As emotions run high over the downgrading of Gerard Baden-Clay’s murder conviction to manslaughter, Lisa Wilkinson made a passionate statement about domestic violence on The Today Show on Wednesday morning.
“Australian police deal with a case of domestic violence every two minutes,” The Huffington Post editor-in-chief said while interviewing Mentors of Violence Prevention director Shannon Spriggs Murdoch.
“A lot of women who may be living in violent relationships must be looking at what happened in court yesterday and feel that the system is just not on their side.”
Gerard Baden-Clay was convicted of murdering his wife and mother of their children in 2014 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
In the Court of Appeal, however, Baden-Clay's lawyers argued there was no evidence of his intent to kill and his murder conviction was set aside, replacing it with the lesser charge of manslaughter.
When legal expert Sam Macedone explained why the downgrading was plausible, Wilkinson asked the question:
“…If we go to this whole issue of premeditation, what about some of the details from the trial that came up, like him promising his mistress that he will be free to be with her by a certain date which happened to coincide with Allison’s death.
“He Googled ‘the right to remain silent’ two days before Allison was killed.
"We know he was in financial trouble and he immediately tried to claim life insurance after her death -- doesn’t that say premeditation right there?”