If I understand it correctly, a man accused of sexually assaulting and killing an model in the UK is offering up a very strange defense:

• I didn’t kill her, I just found her after the initial assault--in her driveway, in a pool of blood, having been stabbed seven times.
• Instead of calling for help or finding out if she was still alive, he looked on this battered woman and found himself overcome with lust.
• So, he had sex with her before realizing that she was already dead.
• Because that makes things better. Somehow.

First, this is the least believable defense I’ve ever heard--Mark Dixie is admitting to raping Sally Anne Bowman, who had been viciously assaulted, because he didn’t realize that she was deceased and he couldn’t control his sexual urges. Am I missing something?

Apparently Mr. Dixie thinks that explanation sounds plausible and (somewhat) reasonable. I think it sounds so seriously screwed up that no reasonable society could possibly accept the idea of you remaining free to rape and brutalize women ever again--the only two options available are life imprisonment with no chance of parole or death. A man who would rape a presumably unconscious woman as she bled to death (the most charitable reading of his defense in that it assumes that he thought she was unconscious instead of dead) can never, ever be trusted in civilized society again.

Of course, it’s much easier to believe that he’s lying and that he’s a brutal, murdering, rapist and the need to keep him locked up is even more obvious.

His barrister makes things worse by adding this to the “defense”:

Commenting on the charge of murdering Miss Bowman, Anthony Glass QC, defending, said: “It is, you may think, a very unattractive defence.

“He did not know she was dead until intercourse was concluded.

“Even though you may think his conduct is disgusting, he allowed his lust to get the better of him.”

I know it’s just a title, but I’m still guessing that the Queen would not be amused with the Queen’s Counsel in this instance…

Read the rest.