Davina James-Hanman

I haven't been posting here for a while as I've watched this platform get ever more grim but the events of the past few weeks have decided it for me and I'm out. I'm around on other platforms with ethics and a more mature approach to free speech.

In UK sentencing, courts routinely emphasise mitigating factors and the prospect of rehabilitation - particularly where the offender is young, vulnerable, traumatised, or has no previous convictions. These principles are frequently cited in cases involving offences disproportionately committed by men, including serious violence, sexual offending (including against children) domestic abuse etc. Youth, immaturity, mental ill-health, past trauma, and capacity for reform are commonly provided (and accepted) as reasons to reduce sentence length. Yet in the case of Martyna Ogonowska, those same principles appear to have carried little weight. Martyna stabbed Filip Jaskiewicz once in the chest outside a car park in Peterborough. She later turned herself into the police, saying she believed she’d killed him and stating that she’d stabbed him because he was violently and sexually assaulting her. During her trial At Cambridge Crown Court, in April 2019, Martyna’s defence team argued diminished responsibility because she’d been acting in self-defence, and had a diagnosis of severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following a previous rape at age 14. However these arguments were rejected, possibly due to the assessment by the Prosecutions psychiatrist that Martyna had likely lied about previously being raped. The trial judge did acknowledge that Jaskiewicz had "undoubtedly touched Martyna sexually" and had been violent toward her shortly before the stabbing. However he ruled that her actions did not qualify as self-defence primarily because she had brought a knife to the scene, which she claimed was for protection. Martyna was convicted of murder and also found guilty of possession of a bladed article. She was sentenced to a life term with a MINIMUM of 17 years in prison. IN 2023 Martyna’s lawyers attempted to appeal the conviction of murder, but the Criminal Division of the England & Wales Court of Appeal refused to allow the appeal. The court upheld the original verdict and stated that they found no basis to conclude that the conviction was unsafe. In May 2025 Marina’s lawyers tried to appeal the length of the sentence (minimum 17 years) and argued that a lesser minimum term (e.g. 12 to 13 years) would have been more appropriate given her background and the circumstances. However the Court of Appeal judge stated that although the sentence was "heavy" for a young person with Martyna’s history of trauma and mental disability, that he was unpersuaded that it was "manifestly excessive" given the judge's original findings. So….. An 18 year old girl with no history of serious violence, claims that she stabbed a man once in self defence whilst he was violently and sexually assaulting her. The court was provided with evidence that she suffered from severe PTSD, as a result of a rape 4 years beforehand. These are precisely the kinds of factors that UK courts regularly recognise as mitigating - particularly where the defendant is young and demonstrably damaged by earlier abuse. Despite this, she received a life sentence with a 17-year minimum term, a sentence later upheld on appeal. Time and again, we see male defendants described as immature, vulnerable; shaped by adverse childhood experiences and capable of rehabilitation. These narratives are frequently used to justify reduced minimum terms, even in cases involving repeated or predatory violence. The courts may have accepted Marina’s history of trauma and Jaskiewicz’s violent and sexual assault of her as factual… but they still went ahead and treated it as legally irrelevant. So we have to ask…. Are mitigating factors only meaningful when they’re applied to male violence but irrelevant when applied to females who fight back?

My goal as a journalist is to report carefully on the best, most practical social policy ideas that can change the world, and this is easily the most exciting one I’ve had the opportunity to cover this year. I hope you'll read it 🧵↓

Is it just me that feels there is an increasingly open war on women? theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/d…

@SarahCactus1 @AnnOlivarius @ProfLizKelly It's a key tactic to impede progress.

@AnnOlivarius Yet @ProfLizKelly initially developed the continuum of sexual violence in 1988. Extended and used as an analytical tool by many feminist researchers since. The blatant and public remembering and forgetting by patriarchal institutions is staggering.

Not "hidden" - ignored and denied. Domestic abuse and coercive control look very different if you don't, generally, believe women and children are reliable witnesses. The problem is bias, not observational skills. bbc.com/news/articles/…

My favourite speech reworked as a film thewowfoundation.com/news/i-want-a-…

What is the point of Reviews if lessons aren't leaned? theguardian.com/society/2025/n…

Why women kill theguardian.com/global-develop…

Every day, 137 women and girls are killed by intimate partners or family members There has been 'little progress' on the issue. unwomen.org/en/digital-lib…

@K_IngalaSmith I hear on the rumour mill its been pushed back to January now...

I note that the PM said 'we have to stop talking and we have to start doing.' You said you'd halve serious violence including men's violence against women and girls in 10 years. We are 17 months in your term and those 10 years. If not now, when is your strategy coming out?

For ever loving fucks sake.

This really cheered me up today. theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2…

Great resource for any friends or g=family members trying to support a loved one experiencing domestic abuse: womensaid.org.uk/information-su…

If you want to address domestic abuse as a workplace issue, you could start here: safespaces-againstviolence.axa.com/en/

Italian parliament unanimously votes to make femicide a crime bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. If you think this isn;t needed, consider this from Catherine McKinnon:

Remembering our fallen in the war we keep calling normal life.

“Because until South Africa stops burying a woman every 2.5 hours, the G20 cannot speak of growth and progress.” theguardian.com/society/2025/n…

Imagine that. Most reliable risk assessment is by far the easiest to implement except it involves trusting women. theguardian.com/australia-news…

At a time when (rightly) we hear about the systemic racism and misogyny of the police - it's worth remembering the police include women like this too. theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2…