1. Emma Clare Humphreys was a Welsh woman who was imprisoned in England in December 1985 at Her Majesty's pleasure, after being convicted of the murder of her violent 33-year-old boyfriend and pimp, Trevor Armitage.
26 Facts About Emma Humphreys
1. 2.
Aged 17 when convicted, Humphreys spent a decade in prison before winning an appeal against the conviction, on 7 July 1995, on the grounds of long-term provocation.
3.
Emma Humphreys was assisted in her defence by Justice for Women, a feminist law-reform group founded in 1991 by Julie Bindel and Harriet Wistrich.
4.
Three years after her release, Emma Humphreys died, aged 30, of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs at her flat in Holloway, North London.
5.
Emma Humphreys was raised with her two sisters, mother and father in Dolgellau, Merionethshire, north-west Wales.
6.
Emma Humphreys's parents separated when she was five and her mother, an alcoholic, remarried; the second husband was reported to have been an alcoholic too.
7.
Emma Humphreys was approached by 33-year-old Trevor Armitage, a drug addict with convictions for violence.
8.
Emma Humphreys continued working as a prostitute and gave Armitage part of her earnings.
9.
In January 1985, Emma Humphreys was arrested and kept on remand at HM Prison Risley for two incidents, one of which involved assaulting a hotel manager.
10.
At this point, Emma Humphreys said Armitage taunted her about the cuts on her wrists, saying she had not done a very good job.
11.
Emma Humphreys responded by stabbing him with one of the knives, piercing his heart and liver.
12.
Emma Humphreys was remanded in custody and tried in December 1985 at Nottingham Crown Court, before Kenneth Jones J and a jury.
13.
In considering how a reasonable woman would respond to the situation in which Emma Humphreys had found herself, the jury should not attribute to the reasonable woman the "abnormal characteristics" the psychiatrist had described; that is, those characteristics were not "eligible for attribution to the reasonable woman".
14.
On 4 December 1985 Emma Humphreys was convicted of murder and sentenced to be detained at her Majesty's pleasure.
15.
Emma Humphreys applied for leave to appeal on 2 January 1986, but it was refused.
16.
In 1992, Emma Humphreys read about the release of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, whose conviction for murder after she killed her violent husband was reduced to manslaughter, thanks to a campaign led by Southall Black Sisters and joined by Justice for Women.
17.
On 24 September 1992, from Holloway Prison in north London, Emma Humphreys wrote to Bindel to ask for help.
18.
Emma Humphreys came and laid beside where I was sitting.
19.
In January 1995, the Court of Appeal granted Emma Humphreys leave to appeal "on the basis of new grounds of appeal relating to the judge's direction to the jury".
20.
News reports show Emma Humphreys leaving the Old Bailey that day with Bindel and Wistrich after the judges substituted the murder conviction for a verdict of manslaughter and sentenced Emma Humphreys to time served.
21.
Bindel told the inquest that Emma Humphreys had been "thrown out of prison and left to her own devices".
22.
The diary includes material from March 1983, when Emma Humphreys was 15 and living with her stepfather in Edmonton, Canada.
23.
Emma Humphreys had been admitted to the Westfield Diagnostic and Treatment Centre and to a local psychiatric ward.
24.
Emma Humphreys describes how her mother was drinking a lot and not eating.
25.
Emma Humphreys keeps coming back but she slips away, right away.
26.
Emma Humphreys had been arrested and kept in custody a few days earlier for assaulting a hotel manager.