Aspies For Freedom

A MAN who stabbed his girlfriend to death after she told him she did not love him any more was suffering from two mental illnesses at the time of the attack, a court heard.
Joanna Greenberg QC, defending Kieron Carpenter, claims the 30-year-old was in a deep depression and had Asperger's Syndrome which substantially affected his responsibility for the killing of Emily Bates.

Northampton Crown Court has already heard Carpenter savagely butchered the 21-year-old with a hunting knife at the flat they shared, in South Brink, Wisbech, on January 24.

Carpenter admitted to police that he stabbed Miss Bates 23 times with the 18cm blade when she refused him a "final hug" at the home.

He then turned the blade on himself, but called 999 more than four hours later when the pain was too great.

But Miss Greenberg told jurors yesterday that the degree of responsibility and guilt was affected by the thought process of the person who committed the crime.

She said: "The prosecution says it was murder pure and simple, and you may wonder why you are being asked to try this case.

"Undoubtedly it was an horrific killing by this defendant, he admits it. He described in graphic detail how he attacked Emily, and you would be forgiven for closing your mind to any possibility this was not murder."

Shortly before the killing, Carpenter's depressive illness made him despondent, the jury heard.

Miss Greenberg said the depression and Asperger's Syndrome would substantially impair his responsibility for his actions.

Carpenter took the witness stand during the fourth day of his trial and said he still had strong feelings for Miss Bates.

He said: "I worshipped the ground she stood on and I still do."

He had no idea Miss Bates had been unfaithful to him until he was in prison following her killing, he said.

Carpenter said: "At the time I was very down. I was worried about my state of health and had no job. Everything was wrong with the world."

Carpenter admits killing Miss Bates, but claims it was manslaughter. He denies murder.

'She was always happy' says victim's mum
EMILY Bates had been a girl who was "always popular, happy and smiling", according to her mother.

In a statement read to Northampton Crown Court, mother-of-four Helen Bates said no one ever had a bad word to say about her 21-year-old daughter.

She said Miss Bates had been involved in school activities, led an extremely active social life, did charitable work and had a wide circle of friends.

But all that changed after she moved in with Kieron Carpenter, the court heard.

In the statement she said: "She became less outgoing and did the things that Kieron wanted to do rather than what she wanted to do."

Mrs Bates also said that her daughter had begun to lose weight.
http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/ViewA...eID=953510

I think we should write to the papers every simgle time a term like mental illness / disease / epidemic etc. is used until we become such a pain in the arse that they have no choice but to acknowledge it.

^Good Idea  :smile:

Does it work though?

It will get a response at least and I think it will give an air of respectability which is going to be much needed. (AFF is respectable already but if it can increase then that will appeal to people including autistics

I've said it before, whenever it is mentioned like that, it shouts to anyone not knowing any better "Asperger's made him do it!".

Exactly which is why a campaign would be worthwhile. It would also differ us from all the "screamin activist" groups out there.

Asp said "It would also differ us from all the "screamin activist" groups out there."
As far as I can see there are no screamin activists groups, its just 99% parents groups. And 1% small groups trying to educate people.

When I said screamin activist I meant generally not just about Autism. You see those statistics applying to Autism look pretty nice but in the issues outside Autism.... Hmm I don't think so. Point made and it wasn't meant to be an insult

I've said it before, whenever it is mentioned like that, it shouts to anyone not knowing any better "Asperger's made him do it!".

Maybe that what they want people to think so they can sensationalise it like everything else they blow out of proportion just to sell a few more papers.

The UK has recently had a health scare relating to food (sudan 1 colouring) and the media desperately tried to blow it up out of all proportion to sell more papers. Smoking causes cancer too but they didn't whip cigarettes off the shelves did they? No, there'd be no point in alienating their readers so they leave it alone or mention it occasionally in the 'Womens Health' section.

I bet theres a few here who remember the UK media whipping up a storm over peadophiles to the extent that mothers and fathers went around in mobs on estates (taking their kids along with them too) to peoples houses without actually having any proof of what they were just because they were a bit of a loner. Even now you can't sit in a park where there are children playing without a parent asking you what you're doing there. The media managed to convice Britain that every single man minding his own buisness within a mile of a school was a predator on the prowl. It sold millions of extra papers, no doubt about it, but it's old hat and Aspergers is their perfect retreat because people know so little about it so they can say whatever they like about it and it'll be people on the spectrum and their families left to pick up the pieces.

I don't think we'd be able to cope too well with the everyday threat of getting fired or thrown out of our accomodation because your boss or landlord has read a very negative view of what 'Aspies' do. Of course this won't just have a bad effect on people with Autism, it will be our friends and family that suffer too, as well as any community services we need to access. It doesn't take a lot of public pressure to close down amenities and services funded by public/council/goverment money simply because people don't want 'that sort of thing' going on in their street. People will start to view us as natural born killers if the media is allowed to continued to do as it is.

So if we don't try to correct every single false claim that the media makes about us we are letting them get away with it. We need to get a fair opinion of what Aspergers is into the minds of people or the media continue to exploit Autism for all it's worth.

It's official: most of the time the UK tabloids do report pure undiluted trash (especially a certain right wing tabloid with the initials D and M) and do whip up a lot of nasty stuff especially on immigration and Europe.

Problem is how do you put forward a message that sways the people who read them without turning them into an anti Autistic advocate frenzy. I'm not saying a campaign shouldn't be done just wondering how AFF put it's opinions across and sway them from a possibly hostile position to at least a central line without getting tarred with the same brush as let's say Anorexics or hardline animal rights protestors.

Broadsheets are much easier to write in to and will possibly be more prepared to accept the opposing point of view.

Average person on the street has probably never heard the word aspergers before, or if they have it's in the context of "neurological disorder".

A killer has this disorder. What happens when you find out someone you know also has this disorder - they have the same disorder as the killer!

Put 2 and 2 together people

Gareth let's make this perfectly clear I am not arguing against a campaign I am more interested in how it's done. I mean national newspapers are not a problem with the idea proposed but local newspapers-accusations of  amongst other nasty things: blatant insensitivity could be levelled if a person who didn't have any sort of connection to the area wrote in.

Let's give a hypothetical example shall we? An offence is comitted in a region of Scotland by an autistic person/ Aspie. Now this makes local media along with the fact that he or she is Autistic something that slips the national press if it does get mentioned. If the fact that was mentioned in national newspapers/ news sources then we could respond and in a way that was sort of sympathetic to the victim's family.

Back to the example a person (member of AFF or not) who after seeing the article on the internet and having no absolutely no connection with the area writes a standardised message and sends it (maybe with a few others joining in). Result: mixed rating but could get hit badly. Some of us may want to be a pain in the a** but if a "pain" becomes in the public's eyes "a cancer" then it can be treated as one ie removed or it's members can get treated badly through things such as "shocking revelations" and other brutal but effective and mostly legal methods.  

I saw the same sort of problem in another thread
http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/phpBB2/v...php?t=1020

The internet may transcend borders however in some cases people's adresses just don't transcend regions.