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.

This has made me so ill seeing this. My youngest ds is same age cannot begin to imagine the suffering that precious little girl had to endure. I really hope the mother gets the maximum sentence.

Seen a lot of people writing kids having kids,I was relatively young when I had my first and my friend was 15 when she had hers and we have done a good job at parenting so it's not an age thing.

Are there really people that evil?
I mean I guess so but I can't see how a young teen could be so callous?

I think there must be more to it. Unless she had major MH issues.

Also not all babies cry. If she cried and got ignored / shouted at age would learn nothing to do it. Not saying that's the case here.

Shocking.

Amongst all the pitchfork waving going on her, I'd like to re-iterate this comment:

It’s possible to deplore her actions while acknowledging there are other issues which contributed to what happened.

What happened to this child was unconscionable.

What happened to this child's mother was also unconscionable.

Both set of circumstances need investigating.

Pitchforks can be left at the door.

This is a horrific and upsetting tragedy, that poor child.

I don't understand why people on here are saying she was on a child protection plan without a social worker though? Both the daily mail and the Guardian are saying there was NO child protection plan - the child wasn't open to social services, that is why there was no social worker.

But there are so many unanswered questions with this case, why didn't anyone at the unit hear the child's distress, why wasn't a referral to social services made if there were concerns about her parenting, and yes there are lots of markers that the woman was possibly being exploited. None of which excuses her horrifically neglectful behaviour and this awful tragedy of course.

In the photos, the baby looks really well looked after. It seems like half a story.

That’s not unusual either. It might be that sometimes she coped well with parenting (and that’s what you’re seeing in the photos) but in between those times coped less well, or it could be that she never coped but knew how to hide it to avoid SS involvement.

The organisation running that unit are deep in shit. Wtf were they doing?

She entered a modelling competition on social media AFTER her daughters death. So she was competent enough to be literate and post online. Yet clearly didnt understand or didnt care what her actions led to? Smacks of lack of empathy. I know posters on here find it incomprehensible but i personally know people who have lost children and carried on their lives happily and normally.
She was not "missing" from her family as they knew and had met the child. She had support but she chose not to take it.

@MrsBerthaRochester you don’t know anything about the Mothers childhood. The papers haven’t disclosed all that. The dad appeared in Court yet her mother didn’t.

If you give birth to your own child and carry on life without them you obviously have something not quite right with you.

Who exactly was supporting the her? I don’t think it’s fair to say she choose not to take it. Where did you get this info from?

Wasn’t she 14 when she left home? I suspect she had been under SS at some point for herself and her DD.

She was not "missing" from her family as they knew and had met the child. She had support but she chose not to take it.

Hope that means we don't get the people in the front line sacked (by Gov or public shaming as has happened in the past). This is a random event - you can't put controls in for something like this without spending millions on supervising thousands of young single mums - and the negative fall out of that would be more babies taken into care undeservedly to the detriment of innocent mums.

@IrmaFayLear

No, I don’t think some “grown ups” are doing that at all. Read back through some of the posts and you will find improbable excuses (human trafficking, not able to use a phone) and dogged attempts to lay the blame with anyone other than the mother.

Brilliantly put.

Not sure it’s random. The child may not have been on a CP plan but the girl and her baby we’re clearly in SS radar. If she’d been missing from home at any point under 18 social services would have had some involvement. Also, she was in a mother and baby unit. Someone will have referred her into that. She must have had at the least, a support worker.

I am guessing but I bet there is a history of SS involvement with this young woman for whatever reason.

I’m not seeking to shift blame from her actions btw but there is more to this that we know I expect. Also, a supported accommodation project that had a starving baby dies after being left alone for 6 days very much needs to be looking at what went wrong.

Horrible story. Poor baby.

@Frenchdressing

Not sure it’s random. The child may not have been on a CP plan but the girl and her baby we’re clearly in SS radar. If she’d been missing from home at any point under 18 social services would have had some involvement. Also, she was in a mother and baby unit. Someone will have referred her into that. She must have had at the least, a support worker.

I am guessing but I bet there is a history of SS involvement with this young woman for whatever reason.

She wasn't in a mother a baby unit. She was in semi supported accommodation that is accessed through the housing department not social services. Just because social services were likely involved with her as a young teen doesn't mean her child had social services involvement as a matter of course.

@CandyLeBonBon

Amongst all the pitchfork waving going on her, I'd like to re-iterate this comment:

It’s possible to deplore her actions while acknowledging there are other issues which contributed to what happened.

What happened to this child was unconscionable.

What happened to this child's mother was also unconscionable.

Both set of circumstances need investigating.

Pitchforks can be left at the door.

This.

@MazekeenSmith ok semi-supported accommodation then but I would have expected enough ‘support’ to have noticed something was awry.

And I didn’t say that there was involvement for the baby now. I’m a sw myself. I expect she was on their radar though.

