Vera

I'm never so keen on the ones that don't tell us what someone was charged with. Was he charged with murder because he walked away from the argument. Or would it be manslaughter because he pushed her, she hit her head but got up and was still shouting at him. Would he get off. After all he'd just found out she had been faking the same cancer her sister had died from. There were so many mitigating circumstances in this. I think a jury would be very sympathetic.

Pharmacy assistant charged with obtaining drugs via fraud
Son charged with fraud and divorced
Father charged with assault
Old school friend charged with drug dealing
Dead girls father charged with murder/manslaughter

All of these people were victims of her deception in the end. A good barrister would get that man off when all the facts were in front of the jury. She had conned a lot of people into helping her deception and done so with threats and menaces too. He had no intention to kill her and didn't have any idea that he had. 

Sad as it was, we mustn't forget that she put a lot of effort into deceiving a lot of people, obtaining money from them, obtaining housing, procuring someone to provide drugs for her, obtaining hospital paperwork to fake letters. She was the one with malice aforethought (and it doesn't matter that she might have a mental health problem). Hearing all of this I think most juries would think her father was suffering enough that she had died. 

I wasn't sad for her, I was sad for her Dad.

I think premeditation is a bit fluid these days. I know they changed the law about “one punch” killings so if you are in a fight after the pub say and smash someone in the face, they fall and hit their head on the pavement and die, then it’s murder. You wouldn’t have intended to kill them necessarily. IIRC there was a campaign because relatives were incensed the killer didn’t go down for murder. I think I’ve got all that right but I’m doubting myself now!

That's a shame but no surprise.

I wonder if they look at the other series that Anne Cleeves writes, about a detective in Bristol.