Harcourt is a town of about 700 residents about 120km north-west of Melbourne. It’s a town known for apple-growing, and lately, a tragic feud between two families, the Chaplins and Charters. The feud reached its apotheosis last week when Brenton Chaplin, aged 22, was jailed for 18 months for culpable driving causing death.
It’s become almost a cliché among journalists, commentators, even members of the public, to invoke Shakespeare when talking about this case. I don’t like to add to clichés, yet it seems no other yardstick for discussing the case will do.
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It started in January, 2008.
Brenton Chaplin, then aged 20, was driving his mother’s car on a beach road. He had five of his friends in the car, a blood alcohol reading of 0.085 and was doing 126km per hour in a 80km zone. When he lost control of the car, his best friend, Leigh Charter Jr was thrown from the car and killed. Brenton and his other friends escaped with their lives.
In the days following Leigh’s death, the Chaplin family rang the Charter family offering help, and sent condolences. Their overtures were met with grief and rage. Leigh’s father, Leigh Charter Snr, was apparently unhinged by his eldest son’s death. He told everyone he met that “if he saw Brenton, he would kill him.” Sympathy cards were returned “dipped in red paint.”
In the wider community of Harcourt, both families, at least at the outset, received sympathy. However, during 2008, a “guerilla campaign” began against Brenton Chaplin. Graffiti began appearing around the town labelling Brenton a “murderer” and “killer.” It was around this time that Brenton’s mother, Wendy Chaplin, began to get seriously concerned. There were anonymous phone calls, unexplained noises at night, and Wendy Chaplin began to fear for her life and her family’s.
And on February 11, 2009, a year after Leigh Jr’s death, Wendy Chaplin’s fears were borne out.
Around 9pm, Leigh Charter Snr, aged 44, “a prison warder who rebuilt cars for fun,” came to the Chaplin property “clutching two knives.” He first attacked Cameron Chaplin, Brenton’s brother, and his cousin who were outside in the garden. He then came into the house where Brenton’s father, Trevor, was watching television. “He lunged at Trevor twice, plunging the longer knife into his gut,” and then went into the kitchen where he stabbed Brenton’s mother, Wendy.
Cameron and Trevor survived their wounds, but Wendy didn’t.
‘Poor Wendy ended up dying the way she feared it would happen,’ says an acquaintance of both families.
Immediately after, Leigh Charter Snr drove up to the local high point, and hanged himself from a crane.
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One theory is that Leigh Charter, just before his deadly attack, had heard Brenton Chaplin would plead not guilty to culpable driving … that Charter was enraged because he believed that Brenton would not take responsibility for his mistake.
Brenton did indeed plead not guilty at early hearings. Yet apparently this was part of a standard legal manoeuvre designed to win time to get an independent report from an engineer. As Brenton’s lawyer said, “Brenton was never going to shirk responsibility for what happened … when the report came back … he pleaded guilty.”
With three people — including his mother and best friend — dead as a result of that day in 2008, Brenton’s lawyer says “he has suffered enough.” An appeal against his sentence is planned.
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Image: Leigh Charter Snr (Bendigo Advertiser)
Notes
All quotations from Patrick Carlyon’s report in The Herald Sun, February 20, 2010
Are they all Scotch-Irish by any chance? This reminds me too much of a Chapter in Gladwell’s Outliers, where he is describing a “Hatfields and McCoys” clan feud in Appalachia, populated by Scotch-Irish. Gladwell puts this down to deep-rooted cultural factors in certain populations.
That sounds like a possibility. The names seem to fit.
True, the story has all the makings of a Shakespearean tragedy–death, murder, revenge. But don’t you also need a hero and a tragic flaw?
Yes, there are no heroes here; only flawed human beings. You know, thinking about it, could Romeo have been considered a hero?
I can only imagine the grief of both families.
it’s a very sad story. thank you for humanizing it.
that last quote though gave me the shivers “he has suffered enough”? huh?
mr. brenton drove while intoxicated which led to the death of his friend, which was the catalyst for the “unhinged grief” of the parent of the deceased, which led to a murder then a suicide.
mr. brenton, still lives and deserves to be held accountable for the original either felony or involuntary manslaughter of his friend. regardless of the sorrow he feels and the tragedies that followed.it is the only act that had empirical cause and effect.
drunk driving bad. drunk driving that causes death, worse. drunk driving that that causes death and is the catalyst for even more tragedy, worser. out of all of these i think only one is correctly punishable by law.
