Evil Joanna Simpson killer must rot in jail for sake of ALL abuse survivors

WHEN is 26 years not 26 years? When it’s only 13.

When a man who bludgeoned his wife to death with a claw hammer in 2010 could be given permission for early release having only served a pathetic half of his sentence.

This is the reality unless justice secretary Dominic Raab intervenes and blocks the automatic release of Robert Brown, who murdered his wife, Joanna Simpson, within earshot of their two children. 

This had followed a sustained period of domestic abuse which included coercive control, isolation, intimidation and severe violence. 

Brown buried Joanna in a pre-dug grave and shockingly, despite all this, he was only convicted of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.

Joanna’s mother, Diana Parkes — who inspired Camilla, Queen Consort, to join her in a passionate campaign against domestic abuse — is asking, with considerable dignity, quite simply, that “the punishment fits the crime”. 

Domestic abuse affects more than one in four women before the age of 50, according to a recent World Health Organization study, and charity Women’s Aid says two women are murdered each week by their partner. 

And still the authorities struggle to handle this crime and its punishment with the gravity and urgency it needs.

We keep having conversations about our revulsion over crimes like this. We keep sharing horror stories. 

Many of us know someone who has been on the receiving end of some form of it.

Yet it seems that, regardless of our fears and lived experiences, little appears to change.

Why is it that there are so many systemic failures that allow survivors and their families to be left feeling so utterly helpless and overlooked?

Why does the law continue to let down survivors by failing to protect women properly?

And the law includes, of course, the first point of contact — the police. 

Mel B, who has done such a sterling job campaigning for domestic abuse to be treated with greater urgency after claiming she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband, Stephen Belafonte, during their ten-year marriage, said this week that she would be unlikely to go to the police even today because she just doesn’t trust them.

I think that’s true for many women.

There is a collective reluctance to tell our truths because we fear not being believed, getting lost in the system, and not being taken seriously by an authority that has time and time again been proven to be sexist and misogynistic.

She also spoke about how she thought it was likely that the other Spice Girls suspected the “abuse” she suffered — always denied by her ex — but she had become very adept at hiding the emotional and physical evidence.