Today I read about the trial of the retired star rugby player Marc Cecillon, who shot dead his wife in front of 60 people at a garden party in 2004. He was found guilty of premeditated murder and will serve a 20-year life sentence.

The defence at the trial pointed out that he was drunk when he arrived with his wife and when he was abusive he was asked to leave. His wife refused to leave with him. He returned later with the Magnum hand gun and shot her.

This was described by the defence as a crime of passion. He was described as depressed and suffering from alcoholism. He also stated that he hadn't intended to kill her, even though he had shot her six times. The fact that the concept 'crime of passion' can still be used in France, and in most cases to justify the murder of women, is a sad fact. It suggests that it is the emotions that overcome the man, as if he himself is the actual victim of some injury.

While the defence and the media have gone to great trouble to describe and explain his troubled background since retiring from international rugby, no column inches are given over to paying tribute to the life of his wife or the legacy for his two daughters. The idea of the crime of passion is that it is in some way not premeditated. It was an official legal defence in France up until the 1970s, but is still used by some defence lawyers as a way of trying to mitigate the circumstances of a crime. A crime of passion used to carry a sentence of as little as two years imprisonment, which in this case would have been the period up until the trial.

Thankfully, in this case the defence did not convince the jury and the crime of passion defence is no longer officially recognised. But though not legally recognised, it's still commonly used in this kind of spousal abuse or murder case, and not just in France.

Such a defence rests on the idea that some insult to the honour of the man forces him into a rage taht completely overtakes his 'normal' rational self. What is not discussed is that a man's sense of honour is basically a sense of entitlement to power and the violence used as retribution when that power is challenged constitutes the brutal impositions of the dictator. Maybe it plays on the fact that we have all felt rage and even the desire to do injury to another human being. Maybe our own guilt goes some way to softening the moral judgement of those that indulge this feeling of rage. Well, we should get over our guilt, understand that we have no right to control the actions of others, and see this crime exactly for what it is...the vicious act of a dictator.

So the question is how long will this idea of the 'crime of passion' continue to have any kind of credence in a French court, or in fact in any court. Likewise, the fact that the media have largely failed to pick up on this completely idefensible defence also shows that there remains an overt acceptance that men still enjoy this escape from the full and proper moral consequences of the violence they visit on those so-called 'close' to them.