I have a different view. I very much believe Brenton Chaplin has suffered enough for several lifetimes. He has lost his mother and best friend as a result of his negligence and irresponsibility. What is it that concerns you? That he might not think of that every day of his life?
I don’t have any training in moral philosophy, however, I was once a law student. Under British and Australian law, Brenton’s act would be distinguished decisively from Leigh Charter Snr’s act by virtue of the principle of mens rea; Brenton did not have an intention to harm, whereas Leigh Charter Snr did.
i am not sure how “intent to harm” applies in Australia but in America i am nearly 100% certain that mr. chaplin’s actions fall under the definition of “vehicular homicide” and though i have no doubt that he regrets his actions, under our laws, intent and remorse are NOT a defense when someone dies because of a drunk driver. although they are probably taken into account for sentencing.
it falls under the category “its no accident”. in other words simply getting behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated fulfills the requirement of mens rea of gross negligence.
perhaps i am confused as to the order of events, my only “concern” is that drunk drivers guilty of vehicular homicide serve the harshest criminal and civil penalty allowed by law. it is the only act for which brenton is culpable. he can not be held accountable for the actions of others. the death of his friend was simply a catalyst for the tragic events that followed.
suffering emotionally for the actions of others is not the same as culpability for your own actions. 18 months of jail time seems a very light sentence for this type of crime. i believe the sentencing is much harsher in the US and there is a growing movement in other countries for harsher sentencing laws.
maybe we have a higher percentage of deaths due to drunk drivers in the US, hence the trend to deal with it roughly.
We have different views on this. I don’t get that Brenton’s act is deserving of the harshest possible penalty. Possibly you’ve had personal experience amongst your friends and family which has you see it differently.
For mine, I know that when I was 20 I used to do just what Brenton did. My best friend and me would go out drinking and dancing and then drive our friends home. We were our parents’ worst nightmare. We sometimes talk about those times now, and wonder by what miracle it was that we survived and didn’t hurt anyone else.
For all our technology support services humans don’t seem to handle greif & sorrow at all well
it easts up inside and can’t get out swometimes but this is trully tragic and revengeful
my friends lived in Harcourt sometime ago so I know the area and the smallness of the place
Hi Neri. Yes, you would have seen many cases of humans not handling grief and sorrow in your work with the bushfire victims. What makes a difference, do you think? Or is it just a plain dumb lottery about those who survive it, and those who don’t?
Hi SGx,
thanks for the reply. i sent you an email unrelated to my post.
i don’t think it was any direct experience that formed my view, since i am first generation american and my parents drank little and there was no taboo in our home against drinking. my parents came from turkey and israel respectively and if they did any drinking in their youth they most certainly walked home or took a cab if they had the money.
the taboo was always about safety when drinking. the legal age here used to be 18 yrs. but many of us drank before that age. usually at parties hosted by parents. the instructions were to spend the night or call for a ride home, but never drink and drive. of course once past the age of living at home, it was hoped that we had learned not to drink and drive.
in the US we are inundated with don’t drink and drive advertisements. and soon there will probably be laws and penalties regarding distracted drivers. there are already advertisements against it.
andreas wrote recently in an uncharacteristically impassioned way about distracted drivers.
if it is not living in the US that influenced my view, then it could be jewish guilt. this might sound extreme, but i would expect to be incarcerated if i killed someone with my car while driving drunk. i also believe that guilt would prevent me from ever getting behind the wheel of a car again.
Ha ha, I’ve got Jewish guilt too, and I’m Irish-Catholic :) I would also expect to be incarcerated, and the guilt and suffering … ugh. Sounds like you were a lot more respectful of your parents and the law than I was. Also, it was in the days before random breath testing, and “driving under the influence” was much more de rigueur than nowadays. What a frightening thought!
never met an irish or a catholic i didn’t like! if you ask me the irish are the 13th lost tribe of israel.
my friends and i were very lucky – the parents hosted these events to keep us safe. perhaps this is why we respected their wishes? it was a rather large bunch of teenagers who loved to gather, drink, do shocking things and discuss how we would change the world.
we all broke the law by drinking underage!
today a parent would get sued for this. topsy turvy in my book.
ha, maybe that’s why I’m attracted to all things Jewish :)