How is this not murder?(upsetting)

[OhToBeASeahorse]

A mother has appeared in court today charged with the manslaughter of her toddler.

She left her, alone, for 6 days.

How can this not be murder? I don't understand.

@IrmaFayLear

Of course she was troubled. But it’s the absolute rampant defending of her that I can’t understand.

No one is defending her.

And yes, you lack understanding.

@ismiseeire

Why, why, why do these awful things continue to happen. A single Mum, with a penchant for running away, should not have been left without any support or supervision. It's hard to understand how although not being under social services, she then went on to do something so negligent. She must have been deemed a decent parent at some point. I just don't understand it.

The likelihood is that until this happened she did appears to be a good enough parent. Being young and vulnerable doesn't automatically mean social workers are involved with your children, there has to be evidence of harm. It's hard for people to believe but honestly sometimes people can appear to be doing fine until they do something like this. It's unusual; there is usually a history of social services involvement beforehand but sometimes not. We can't get involved with every young vulnerable parent on the off chance they won't be able to cope.

Proving intent is everything. Unless there is proof that the person intended to kill their victim, its always going to be manslaughter - even when it is a sickening situation.

Exactly that @thedancingbear

3 parties in 3 cities sounds highly strange and as if something awful was happening there as well. It would not be surprising if the mother was being coerced into something. That poor little baby. RIP.

You’re determined to see nothing other than “she’s evil” so I’ll leave you to that. For me life is never as black and white.

But the thing is that on MN, "life is never as black and white" generally only gets applied to female criminals. Rapists and child molesters don't get much sympathy on here. Posters tend to focus more on their victims, not on what drove those poor men to commit those crimes.

We can't get involved with every young vulnerable parent on the off chance they won't be able to cope. I think we should. Even just weekly engagement with a Family Support Worker or something.

A single Mum, with a penchant for running away, should not have been left without any support or supervision.

The threshold for social work involvement is incredibly high, a young mum seeming to struggle, in supported accommodation wouldn’t necessarily meet that threshold.

I just think the minimisation of “difficult childhood” and labelling as a child killer with the assumption that it was an active and deliberate choice to kill her child does everyone involved a disservice

But how is it inaccurate to label her a child killer? She was literally convicted of manslaughter of a child

We can't get involved with every young vulnerable parent on the off chance they won't be able to cope. I think we should. Even just weekly engagement with a Family Support Worker or something.

Very few people would be prepared to foot the tax bill to fund this. Services have been defunded and cut to the absolute bones, there’s literally no money for support work unless there’s a known risk.

But the thing is that on MN, "life is never as black and white" generally only gets applied to female criminals. Rapists and child molesters don't get much sympathy on here. Posters tend to focus more on their victims, not on what drove those poor men to commit those crimes.

That’s what I was saying a while back, if this was a father no one would be sympathetic or trying to understand or justifying it by saying he had a difficult childhood, whenever it’s a man it’s literally there is no justification whatsoever so why when it’s a female do people bend over backwards to give excuses, that they simply wouldn’t and don’t do if it’s a man! I’m sure all men that commit horrible crimes claim to have had reasons like being abused themselves difficult childhood 🙄

@ZoeCM

You’re determined to see nothing other than “she’s evil” so I’ll leave you to that. For me life is never as black and white.

But the thing is that on MN, "life is never as black and white" generally only gets applied to female criminals. Rapists and child molesters don't get much sympathy on here. Posters tend to focus more on their victims, not on what drove those poor men to commit those crimes.

When you watch any program about people on death row for murder that selves into their lives you learn that the majority of them have been through huge trauma/head injuries caused by abuse and whilst it doesn’t necessarily make you feel sympathy it makes you realise that life isn’t all black and white and that we have to do something as a society to not keeping failing these kids that grow up to do monstrous things themselves. I don’t feel sympathy for the mother of this child but we need to work out the whys in order to stop this happening again, it may turn out she is simply evil and it may not.

Three parties in 6 days in different cities, attended by a vulnerable child/woman with presumably very limited resources? Screams ‘trafficing’ to me, not someone with full agency over their actions.

I agree.

@ZoeCM

You’re determined to see nothing other than “she’s evil” so I’ll leave you to that. For me life is never as black and white.

But the thing is that on MN, "life is never as black and white" generally only gets applied to female criminals. Rapists and child molesters don't get much sympathy on here. Posters tend to focus more on their victims, not on what drove those poor men to commit those crimes.

I think it is possible to:

-immense sympathy for the victims
-revulsion at the criminals
-sorrow at the fact that the criminals have turned out how they have

and at the same time want to understand the underlying causation for what they did (again -for the hard of thinking - this is not to excuse them). This would be with a view to, hopefully, stopping others turning out the same way. I do happen to think that, sometimes, the answer will simply be 'they were evil' but humans are usually more complex than that.

None of these contradict any of the others.

Unfortunately these not particularly complicated ideas are beyond some people's critical thinking powers, which is why you always get a handful of nitwits, frothing at the mouth and accusing anyone attempting any kind of analysis of excusing the criminal.

And yes, all of the above equally applies to rapists, child abusers, you name it.

I know people might find this ridiculous but it made me cry today. To think of the suffering and loneliness that little girl went through is just unbearable. I just don't know how her mum can sleep at night knowing her daughter was starving to death alone. Its so sad there are people like this in the world it makes me so really really sad. There are so many people that try and try and try to have their own child with no luck and people that are blessed with a child and do that is just unforgivable.

@OhToBeASeahorse

But she was in a mother and baby home - how can no one have been aware

I don't know, they were supposed to be keeping both of them safe.

So many adults do that too

Of course. It doesn't mean they are amazing parents.

@womanity

There’s lots of people asking why no one heard the baby cry - neglected babies often don’t cry - they’ve learned already that no-one comes.

That is very true, I remember reading the studies on that. That makes it even more distressing, the thought of that little sweet girl just slowly dying but not even crying out because she knew nobody would come.

@mrsbitaly

I know people might find this ridiculous but it made me cry today. To think of the suffering and loneliness that little girl went through is just unbearable. I just don't know how her mum can sleep at night knowing her daughter was starving to death alone. Its so sad there are people like this in the world it makes me so really really sad. There are so many people that try and try and try to have their own child with no luck and people that are blessed with a child and do that is just unforgivable.

I think it’s the opposite of ridiculous to have a visceral response like that.

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

So many adults do that too

Of course. It doesn't mean they are amazing parents.

It doesn’t mean they aren’t either.

@mrsbitaly boy ridiculous at all. I once read a child abuse case on here and I'm sincere when I say I think about that poor baby most days. I dont know if that's normal, but it haunts me.

Not, not boy!

@thedancingbear which posters exactly do you consider to be nitwits? Me? I have degree level qualifications in logic and maths, am I lacking the capacity for rational thought, in your opinion? I also have qualifications in psychology but many posters have told me I have no empathy, because I won't empathise with a child killer.

To be an amazing parent you need to meet your responsibilities, not just play house with you baby.

@mrsbitaly

I know people might find this ridiculous but it made me cry today. To think of the suffering and loneliness that little girl went through is just unbearable. I just don't know how her mum can sleep at night knowing her daughter was starving to death alone. Its so sad there are people like this in the world it makes me so really really sad. There are so many people that try and try and try to have their own child with no luck and people that are blessed with a child and do that is just unforgivable.

It's not ridiculous at all. My reaction was the same.