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.

@Stratfordplace

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.

Do you think it's possible to prevent all cases of parents killing their children? It is not

She used to be part of the SPACnation church, her dad was allegedly a pastor there. Googling that SPACnation might raise some of the potential issues going on.

Do you think it's possible to prevent all cases of parents killing their children? It is not

Thanks, @MazekeenSmith, but I wouldn't waste your energy. The penny's dropped that she's made a bit of a wally of herself, and the above post is just her lashing out.

Find it disturbing that Hampshire greatest hits radio says 1000! Children will be removed from parents in April and foster carers get £600 a week. How many children will be killed waiting?

This is so awful. Given she was in the YMCA she could’ve made contact with staff to get her baby if she was ‘caught up in something’ as some people have suggested.

I understand why it’s not a murder charge but I hope she gets the highest possible sentence. You don’t bring a child up for over a year and not realise that they won’t survive without you for 6 days.

Those saying it’s because of ‘kids having kids’ fuck off. It’s because of unfit parents having kids and lack of support.

Really DancingBear I’ve made a Wally of myself?
Are you quite done with the insults?

@Brunt0n

She used to be part of the SPACnation church, her dad was allegedly a pastor there. Googling that SPACnation might raise some of the potential issues going on.

Ohhh I’ve watched a couple of Documentaries on SPAC with pastor Tobi. It’s a dark world!

Surely every adult knows if you don't have fluids for 6 days you die. She wasn't old enough to get herself drinks or good. That mother must have known that her child would die of having no fluids.

This all comes out of the blue. I wonder did she parent the baby well for first 30 months knowing to feed her baby then suddenly think she does not need any more fluid or food and i need to party? If she no longer wanted child she could have handed her over to SS and she would have been put into emergecy foster care and probably later given adoption order.

There are no excuses.

Sadly some children suffer extreme neglect when a parent is mentally incapable of caring for them. In this case the mother was perfectly able to dress well, transport herself to parties on public transport, advertise concert tickets on the day the baby was found dead and subsequently enter a modelling competition.

I am struggling to comprehend how some posters have been bending over backwards to find excuses for the mother. Some individuals have a zero empathy condition - they simply see others as objects. This is a reason for abandoning a child to die, but not a way to evade proper punishment for such a heinous act.

@IrmaFayLear

There are no excuses.

Sadly some children suffer extreme neglect when a parent is mentally incapable of caring for them. In this case the mother was perfectly able to dress well, transport herself to parties on public transport, advertise concert tickets on the day the baby was found dead and subsequently enter a modelling competition.

I am struggling to comprehend how some posters have been bending over backwards to find excuses for the mother. Some individuals have a zero empathy condition - they simply see others as objects. This is a reason for abandoning a child to die, but not a way to evade proper punishment for such a heinous act.

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.

No-one is 'bending over backwards to find excuses for her'.

See comments throughout thread for examples of convoluted excuses. Not being able to use phone was a particular gem.

There are,frighteningly, bad people in this world who do bad things. It is impossible to pre-empt them all or even to find a solid reason why they happen.

Goodness me.

Awful, awful story - poor baby.

Supported living in this context implies a shortfall in the support IMO. If it was a hands off approach, with occasional CCTV checks for example, how come at the very minimum it wasn't noticed that the mother left her home without baby and did not return for 6 days? If no-one else was coming or going surely after 24 hours someone would have done some sort of check.

Speculating on her motivations is useless - as others have said, we are not privy to all the facts, and may never be.

For those opining that such people are psychopaths with no hope of reform who should be preferably lynched, may I remind you of the case of Mary Bell?

It's an emotive subject for sure, but clinging to medieval concepts of irredeemable evil and the consistently perfectly and good responsible kind of undermines the decades of research that shows how much environmental impact on mental development influences behaviour later down the line. To use a common Mumsnet "excuse" our brains don't finish developing until we're 25, and the last bit of consolidation is around risk taking behaviours. Which is why lots of nightmare teens are fairly responsible and thoughtful members of the community as they MATURE.

