Mr Justice Charleton speaks to International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services Conference 2025

On 26 June, Mr Justice Charleton attended the International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services Conference as a keynote speaker.  The conference was held over three days at Trinity College, Dublin.  Mr Justice Charleton delivered a lecture entitled “A Personal View of Homicide” which combined criminological studies and a range of homicide cases experienced over a 27-year career as a barrister and sought to identify patterns of conduct as to why people take to the “perfectly normal” crime of murder.  Mr Justice Charleton characterised the lecture as “not a study in criminology but, rather, a series of impressions which nonetheless are related to and found to be grounded in the ideas of those who have addressed the unnerving question of how both ordinary motivations like greed, crushing blows like disappointment in love and long simmering jealousy, either singly or in combination, drive the ever-mysterious human condition of hate.”