Our thanks to Francis for this. From the article, a statement from Rachel Woods, Lynda Holmes’s defence counsel:
“She had clearly seen the red mist and just lost control of her own senses and behaviour for what was a relatively short period of time.”
Well, that’s all right, then. The time-honoured ‘red mist’ defence, surely encapsulated in the legal system – though I can’t recall having seen it employed in a court case to exonerate a man for striking his female partner over the head several times with a metal hammer, even for ‘a relatively short period of time’.
