Madness Rules.

 

Daniel M'Naghten. Photographed by Henry Hering c 1856

Daniel McNaughten was born in Glasgow in 1813 and after an uneasy childhood - there are reports that he was illegitimate -  he trained as a carpenter, following his Dad's trade as a wood turner. He left Glasgow to become an actor touring around England, and was reasonably successful. After a few years he returned to Glasgow and started his own business crafting wood. Until 1839 then,  when he was 26, he sold his successful business and just disappeared off to London. (This was probably the first sign of his madness.)

Over the next 4 years he moved around England. Friends and family that he met on the way had begun to notice that Daniel was suffering from anxiety and that all kinds of weird ideas were formulating in his head. Like the government was out to get him and that there were people everywhere spying on him, most of these ideas consisted of Catholic Priests who were following him everywhere. 

I wonder if this is one of the few documented cases of early conspiracy theory.

Then on the 20^th January 1843 McNaughten ran up to a man, Mr Drummond,  in the street and shot him in the back of the head. Maybe a little unusual but of more significance was the fact Drummond was walking through Westminster, very close to Downing Street.

Although he survived the shooting, Drummond died a few days later from his injuries or from blood poisoning caused by the leeches placed on his wound.

As you have probably guessed McNaughten’s defence was insanity. Hence the famous McNaughten rule or M'Naughten  rule. He had believed that Drummond was the Prime Minister, a case of mistaken identity.

McNaughten was arrested at the scene and he admitted shooting Drummond but by the time it went to Court he pleaded not guilty as he was not in his right mind at the time of the offence. When all the doctors and specialists gave their evidence in court, there was no doubt that McNaughten was not guilty.

But he was sent to Bethlem Hospital for criminal lunatics and he spent over 20 years there before he died of diabetes.

Even as far back as Roman times, it has been recognized that mental illness, not being in one’s right mind, was a factor in someone accused of wilful murder. So it's not a new thing.

Another idea that does persist is that not guilty by a plea of insanity is somehow a softer sentence than going to jail. However in reality a life sentence in the UK is about 9 to 10 years, whereas being detained in a mental health facility depends on a board of doctors proclaiming that you are sane enough, albeit with medication, to be released back in to the community. And that can take a very long time indeed.

Of course there are people such as the Yorkshire Ripper who seemed to think that ‘I hear voices’ or ‘God made me do it’ is a paranoid delusion worthy of a not guilty plea. I suppose defence council are just doing their job, but it is very difficult to feign mental illness accurately. And needless to say schizophrenia, while having a reputation for violence, really only causes the sufferer to be violent towards themselves.

But then again looking at people like Ted Bundy, Peter Sutcliffe, Ian Brady while they were ‘sane’ there shouldn’t be really any doubt that they weren’t normal. By definition you would like to think that there was some abnormality deep in their psyche or is that just a healthy moral compass judging an unhealthy one. And then there's that  really a grey area that drifts into differing belief systems, being judged as mental illness.

Before I go off and confuse myself with matters of philosophy – remember the old joke from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, when they call the strike of philosophers then realized it would inconvenience nobody in any way at all - I think I’m going to sit down and make a cup of tea and write a list of people who’s execution would be considered understandable; People who whistle tunelessly, people who fling rubbish out of car windows, people who manage to get 2000 calories into a cup of coffee. It's probably just as well I live in a country which has virtually no firearms otherwise I could be in big trouble.

 

Footnote – a certain gentleman with all kinds of degrees in political and moral philosophy who lives in this house has pointed out that ideas don’t drop out the sky and without the public discussion of ideas about morality and societal values we would be in trouble. He points to Aristotle, Kant, Locke.

Footnote 2 – some of us might point out that all these folk were sitting around thinking had a Y chromosome. Those with the double XX were probably far too busy to indulge themselves in thinking.

Footnote 3 - while talking to a 91 year old lady about philosophy, she quoted a few  ( I think it was Plato's Cave she was thinking about ) and then she said 'All you really need to be happy is your favourite sock.'

Fair enough

Caro