So yes, it's utterly awful, and no, there are no "excuses" but their may be clearly evident reasons, which we are not aware of for this situation. If the CPS had enough evidence for murder, that would have been the charge. If they don't, despite what some would desire, she has a right, as we all do, to a full examination of the circumstances before sentencing, without gender / sex related prejudice which to be frank I am seeing here. Our legal system already demonstrates a bias towards men committing violence or CSA as being "under stress" "just snapped" "such a good husband / father yadda yadda yaddad" even when some evidence absolutely shows otherwise.

It's got to be a fair system for all.

Denial is a strong theme in people who can't face their guilt, it has to be worked through, and no, not pandered to.

We've all got the capacity to choose good over evil, but it's very shortsighted to assume that we would never ever make a particular bad choice in certain contexts.

I’m sorry but it’s not just a bad choice, or a capacity to choose good over evil, to leave a 20 month old baby completely alone for 6 days.

Risky behaviour in teens is one thing, leaving a baby alone to starve and succumb to the flu is quite something else.

And I didn't say it was any of those things.

I said it was most likely a complex case, with multiple factors. Of course she has to face legal consequences.

I'm not excusing her, I'm saying we don't know the full story.

I think some people have watched too many films, to be honest. I doubt she was coerced into abandoning her baby by human traffickers who allowed her to mix freely with the other party-goers, yet also magically prevented her from using a phone or begging someone to go home to feed her baby for her.

The most mundane explanation is usually the correct one. I suspect that, like many teenage mums, she resented being stuck at home with a baby while other girls her age were out socialising. So she left the baby alone to go out partying without bothering to arrange a babysitter. She had fun and didn't want to go home - so she just thought "sod the baby" and didn't.

Yes, it may be a complex case of human trafficking and hypnosis. But it's much likelier to be a very sad case of someone having a baby before they're mature and selfless enough to care for it.

She's at the age where she could have been experiencing her first bipolar episode.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9409313/Teen-mother-went-online-sell-concert-tickets-day-starved-babys-body-found.html

DAILY MAIL LINK
So many twists to this story and so sad

You know I was thinking the exact same thing reading this this morning. How in the name of god is it not murder? What did she think would happen? It doesn’t bare thinking about. Absolutely heartbreaking. What goes on in people’s minds sometimes. How did no one hear her crying or screaming in hunger or thirst or from discomfort at dirty nappy?? How can you walk out and close the door and just put it out of your mind?? Hope she gets what she deserves in prison. Hope she gets a proper sentence. But somehow I doubt it very much. Only have to look at that evil bitch that burned her babies - she’s out and about. Served less than half her sentence. And that was a ducking disgrace. Mairead philpott. I think.

Yep I really hope she gets a long sentence but sadly know she won’t 😒

This is an absolutely abhorrent story - I can't imagine what was going through her mind when she was out partying. How could she be happy and carefree, knowing her little girl was home alone? Did she think the neighbours would intervene and the child would be taken into emergency foster care? Poor Asiah, what a sad and short life she had.

@Happycat1212

Yep I really hope she gets a long sentence but sadly know she won’t 😒

I've just had a quick look at the sentencing guidelines. My best guess, given she's pled guilty, is that she will get eight to 10 years, out in four or five, which is too little in my book.

It may be less if she can show significant mental health issues or learning disabilities. It may also be less if (as I suspect may turn out the case) there is some kind of back-story here involving others that we're not appreciating. I think it's right that these kinds of things should be taken into account, but the starting point is still too low imo.

I too would like this kind of crime to be caught by murder.

I know you gave a trigger warning but I wish i hadn't opened that link - how utterly horrific, the poor poor child

I read this story yesterday and it really upset me. I cried on and off about it for the rest of the day and could not stop thinking about how scared that poor child would have been.

She would have been crying desperately though so how did no one else hear? It's hard to believe none of the other rooms/flats have occupants.

Of course at the end of the day it's the mother's fault but I can only think she has some sort of learning difficulties or mental health problems.

Whenever this sort of story is in the papers I always wonder why neighbours haven't reported hearing a child crying/screaming.

Over 40 years ago I reported my landlords for child neglect. Me and my then boyfriend lived on the top floor of their house. We knew we would get thrown out and we did but no way were we just going to turn a blind eye

I still can't quite believe someone posted that a girl going partying on her eighteenth birthday "screams human trafficking". Only on MN!