Mat Bowles

Executive who branded wife with iron freed with a £2,000 fine:

A report recommended a community service order, but Recorder William Featherby questioned how Read would fit it in around his long working hours.

He said he was concerned that Read had denied the offences despite overwhelming evidence and he called the iron attack "appalling".

But the judge said it was the circumstances of the marriage that had provoked Read and that now those circumstances had gone, sending him to prison would "help no one".

So branding your wife with a hot iron isn't worthy of punishment in and of itself? A £2K fine (about a weeks pay for this guy) is going to sort it all out?

Prison has three functions: Punish, protect and rehabilitate. This guy seems barely able to acknowledge he's done wrong, but because he has a busy job he can just pay it off?

Judith Stephenson, of Women's Aid, said: "This case is extremely worrying. It takes an enormous amount of courage for a woman to go to court and this sentence may deter other women from doing so."

That people (predominantly but not exclusively women) become trapped in abusive relationships and feel they can't get out is something I can't relate to, can't understand. But I know it happens, and it has happened to people I like and respect. To have the court system then effectively dismiss it out of hand is horrifying.

Via Katy at The Devil's Kitchen.