Toddler 'beaten to death' by teenager

[SomeGuy]

'A 15-year-old boy beat a toddler causing fatal injuries while babysitting, a court has been told.

Demi Mahon, two, was found with 69 injuries, including a bite, at a home in Eccles, Salford, last July. She died at Hope Hospital.

The toddler's mother, Ann Marie McDonald, told the jury she popped out to pick up her child benefit and buy a birthday card.

She said that when she returned the boy was standing outside the house with a man.

Ann Marie McDonald, mother of Demi Mahon
Ms McDonald said the defendant told her: "I picked her up - I might have hurt her - and she fell in the park."

She said she rushed into the house and found her daughter in bed with the bedclothes partially covering her face.

"Her face was bruised. I tried to pick her up and her head flopped back. She couldn't breathe properly," she said.

"I screamed, 'Why haven't you rung an ambulance?'. He said, 'I never done nothing, I've not done nothing'."

Ms McDonald, who is known as Sindy, pointed at the defendant and said: "He did that to my daughter."

"When her small body was examined by Dr Naomi Carter, pathologist, Dr Carter found 68 sites of injury on that small body.

"We say every one of those injuries were caused by this young man.

"They were all over her body, but many of them were to her head and face and Dr Carter drew the conclusion that young Demi had probably been punched repeatedly in the face," he said.

He said the defendant lied about what he had done and claimed Demi banged her head against a radiator and also against an ashtray. '

[SomeGuy]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8112980.stm

[notnowbernard]

OMG

I can't handle these threads, I honestly can't...

[tiredemma]

Awful.

[Rindercella]

Oh God. I wish I hadn't read that. Just cannot imagine that poor little girl endured and what the poor mother is going through. Desperately sad.

[SomeGuy]

This is their defence: "their client suffered an abnormality of mind which impaired his responsibility. "

which I think is an attempt to get off with a shorter sentence.

It was the boy's 15th birthday that day

"Ms McDonald arrived back at the flat at 4pm to find the boy and his father outside saying there was possibly something wrong with Demi.

'This young man told a series of stories, a series of lies to various people who attended,' added the QC.
'Each lie he told was slightly different and all designed to minimize responsibility for what he had done, and also that he knew what he had done. "

[LovelyTinOfSpam]

And his dad hadn't called an ambulance either & presumably colluded in the lies.

WTF.

[thisisyesterday]

dreadfully sad, read this earlier today.

although, why did she leave the child with him????

not suggesting the mother is to blame, but if the defence think they're in with a chance of getting a lighter sentence wth this "abnormality of mind" they must be pretty certqain about it? which raises questions of hissuitability to be left with a small child surely???

[SomeGuy]

I think that's just defence tactics TBH. They've got a duty to try and minimise their client's sentence and have decided this is the best way.

Doesn't reflect on the mother really.

[dilemma456]

Message withdrawn

[mrsruffallo]

I don't know what there is to say.
What's the point of this thread?
Sorry, but I just feel sick

[ElfOnTheTopShelf]

I remember this being on the news when it first happened
Sometimes, I just don't get the human race

[SomeGuy]

He has been convicted.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8120560.stm

It doesn't sound as if he was a very suitable babysitter:

'Dr Lengua, who was called by the defence, said the boy suffered from an unsocialised conduct disorder and had a "below normal" IQ.

He told the jury the boy's poor ability to think and regulate his emotions and what he called his "poor moral development" had more influence over his actions than his poor intellectual ability.

Dr Lengua said: "He has a poor understanding of other people's emotions and other people's functions."

He added the boy had difficulties in explaining his attack on Demi Leigh.

He said: "He alluded to the fact that he was angry... to the fact that he had told her to be quiet."

The jury also heard that the boy was "fed up" because Demi Leigh was crying and would not do as she was told, but has never explained his actions. '

'

[fifitot]

Read more on the case. A drug addicted woman who leaves her kid to cry and with various people. Has convictions for drugs and supplying.

Social services fail to intervene yet again. I don't want to start it all off again but it makes me seethe! When I did my training I remember being told that just because someone was a drug addict, doesn't make them a bad person. Well I am sorry it does.

Tresholds of intervention in these cases are too high. I know it wasn't the mother who murdered the child but she was living a life that contributed to the child's death.

Makes me fcuking seethe with anger.

[SomeGuy]

Here's the social services stuff

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8120525.stm

'Children's services in Greater Manchester have admitted there were failings in the protection of a toddler beaten to death by her babysitter.

A serious case review found phone calls from relatives and neighbours concerned about Demi Leigh Mahon's welfare were not followed up properly.

The two-year-old was killed by a 15-year-old boy while her mother went to collect a child benefit cheque.

Social workers knew the family but a protection plan had not been set up.

Gill Rigg, chair of Salford Safeguarding Children's Board, commissioned the investigation into the young girl's death.

She said the death was unpredictable and therefore unavoidable but there were a "whole range of issues that needed to be significantly improved".

The report found Ms McDonald gave the social services misleading evidence about her drug misuse and there was no proper follow-up which resulted in the case being closed.

The serious case review said there was a severe lack of information about the child's life, even though neighbours had rang to express their concern.

The little girl had often been heard crying and at one point her mother had taken an overdose.

Both her father, Gary Mahon, and her grandmother, Frances Gillon, had contacted social services.

Ms Gillon said: "I made phone calls to them, the first time was three months and then three weeks before she died.

"I left information that we were concerned about the safety of the baby and they did absolutely nothing. They never even phoned me back to say that they responding to my phone call or anything."
'

The mother was a smack addict yet they say "the death was unpredictable and therefore unavoidable".

Complete bollocks. A child could tell you that heroin addicts are completely unsuitable to look after children.

Any number of people would be happy to adopt a toddler (rather than waiting till her mother had the chance to fuck her up as she got older).

"The girl's mother, Ann-Marie McDonald, had turned her home into a drugs den before she was born.
She was once hospitalised with a cocaine overdose, and drank heavily.
In March last year, the 31-year-old - who was known as Cindy - was given a rehabilitation order after being convicted of supplying heroin and cocaine from her flat in Eccles, Greater Manchester.
But even after she failed to comply and fled with Demi-Leigh to a friend's flat nearby, resulting in a warrant for her arrest, alarm bells did not ring. "

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1195724/Social-services-fail-toddler-punched-kicked-bitten-death-15 -year-old-boy.html

[LovelyTinOfSpam]

Terrible story.

Social services seem to have cocked up again.

Mother with chaotic lifestyle etc obviously bad situation but lets not forget it was the boy who killed the child, not the mother.

[SomeGuy]

The mother is obviously fucked up and not entirely in control of her actions and social services are the ones to blame for not taking the child away.

[Nancy66]

Poor kid - another one let down by every adult in her life.

[tiredemma]

this is utterly depressing, what a beautiful little girl- what fucking chance did she stand?

[SomeGuy]

To be fair, adults did try to help her, but social services did nothing.

I'm amazed at the threads about the Wife Swap mother when clearly it gets much much worse than that.

[EvaLongoria]

its on ITV News now

[SomeGuy]

It's sad also that, had she not been murdered, she was very likely to have ended up like her mum.