Teenager guilty of murder.

This infuriates me.

A child (with a difficult home life) was sexually active at thirteen.
She became pregnant and was in denial of her pregnancy, which she managed to hide.
She gave birth alone, aged fifteen. Still a child.
She killed her baby. From her point of view, what else could she do? She did what countless numbers of young mothers have done in the past.

This is clearly infanticide, not murder.

And there should be absolute, all-encompassing compassion for the little girl who did this even if she is now nineteen years old.

And those saying would we be saying the same if it was a teenage boy? Well no, it is not the same because boys cannot be pregnant or give birth, it is NOT the same.

This is obtuse. We know boys don't give birth.

If a boy committed rape, murder, or any other crime, who would say 'he's just a child, he doesn't need a criminal record'?

I think as a society we truly underestimate the mental impact of pregnancy and childbirth on many women (and in this case, girls.) What happened was horrendous but I don’t believe any woman who has just given birth should be charged with murder when they kill their baby, it should always be infanticide.

And those saying would we be saying the same if it was a teenage boy? Well no, it is not the same because boys cannot be pregnant or give birth, it is NOT the same.

FunkyBuddha85 · Today 10:32
Whilst this is an absolutely tragic situation I wish people would stop calling her a child. 15 is not a child, adolescent yes but well on the way to adulthood. At 15 my mum left her home town and loved to London by herself. At 15 I was mature and travelled by myself.
At that age you know right from wrong. You certainly know killing is wrong.
I have sympathy for the girl. I can't imagine the fear she felt. But she was not a child.

I think many of us travelled around alone when we were fifteen. It also used to be the school leaving age and go out to work age even as late as the mid 1960s.

The law recognises the killing of a child as either Infanticide or Murder, with the former taking account of the state of mind of a mother who has just given birth - of ANY AGE including double this girl’s age.

The jury decided this girl got the worse charge of murder even though, in other cases of new born baby killing, mothers ( including older ones) have been charged with Infanticide.

The Law also says 15 is a child. That is the Law, not people on this thread.

It is also now known that the brain has not matured fully before about 25.

It's probably taken so long to come to court because of covid delays. NAL but pretty sure crimes committed as a child are sentenced as a child. I would imagine her lawyers would also have tried to persuade her to admit infanticide/negotiate a plea bargain.

If one of the lads she slept with had murdered this baby would you all be just as sympathetic? There are often just community sentences for infanticide, is that enough for murdering a baby? She'll get help in prison.

Exactly this.

Oh gosh yes, 10 is still definitely a child. I know under law she was a child and parents are absolutely still responsible. I was more referring to other comments from people saying "she was a child, didn't know what she thinking" rubbish. Unless there are special needs involved 15 is old enough to understand consequences.

Yeah but children under 16 can still commit crimes. Teenage boys stab each other and sexually violate girls but we wouldn't be saying they're just children.

Whilst this is an absolutely tragic situation I wish people would stop calling her a child. 15 is not a child, adolescent yes but well on the way to adulthood. At 15 my mum left her home town and loved to London by herself. At 15 I was mature and travelled by myself.
At that age you know right from wrong. You certainly know killing is wrong.
I have sympathy for the girl. I can't imagine the fear she felt. But she was not a child.

Family and friends reported they had noticed Mayo wearing loose and baggy clothing in the weeks running up to the birth, which the prosecution allege showed she had purposely tried to conceal the pregnancy.
From the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/11/fifteen-year-old-girl-killed-her-newborn-baby-with-cotton-wool-court-hears

The prosecution said the fact she was wearing loose clothes meant she knew she was pregnant.

Did the prosecution ask if her parents “knew” she was pregnant given her increasing size and other sickness symptoms she had had, and her mother’s knowledge that she had been having sexual partners ( illegal) since she was 13 (Daily Mail in previous thread) ?

This gives a slightly better idea of the 15 year old girl who killed her newborn baby.

Paris Mayo: Schoolgirl who was 15 when she killed her newborn son is found guilty of murder

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12226779/Schoolgirl-15-killed-newborn-son-guilty-murder.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12226779/amp/Schoolgirl-15-killed-newborn-son-guilty-murder.html

I don’t think “the mother who would have cared for her” had really been able to care for her so far, in any optimal way, for whatever reason.

So if a teenage boy battered a baby, fractured it's skull and then stuffed it's mouth with cottonwool to stop it breathing you think he wouldn't be subject to rage and punishment? I don't think there would be a split on MN, he would be condemned with 100% agreement.

Maybe some feel empathy for a helpless baby who suffered an absolutely horrific death. I had a baby as a teenager with an abusive partner but I can't imagine attacking the baby and deliberately killing it.

I also feel empathy for the jurors who will have heard terrible details that will live with them forever, for the police officers and medical staff who had to deal with this.

Maybe empathy gets a bit stretched by the time people get to the person who committed the murder.

There's extra rage when a baby is murdered in any circumstance. Add to the mix people defending the killer and the active discussions around it, and you have an illusion of 'more outrage' against women.

Anyone who uses the rough sex defence is also a murderer and needs to go to prison. It's not always successful anyway, and where it is, it's a clear miscarriage of justice.

Disapproving of both isn't mutually exclusive.

Ofcourseshecan · Today 09:18
Men can get away with killing women in the UK, if they claim it was ‘rough sex’ that went wrong. But a frightened child who was scared to call for help is convicted of murder. Sorry I haven’t rtft. I’m sure others have noticed this

There is extra rage and punishment for a woman/girl who does not behave according to what we think is natural.

@Ofcourseshecan ,

She actively killed her newborn, it didn’t die of neglect.

What do you want to happen here?

Men can get away with killing women in the UK, if they claim it was ‘rough sex’ that went wrong. But a frightened child who was scared to call for help is convicted of murder. Sorry I haven’t rtft. I’m sure others have noticed this too.

post- mortem, not post- mitten.
girl’s not girls’

BMustard · Today 07:48

To the poster who said it was a post-mortem that had detected the baby had cried, I don’t think a post-mortem could know that.

If the coroner said it happened, let's trust the coroner. If the baby was alive for 1-2 hours, the coroner concluded it was likely that the baby had cried. They would have known better than us.

Are we really now disputing the Coroner if they don't say what we want?

I was the one who said how would a post-mortem detect that the baby had cried, and then another poster - thank you for the explanation - said they could know from whether or not there was fluid in the baby’s lungs: no fluid would mean he had cried and breathed.

But the reason for me saying that in the first place was not to doubt the baby had cried. It was because someone had said the girls’ mother must have heard the baby cry so why hadn’t she gone down stairs, and then another poster had said it had been the post-mitten not the girl’s mother
who knew he had cried.

Can anyone tell me how the girl’s mother would not have known she was pregnant, especially as the baby was a full grown and 8lbs? What about school? Talk about neglect.