Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Poor, poor woman

822 replies

Mookie81 · 26/01/2021 07:43

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

OP posts:
Whatflavourjellybabyisnice · 26/01/2021 10:09

@CuriousaboutSamphire

Jesus wept! Some of the comments here.

The poor boy. But also poor woman. It's entirely possible to pity both of them.

But it's OK, his dad has a tattoo and memories of art galleries...

Totally this. The poor woman had mental health issues with distorted thinking
Thisisworsethananticpated · 26/01/2021 10:09

This issue is going to be triggering for so many people
My ex also went overseas , with my blessing
However I didn’t plan for Covid
And him not being able to see his kids
No one did !
So whereas previously the (earning( father could pop on a flight , from March to July he couldn’t

I don’t know the story no one does

unmarkedbythat · 26/01/2021 10:10

@PlanDeRaccordement her trial has happened and her plea has been accepted.

Mrs Justice Cheema Grubb adjourned sentencing until next month when she will consider detaining Freeman in hospital for mental health treatment- from the report here

Thisisworsethananticpated · 26/01/2021 10:10

Actually awaiting thread deletion
Toxic

PlanDeRaccordement · 26/01/2021 10:10

[quote BrumBoo]@PlanDeRaccordement, she will be sentenced in February as they have accepted her plea of diminished responsibility due to psychosis.[/quote]
accepted her plea of guilty due to diminished responsibility covers all mitigating factors, not just having psychotic shmptoms. They’ll consider sleep deprivation and lockdown stress in the sentencing as well. As they should.

Lostinacloud · 26/01/2021 10:10

Lockdown - continuing to TRADE lives, not SAVE lives.

FamilyOfAliens · 26/01/2021 10:11

That article you linked to says she was arrested on suspicion of murder, but charged with manslaughter on the grounds of dininshed responsibility, @PlanDeRaccordement.

ConspiracyOfOne · 26/01/2021 10:11

@cheeseismydownfall

From the Mail article:

After Dylan's birth – and his eventual diagnosis with Cohen syndrome – it soon became clear that Olga would need to put her career on the back-burner.

WHY? Why the fuck did it "become clear"? This woman was a successful lawyer. Where was the fucking father? Off around the world photographic celebrities. Prick.

This desperate story just sums up how women are shafted again and again by society. I am so angry on her behalf, and on her son's behalf.

Completely agree with this.

Reading the story this morning made my blood absolutelyboil.

Cannot believe the lack of sympathy on this thread for that poor, poor woman.

PlanDeRaccordement · 26/01/2021 10:12

[quote Arobase]@PlanDeRaccordement, you plainly have no understanding of mental illness. Your suggestion that planning pursuant to delusional beliefs means that the person cannot possibly be mentally ill demonstrates that.[/quote]
Ok. Being as how I have schizophrenia...you can check have admitted to this for months and months on this site. And I have been in secure mental hospitals. I do know a bit about mental illness. And I’ve been in hospital with people with Psychosis. Part of schizophrenia is Psychosis. And I’m telling you the people who have only psychotic symptoms are not having Psychosis. There is a difference.

MessAllOver · 26/01/2021 10:13

I think it's important to separate out three things: the horror of the crime, the culpability of the mother and the culpability of others.

In terms of the horror of the crime, an innocent child has been murdered by his mother and main carer, the one person who he should have been able to trust. Nothing can diminish the horror of that and his disabilities don't come into it at all, except to make him more vulnerable.

In terms of culpability of the mother, the CPS has accepted the mother's plea of manslaughter by diminished responsibility. So it accepts that her mental illness made her significantly less culpable. However, she has still be found guilty of manslaughter and will be sentenced either to prison time or to a hospital order (depending on an impartial judge's assessment of her culpability). So she hasn't 'got away with it' and has been recognised to bear some (although reduced) culpability. That is fair.

In terms of judging the culpability of others, I hope justice is done here. The roles of both the father and the local authority should be scrutinised and they need to be held to account if it turns out that there has been neglect of this poor boy on their part which contributed to his death.

PlanDeRaccordement · 26/01/2021 10:14

@FamilyOfAliens

That article you linked to says she was arrested on suspicion of murder, but charged with manslaughter on the grounds of dininshed responsibility, *@PlanDeRaccordement*.
No? It’s the Met police report of her conviction. “A woman has been convicted in relation to the death of her son in Acton.

