Ice Hockey | Player arrested for manslaughter following death of Adam Johnson (P18)

[Mr Kobayashi]

manslaughter is appropriate i think. Clear intent to cause serious harm

If you intend to cause serious harm it's enough for murder.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

If you intend to cause serious harm it's enough for murder.

Unless he does a Keane and write about it in an autobiography, it’s probably impossible to prove his intent.

 

[bert38]

I've been out of the criminal game for 3 years now but for involuntary manslaughter my understanding is its an objective test whether the act presented risk of physical harm (so not serious harm even) rather than what was in the mind of the offender (in which case, a subjective test). The objective test is what a reasonable person would conclude.

Secondly there only has to be an intention as to the act. So here, the intention to kick the opponent.

Thus it may come down to whether there is sufficient evidence to determine if there was intent as to the act (actus reus) rather than an accident.

We are not privy to other evidence that may exist: has the player used this kick before? did anything happen between the players during the game or previous games? are we able to rule out the blades clashing such as to cause the leg to lift so highly?

When it happened I fully expected him to be interviewed, albeit on a voluntary basis under caution. His arrest is of note-perhaps it was needed so that officers could conduct section 18 searches? phones, other evidence?

 

[RACHACE]

Weird that this has happened.

I was chatting with a bloke today who was at the game. He's got a season ticket with the Sheffield Steelers and sounded like he knew his stuff regarding ice hockey.

He said it was a definite accident. The player was off balance due to a nudge from another player.

However, there must evidence for him to get arrested surely?

I really hope it's a freak accident as that's some grim shit if it was intended (his leg being up that high) to hurt or scare the opponent.

 

[meltonblue]

Weird that this has happened.

I was chatting with a bloke today who was at the game. He's got a season ticket with the Sheffield Steelers and sounded like he knew his stuff regarding ice hockey.

He said it was a definite accident. The player was off balance due to a nudge from another player.

However, there must evidence for him to get arrested surely?

I really hope it's a freak accident as that's some grim shit if it was intended (his leg being up that high) to hurt or scare the opponent.

I do wonder if there’s other camera views that might show a bit more as to whether there was intent there.

It looked to me like he got hip checked and lost control but that’s from quite a far angle.

 

[bert38]

Weird that this has happened.

I was chatting with a bloke today who was at the game. He's got a season ticket with the Sheffield Steelers and sounded like he knew his stuff regarding ice hockey.

He said it was a definite accident. The player was off balance due to a nudge from another player.

However, there must evidence for him to get arrested surely?

I really hope it's a freak accident as that's some grim shit if it was intended (his leg being up that high) to hurt or scare the opponent.

It only requires 'suspicion' to arrest someone. Its a very low bar.
It may be that it was decided to get his account under caution to finalise the inquiry-I fully expect there to be a full coroner's inquest.
But as I said police didn't need to arrest in order to obtain the account under caution-that is of note, but may be due to other factors; requirement to search his property or perhaps he refused to attend voluntarily-all speculation on my part though.

 

[SiMCFC]

Awful all round, at the end of the day someone has lost their life and only one person truly knows whether he meant to hurt him or not, I remember as a kid my Dad telling me about his cousin who died when they were teens because of a football injury, someone dived in and dead legged him, he went home and never woke up as it had caused a fatal blood clot.

 

[Phil1]

I do wonder if there’s other camera views that might show a bit more as to whether there was intent there.

It looked to me like he got hip checked and lost control but that’s from quite a far angle.

Not followed this at all and today is the first I’ve seen of it but my guess is there’s other evidence out there that shows intent. A silly WhatsApp after the event or something along those lines.

 

[roman totale]

I take my lad to the odd AHL game, but I’m not going to pretend I know anything about ice hockey. My mate though is obsessed. He played in his youth to semi-pro standard, his lad plays. He watches it every night when it’s in season and every couple of weeks drives the 2 hours to either Detroit, Columbus or Pittsburgh to watch an NHL game. He reckons it was a complete accident.

 

[RACHACE]

I do wonder if there’s other camera views that might show a bit more as to whether there was intent there.

It looked to me like he got hip checked and lost control but that’s from quite a far angle.

This bloke was convinced it was a freak accident. He said that you don't realise the speed that the players move at from any clips and any slight nudge can, and does send players out of control.

Apparently the player involved is in a very bad way mentally due to this.

Like I say, I really hope it was a freak accident.