Let me start by saying i am not defending her at all and definitely not defending Huntley. But a question. If your partner came to you and said that they had done something terrible what would you do? Taking Maxine card as the example. If your partner said that they had killed two children what would you do? Obviously the correct answer is that you would immediately phone the police but in all honesty would you? As i see it the order of most moral to least moral is as follows. So where do you think you would like? I imagine everybody lands in the first 4 options but it would be interesting to see whether it would be immediate or not. Immediately phone the police? Think for a while and then phone the police? Speak to a friend or relative and then phone the police? Try to convince your partner to phone the police? Pretend you know nothing? Help them get rid of the evidence? As a second question what crimes would you deny all knowledge of? But of shoplifting? Assault? Sexual assault? Rape? Etc? There isn't really much point to the question except to say that history is littered with examples of friends and family helping people to get away with crimes and even more littered with people who don't want to 'grass'. Maxine Carr is probably the most extreme example and thankfully hardly anybody would do what she did but i bet that quite a lot of people would have to sit and ask themselves questions before ultimately doing the right thing.
We've talked about this as a hypothetical about our daughter. Our thoughts are we would support her as we could, but would have to make her face the consequences of her actions - preferably by handing herself in.
Was this in relation to the documentary tonight? I didn't see the documentary tonight but studied the case against Carr specifically as part of my law degree as it demonstrates one of the principles where to be guilty not only has someone to be breaking the law - but they have to knowingly break the law. My recollection of the story was that Carr was away from home the weekend Huntley committed the murders. He had been accused of (and it would appear now he actually committed) a crime in a previous school and had explained to Carr that he left despite not being convicted simply because 'mud sticks' So Huntley then assured Carr he was innocent and explained to Carr that despite this without an alibi he would be suspect no 1. Carr - being impressionable and in love then agreed to provide an alibi - and so attempted to pervert the course of justice (here she knowingly broke the law). The more serious charge of aiding an offender being eventually dropped as she genuinely didn't think Huntley had committed the crime (Whilst she did aid an offender she didn't believe he was an offender therefore didn't commit the particular offence - hence this was the learning point) . (if you hear the tapes of her finding out Huntley had done it - despite the emotion attached to the case and in the sterile environs of a law class it's easy to reach this conclusion) So the more difficult dilema - and indeed the one Carr faced - to me is not what would you do if someone you loved told you they had committed a crime - it's what would you do if someone you loved told you they hadn't committed a crime but it looked very much like they had done. When there are situations like Robert Murat, Christopher Jefferies and more shockingly as noted in another thread Timothy Evans - plus situations where Paediatricians are stoned by illiterate angry mobs - therein lies a situation where you will never know how you will react until you're faced with it. With crimes such as this I guess we all believe we'd make the right decisions. Lets hope none of us ever get tested.
