Provocative Defense

REVIEW

TV One
The Killing of Sophie Elliot
August 5th 2009

Clayton Weatherston murdered Sophie Elliot brutally by stabbing her 216 times. He used Provocation as his defense claiming it was manslaughter. Throughout his defense he manifested narcissistic personality disorder, an inflated idea of his own self worth and in so doing said all sorts of nasty stuff about his victim. There is now grounds to remove provocation as a legal defense due to public disgust with his blatantly narcissistic performance.

The programme explored the more provocative side of this real life drama. That of his narcissistic personality disorder. Interviews with psychiatrists support what seems evident in this case, the man was guilty and sealed her fate from the very start of their imbalanced and violent relationship.

Was the magnitude of his crime great enough to forgo this parade of the ego of a sick mind? Is the exposure and amplification of raw detail good for justice?

The programme use narrated reenactments effectively. The murder scene from the point of view of the mother of the murdered girl was narrated by the mother, while a scene in which an actor portrayed her played out the evil scenario. This was a brutal cross-over between intimacy and violence. Very effective television.