but if he didn’t leave her actually inside the park and rather outside the park on the street could it still be deemed negligent manslaughter?
edited by me
I think you get into a lot of potentially difficult arguments that would require analysing previous cases
On the one hand, it is reasonably clear his unlawful assault placed her at risk of harm - he took her to a remote place to sexually assault her, and took her away from a well lit, trafficked public area where she was safe. So in a very real way, he would have caused her death when any reasonable person would have realised he was placing her at risk.
I think the real issue is whether his conduct would have been the cause of death. Let's say he was chasing her in the park and she runs into the water by accident - then his unlawful actions directly cause death. But at some point it gets too indirect. So let's say his version is true and they never were in the park, then libby wanders into the park later and falls in by accident 30 mins later - did he cause that?
Obviously on some level he did, but in terms of the law, you could argue that he wasn't the direct cause at that point - rather she died because of decisions she made.
IMO this is why the prosecution didn't open this whole can of worms - it makes sense for them to be all in on murder
I am OK with that. In my opinion, only the accused knows exactly what happened and he won't tell us. But one way or the other, her blood is on his hands.