Poor, poor woman

[Mookie81]

Complete lack of support and nowhere to turn.
A terrible deed but I feel so sorry for her.
And where the fuck was her ex? Living in Spain while she was driven to despair.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9186243/Olga-Freemans-friends-reveal-agony-trapped-flat-son-loved-dearly.html

[Littleredridinghood36]

I feel very sorry for her, she's must've been in a very bad way mentally to do something like that.

[IM0GEN]

I do feel sympathy for the mother. Mainly because, if, as it appears, she killed Dylan when in a psychotic state, she's going to have to come to terms with what she's done when she's come out of it and is back in her right mind

Yes indeed. There’s plenty evidence that she loved her child and was a very devoted and caring mother. She has to deal with the grief that any bereaved parents goes through. Multiplied by her guilt at her own part in it and anger at others who could and should have helped but didn’t.

And exacerbated by the misunderstanding, prejudices and judgement of the general public which have been amply demonstrated on this thread .

Her situation is deeply deeply tragic - as a bereaved parent of a profoundly disabled child, my heart goes out to her. There but for the grace of God.

[Arobase]

This is a story is about a psychotic woman who murdered her child

Yet again, no it isn't. As the report makes clear, she has not been convicted of murder and she isn't going to be.

[Mittens030869]

@5zeds Yes that's accurate. And it will be down to the judge to decide the sentence on the basis of psychiatric reports. As it should be in a case like this.

I do feel sympathy for the mother. Mainly because, if, as it appears, she killed Dylan when in a psychotic state, she's going to have to come to terms with what she's done when she's come out of it and is back in her right mind.

Feeling sympathy for the mother doesn't mean that anyone is minimising the tragedy of Dylan's death.

[5zeds]

Killed works and doesn’t imply any legal status. She killed her son by strangling him while depressed and experiencing psychotic symptoms.

[Mittens030869]

And as some of us have said, it's never accurate to use the word 'murder' on the context of psychosis. To be guilty of murder the person concerned has to be in their right mind.

Hence the conviction of manslaughter. It isn't the case that the mother is being let off. But it means that there's no mandatory life sentence and the judge has full discretion to decide the sentence on the basis of psychiatric reports,

[Anne1958]

And just to add - I don’t in anyway at all consider what happened to Dylan to be murder.

[Anne1958]

Its deeply sinister to offer sympathy to a woman who murdered her child in horrible circumstances, my mother, with my severely disabled sister, back in the bad old days when you got 0 help or support, didn't murder my sister


Well I didn’t murder my son either and the fact I didn’t doesn’t make me a better mother than anyone else - it quite simply means I was never unwell enough to.

[Anne1958]

If this was a story about a psychotic woman murdering her newborn baby, would the article go into such detail describing all the ways the baby was challenging as some sort of justification for what happened? Of course not.

Of course not because we know that childbirth in itself can cause psychosis.

[Arobase]

@staydazzling, as has been pointed out many, many times, feeling desperately sorry for this mother is in no way incompatible with feeling desperately sorry for her child. It's not a competition. The local authority and the father let them both down dreadfully. If you cannot sympathise with a woman in this situation, you need to have a good look at yourself.

[staydazzling]

Absolutely agree @RaaRaaeee spot on!

@Arobase, i suggest you read the above post and educate yourself on why sympathy in this instance is so harmful. I don't negate the dad is scum btw, my sympathy is with Dylan only.

[RaaRaaeee]

I hate the way this article has been written. Why are disabled children always framed in these types of stories as a burden to their parents and seemingly nothing more than the sum of their challenging behaviour as if it’s a justification for them being hurt or, in this case, murdered?

This is a story is about a psychotic woman who murdered her child. Why is the headline focused on her “agony” of living with him? If this was a story about a psychotic woman murdering her newborn baby, would the article go into such detail describing all the ways the baby was challenging as some sort of justification for what happened? Of course not.

I do feel sorry for her, the family was badly let down. But this article should mostly be about a young boy tragically losing his life at the hands of his severely mentally disturbed mother. The article (and other posters) seem to assume that the mother had a psychotic episode because of the stress of looking after her son, but maybe the boy who is described as “howling like a dog in destress” in the headline was doing so because he was being neglected and possibly emotionally (and ultimately physically) abused by his delusional and psychotic mother? At the end of the day, he was the one who paid the ultimate price in this tragedy and that’s not how it seems to come across.

