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Guardian Editor: "I only hope that in time, these two families can learn to live with their losses and that Rachel and Lillian can now rest in peace.
SO here we are at the end of the trial of Neil Entwistle.
I have been amazed at the response I have received in relation to this blog. This trial has offered my newspaper a unique opportunity to interact with the American public.
I am surely a more erudite person for the exchanges with US 'citizens' and I hope I am a better 'subject' as a result.
But I would just like to conclude by sparing a thought for those who are, as one lawyer put it, 'collateral damage' in this whole sorry saga.
Cliff and Yvonne Entwistle are on their way home from America after the four-week murder trial of their son. Entwistle now has to face the fact he is a convicted killer.
All along Entwistle's parents have remained convinced their son is, in their words, "100 per cent innocent".
And they are now determined to support their son all the way to the US Supreme Court in a bid to clear his name and overturn his life sentence, without chance of parole.
It will be a long hard battle for the Entwistles, who say their son did not receive a fair trial.
It might be years before any appeal hearing – and in the meantime the couple will have to continue facing the public in their visible community roles... Cliff as a district councillor, and Yvonne as a school dinner lady at Norbridge School.
Whatever anyone thinks about Entwistle, the pressures and stresses that Cliff and Yvonne, and their young son Russell, have had to bear have been enormous, and their difficulties in having to carry on coping will be with them for some time to come.
Some people are directing flak their way for their insistence that Rachel killed her baby and herself. But who knows what they would do in their position? It is an unimaginable and tortuous stress, and I for one could not pre-empt how I would react.
But I cannot sign off without acknowledging the dignity shown by the parents of Rachel Entwistle. I defy anybody to tell me they were not moved by Priscilla's heart-rending plea to Judge Diane Kottmyer to punish Entwistle fairly and properly for taking the lives of two generations of their family.
It is hard for me, as a parent, to comprehend what it must be like to sit through a month of people telling me how my daughter and grandchild were shot dead.
So to see them, and Jerome Souza - Rachel's brother - stand up and speak with such pride, love and affection in such a clear and confident manner was testament to their family and to the memory of Rachel and Lillian.
I only hope that in time, these two families can learn to live with their losses and that Rachel and Lillian can now rest in peace.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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