Olga Freeman, 40 (19.03.80), of Cumberland Park, Acton, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey on Monday, 25 January to the manslaughter of 10-year-old Dylan Freeman by reason of diminished responsibility.”

news.met.police.uk/news/woman-convicted-in-relation-to-death-of-her-son-419569

Maybe you are mixing up my link with someone else’s?

Supersimkin2 · 26/01/2021 10:14

Why wasn't the father charged with neglect?

unmarkedbythat · 26/01/2021 10:14

@PlanDeRaccordement no, there is not. If you are experiencing psychotic symptoms, you are experiencing psychosis. Psychosis is a symptom, not a stand alone illness in itself.

x2boys · 26/01/2021 10:15

Lack of sympathy for the child is make Ng my blood boil ,yes it's extremely hard to have a severly autistic child with no support during lock down I'm living it ,but a child is dead here he didn't deserve to die

BrumBoo · 26/01/2021 10:16

@Thisisworsethananticpated, sorry, does one of your children also have a severe genetic issue that means you only get to sleep when the children are at school? Because you're a very brave person agreeing to your ex not being available for respite/equal responsibility for the children if so. Especially if you have zero other family to help and already limited social care help.

You're right, we still don't know the whole story, but I'd be surprised if any single parent was happy for the other parent to move hundreds or thousands of miles away in this particular circumstance, even without lockdown thrown in.

ConspiracyOfOne · 26/01/2021 10:16

@katy1213

Typical Mumsnet. Nowhere does it say that the father abandoned his son. In fact, if anybody bothered to read to the end, it says the boy travelled with his father on work assignments. He lives in Spain now. It doesn't say that he was living there before the boy died. Many marriages crack under this kind of pressure. The real blame lies with the council that should have been providing residential care.

Typical male apologist.

Yes he got to be a Disney Dad and take his son for a week here or there before dumping him back on his mother 24/7 for months on end without respite.

Fuck him. He is just as culpable, if not more so. His selfishness destroyed two lives.

PlanDeRaccordement · 26/01/2021 10:17

[quote unmarkedbythat]@PlanDeRaccordement no, there is not. If you are experiencing psychotic symptoms, you are experiencing psychosis. Psychosis is a symptom, not a stand alone illness in itself.[/quote]
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣
Not according to the DSM or the ICD-10 which psychiatrists all over the world use.

Labobo · 26/01/2021 10:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

cushioncovers · 26/01/2021 10:19

Sad sad story. I feel for the mum. She will have to live with this for the rest of her life.

Arobase · 26/01/2021 10:19

@x2boys

If you read the article *@Arobase* her diagnosis was depression with some psychotic features I'm well aware of the difference thanks ,what is disgraceful however is only quoting part of my post to suit your own narrative.
And the prosecution and judge, both of whom had actually read the relevant reports, accept that she was so ill that she could not be charged with murder. The report says "Three separate psychiatric reports concluded that Freeman was suffering from a severe depression and psychosis at the time of the killing." She is in a residential specialist unit for women with mental illness.

But hey, you know better, of course, @x2boys

MegtheShark · 26/01/2021 10:20

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

PlanDeRaccordement · 26/01/2021 10:20

If I killed my DCs, I’d expect to go to either a high security hospital for the criminally insane or to prison. Because you can be a mentally ill parent with an autistic child and manage to not kill them.

Yes, as I said in my first post, I have sympathy for Olga. But most of my sympathy is with her son Dylan who in no way deserved to be murdered. He was the only person wholly innocent in all of this and so that is where most of my sympathy lies.

BrumBoo · 26/01/2021 10:20

@x2boys

Lack of sympathy for the child is make Ng my blood boil ,yes it's extremely hard to have a severly autistic child with no support during lock down I'm living it ,but a child is dead here he didn't deserve to die
Everyone has huge sympathy for the child! You're talking like everyone's saying 'ah well, no loss there'. Its a huge loss, he was still a living person and obviously loved. It is the circumstances that lead to his death that is tragic for his mother as well. She was broken beyond capacity of knowing what she was doing. Two lives absolutely destroyed by the ineffective actions of those that could help, but didn't.
Arobase · 26/01/2021 10:22

? How can I know “better than the court” when she hasn’t even been tried yet? And I do not contest the doctors report my but doctors don’t decide guilty or not guilty, the courts do.

She has been tried, @PlanDeRaccordement. The court accepted her plea of guilty to manslaughter, we are simply waiting for the sentence.

x2boys · 26/01/2021 10:22

Probably a lot more than you think @Arobase