So yes “poor, poor woman” but more so “poor, poor boy” who had his life snatched away from him at 10 year old.

[Arobase]

@staydazzling

i appreciate its been classed manslaughter which personally i disagree when it was as premeditated as this.

I suggest you go away and educate yourself much, much more on the law on homicide and the effects of severe mental illness. The idea that people who are mentally ill cannot plan anything is absolute nonsense.

[Arobase]

@LadyWhistledownthe1st

Disgusting. She killed the poor boy. She was solely responsible for his death.

Really? And the council officials who ignored her begging for help as she went day after day without sleep and slid into severe depression and serious mental illness had no responsibility? Nor the child's father who had buggered off abroad and didn't lift a finger to help?

It must be lovely seeing things in the facile, simplistic black-and-white terms you do, @LadyWhistledownthe1st.

[Arobase]

[quote LadyWhistledownthe1st]@Arobase she did![/quote]
Then can you explain why she wasn't convicted of murder?

[Mittens030869]

Oh dear, predictive text once again. That was supposed to say:

It's not about her killing her child because she no longer wanted to cope with his disabilities.

[Mittens030869]

Yes, it was premeditated. But if you look at how Olga's reasons, they were totally delusional. It's not about her killer her child because she no longer wanted to cope with his disabilities. She's clearly lost touch with reality. That's the reason for there being 'diminished responsibility'.

Have you ever tried reasoning with someone who is suffering from psychosis? I have and it's impossible. Their delusions have become their reality.

Think about what Olga will go through when she comes out of her psychosis. It will be devastating for her.

[staydazzling]

i appreciate its been classed manslaughter which personally i disagree when it was as premeditated as this.

[Mittens030869]

@staydazzling. its implies that disabled lives can be considered secondary to the inconvenience they cause, which is wrong. all lives are valuable!. there is no such this as lesser murder in a case like this.

The point is that it isn't classed as murder by law. In legal terms, a person can only be convicted of murder if they were of sound mind at the time of the killing. This is clearly not the case here, hence Olga is guilty of manslaughter because of diminished responsibility.

She hasn't been acquitted and it's now up to the judge to sentence her appropriately, based on the reports they receive.

[LadyWhistledownthe1st]

Disgusting. She killed the poor boy. She was solely responsible for his death.

[IM0GEN]

She did NOT murder her child. She pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the grounds of diminishing responsibility.

If you bother to read the thread several posters have explained this in very helpful detail.

[LadyWhistledownthe1st]

@Arobase she did!

[MessAllOver]

@staydazzling. its implies that disabled lives can be considered secondary to the inconvenience they cause, which is wrong. all lives are valuable!. there is no such this as lesser murder in a case like this.

I understand your point and why you make it. But you're failing to distinguish two things here:

1. The crime itself - causing an unlawful death. This can never be "lesser" because the victim is disabled. Like you say, all lives are valuable. The horror of Dylan's death is not "lesser" in any way because he was disabled. Dylan's life was no less valuable because he was disabled.
   
   
2. The culpability for the crime. Here, circumstances can be relevant. For example, if someone killed a disabled person because they disliked disabled people, that would be a hate crime against the victim. Not only would the culpability not be "lesser", it would actually be greater. By contrast, where caring for a disabled family member adversely affects the mental health of the perpetrator to such a degree that it causes them to have a mental breakdown, the disability is relevant. Not because it is an "inconvenience" in any way or makes a life less valuable but because there is a causal connection between the burden of caring which the disability required and the mental breakdown suffered by the perpetrator of the crime which means they are less culpable.

[Arobase]

@staydazzling, Olga Freeman did not murder her child. I wish people would stop making this misleading claim.

[staydazzling]

Its deeply sinister to offer sympathy to a woman who murdered her child in horrible circumstances, my mother, with my severely disabled sister, back in the bad old days when you got 0 help or support, didn't murder my sister.
i know its not intentional but its implies that disabled lives can be considered secondary to the inconvenience they cause, which is wrong. all lives are valuable!. there is no such this as lesser murder in a case like this.