister, but I'll bet sterling to doughnuts the brit criminal courts admit voluntary confessions in criminal cases.

But doesn't the confession need to happen before the court?

I don't see people being arrested for admitting on the air they smoked pot for example, either.

[Martinus]

Would there even be a case if he decides to plead not guilty (I don't think you need to state in the court why you are pleading not guilty - he can do this with a clear conscience because he believes he did not commit murder) and then refuse to testify (which I assume he can do)?

[Octavian]

BBC Journalist Ray Golsing has confessed, during a TV show, to have murdered his AIDS-ridden lover in hospital after learning that nothing could be done to relieve his pain. He tells he has smothered him with a pillow while the doctor was gone, and that "nothing was said" afterwards between him and said doctor when the latter came back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKFehQYOEV0

I have just read that he got arrested by the police today.

Any thoughts? Whether we agree it is murder or not, it takes an insane amount of guts to actually reveal it through a BBC show when he could have just keep it to himself. And you can tell that he still feels bad about it.

I suppose it takes a bit of guts to cold bloodily kill anyone.  I doubt I could bring myself to kill anyone.  Not even Pat, and he's a fucking rapist.

Is there another kind?

[Alexandru H.]

Gays killed by gays... I guess it would be more efficient that way, rather than inventing a whole system of camps

What do you think HIV is?

Hetero invention... it's too perfect to be just a random disease