Why Blame Your Victim When the Judge Will Do It for You?

[Trigger warning, and I am about to go back to fucking bed.]

Brian Gibbs, a "mild-manned" 63-year-old man, has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison after pushing his wife of 35 years down the stairs and stabbing her in the neck with scissors in a "moment of madness."

In delivering his sentence—the result of an apparent plea bargain; Gibbs "admitted wounding with intent," almost certainly avoiding a more serious sentence for attempted murder, which, in Britain, carries a sentence up to life in prison—the judge expressed enormous sympathy for poor Mr. Gibbs, whose wife had been cheating on him with his best friend.

Judge Peter Thornton told Gibbs: "This attack, however inexplicable in its ferocity, did have an explanation.

"Your anger and your jealousy at her infidelity and your fear of losing her no doubt caused acute stress for you and led you to committing this offence. You are normally a quiet, non-violent, hard-working family man. This is a sad case and you acted completely out of character."

Any bets on whether Mrs. Gibbs, who is a martial arts instructor, would have been afforded the same sympathy if it had been she who attacked an unfaithful husband with a deadly weapon…? I just love the smell of double standards in the morning.

(For any moronic MRAs reading along, my argument is not that women should be excused for violent attacks on men, but that men shouldn't be excused for violent attacks on women. I'm not interested in a race to the bottom, but raising the bar on expectations for us all.)

[H/T to Shaker Rumble Lizard.]