All the posters who profess the need to understand the actions of a mum who leaves her 20 month old baby alone for 6 days, a mum who has left her to starve to death, so that lessons can be learned.

I’m sorry but I’m sick of excuses being used for this abuse and neglect that leads to the death of these poor unfortunate babies. There have been many cases over the years and always the same “lessons will be learned”, etc., studies could have been done over and over. We even hear that if no one pleads guilty it’s impossible to prove who is responsible for the abuse. In criminal law there is Conspiracy but no such laws protect these children.

I don’t care about “pitch fork” jibes and other insults. I think the only way these parents will stop abusing their children is if they know for certain they would not leave prison for many years, until their youth is well and truly gone. At the moment they don’t fear the system.

I want the children protected from these parents and I don’t care what people with vested interests say.

[quote Frenchdressing]@MazekeenSmith ok semi-supported accommodation then but I would have expected enough ‘support’ to have noticed something was awry.

And I didn’t say that there was involvement for the baby now. I’m a sw myself. I expect she was on their radar though.[/quote]
If you're a social worker you'll know that 'on their radar' means nothing. Either she had a social work plan or she didn't. If she had previously had one but was now closed then she would have had no more scrutiny and involvement from social workers than if she had never been known at all.
In accommodation like that the staff are not on site and will usually visit a couple of times a week - they will have keywork sessions every week or two which if the young person misses will simply get rescheduled. They would not have been alert to an abandoned baby in the bedroom because why would they? Unless someone heard her crying and ignored it they have no culpability.

@Stratfordplace

All the posters who profess the need to understand the actions of a mum who leaves her 20 month old baby alone for 6 days, a mum who has left her to starve to death, so that lessons can be learned.

I’m sorry but I’m sick of excuses being used for this abuse and neglect that leads to the death of these poor unfortunate babies. There have been many cases over the years and always the same “lessons will be learned”, etc., studies could have been done over and over. We even hear that if no one pleads guilty it’s impossible to prove who is responsible for the abuse. In criminal law there is Conspiracy but no such laws protect these children.

I don’t care about “pitch fork” jibes and other insults. I think the only way these parents will stop abusing their children is if they know for certain they would not leave prison for many years, until their youth is well and truly gone. At the moment they don’t fear the system.

I want the children protected from these parents and I don’t care what people with vested interests say.

For the squillionth time, no sane person is suggesting that she shouldn't be locked up, and the key thrown away. What she has done is horrific. It should be punished for its own sake, but also as a deterrent to others.

Some of us with two brain cells to rub together think we should also look at the causation behind what happened (you can use the word 'understand' if it's simpler for you). The purpose of this would be to identify patterns that may allow us to stop this kind of thing happening again.

What’s your point?

My point was that she was probably know to SS in some capacity. That’s all.

And also that a supported accommodation provider that has a baby due on its premises might need to be looking at their procedures.

Dancingbear let me simplify it for you, the mother was young, had been a runaway since the age of 14, had one parent who turned up in Court, her father. The mother was social media savvy, was able to organise her social life and her baby seemed well cared for. The sister was able to post on YouTube.

The baby was let down by her mother, her extended family, the people who ran the medium care mother and baby unit which was supposed to have someone on site 24/7 and neighbours. Not to mention Brighton child protection team social workers. We do not know if the mother used drugs but seemed to be a party girl so probably.

Causation.

DancingBear do you see a pattern here yet?

@Stratfordplace

Dancingbear let me simplify it for you, the mother was young, had been a runaway since the age of 14, had one parent who turned up in Court, her father. The mother was social media savvy, was able to organise her social life and her baby seemed well cared for. The sister was able to post on YouTube.

The baby was let down by her mother, her extended family, the people who ran the medium care mother and baby unit which was supposed to have someone on site 24/7 and neighbours. Not to mention Brighton child protection team social workers. We do not know if the mother used drugs but seemed to be a party girl so probably.

Causation.

Fucking hell, who needs criminologists, psychologists, and other professionals, when you can work it all out in 5 minutes from MN and the Daily Mail?

slow handclap

This is what some of us, who work for change, for improvement, are up against, unfortunately.

Cases like this should be when the government is forced to look at how it funds social care. No doubt there were not enough social workers/ they had too many caseloads for this girl to be a priority until it was too late. :(

DancingBear

Are you done with the sneering yet. It’s called life experience. Maybe work a bit harder and you can make these distressing cases a thing of the past.
At the moment me and many others are not impressed by your efforts.

@Stratfordplace this is not the place for speculating on her background and what happened though. There will be a serious case review where people will actually find out what happened and not just speculation on the internet.

It is obvious that there is a lot that has happened within this family and it is important the authorities unpick that so lessons can be learned. Making an educated guess on a Mumsnet thread from what you've seen on social media and in the Daily Mail is not helpful and will not help anyone in the future.