Leaving a newborn in a shopping bag.

[Eastie77Returns]

It's currently 2 degrees in my area. Last night it was 0-1 max. There are a dozen places you could potentially leave a tiny baby and someone chose to place him/her outside in a shopping bag.

The person who did this (no idea if it was mum, dad or someone else) should be charged. With what, I don't know. Attempted murder? I mean the baby was found by a dog walker, completely chance.

I'm sure the apologists will be out in force - whoever left the baby must be in distress, they need help etc. That may be true. But I cannot get my head around this.

You’re making an awful lot of assumptions, OP. Good for you for never having to think laterally about why this event occurs, but not everyone is as lucky.

I'm torn. I'd agree no one in their right mind leaves a baby. But then again surely no one in their right mind murders someone, so are we inadvertently suggesting murderers should be treated with the same concern initially? I feel concerned for the mother and feel something must be going on, yet I didn't feel the same about the kid who stabbed that girl on the bus on her way to school a few months ago.

Why did I mind leap to concerned for someone who didn't go to the extreme of killing another human? I can only think its because it involves a mother who id assume would never do this if she was ok. Which feels very wrong.

You phrased that very well. I wanted to say similar but would most likely have got a ban with my choice of words.

We don’t know what the mother was going through. Newham is a deprived area. Feel terribly sad for both mother and baby

Gosh what a shame, great that the baby seems to have been found quickly, but imagine how the mother must feel today, having just given birth with no medical care and having to have left the baby for whatever reason.

Absolutely genuine question, is there something/somewhere you can safely leave the baby in a situation like this?

I heard this reported on Radio 4 and my heart swelled with joy when they said baby is doing well in hospital. There are so many awful stories where children don't do well.

The one and only thing I would claim to understand about the mother's situation is that she feels profoundly unable and unsupported to inhabit her role of mother.

Agree with his post. Op, if you haven’t been bought up in or around newham it may be hard for you to contemplate the possible issues that mother may be going through.

To be blunt about it if the person that left the baby didn't care they have just put them naked in a bin or the river/canal. They didn't do that, they left them wrapped up and where there are people around

The circumstances behind this will be desperately difficult and sad. Punishment will achieve nothing.

Recent parturition is a defence even against murder of your newborn - infanticide is a separate crime with a different tariff of penalties and it is like that for very good reason.

The mother absolutely should not be prosecuted. I hope that she can be checked medically (in complete confidence if necessary)

Yes, she did a dreadful thing, possibly something she will very much live to regret. But in the immediate aftermath of childbirth, what she needs is help, not a witch-hunt.

And why not in an indoors, well-frequented place or even a hospital? CCTV. Right now, she does not want to be found, and given the prevalence of crime shows on the telly, I expect everyone has at least basic awareness of them now.

I really feel for this poor mother.

OP, you’d do well to try and develop some compassion.

It's possible to have compassion for the baby and the mother in this situation. Personally, I'll save my anger for the various social circumstances in which having a baby can bring massive shame and disapproval upon its mother, because this sort of thing would not happen otherwise.

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@Mariposistaaa Oh Do give over. Had the baby died she would have been a baby murderer whether desperate or not. If someone has mental health issues and kills a child im STILL against them!! They are still criminals

One thing I’d like to add. Pre me having a baby I am ashamed to say that this is the sort of article I’d have read, felt sad for a bit, and then likely not thought about much more. Post having my baby, I know I’ll now be thinking about this poor mother and baby all day. It’s desperately sad for them both.

Unless the mother of the baby was a child herself or had a severe learning disability, I'm sorry, but I have no compassion. That baby was left to die and whoever left it there knew there was a high likelihood that baby could die. The baby is the priority in this case.

Heartbreaking, I hope the mother is getting the support she needs. I would like to see the introduction of safe haven boxes so that if a baby is abandoned there is a safe place for them to be left.

Having compassion for someone who must have been in a difficult situation isn’t something that should be derided or labelled an “apologist”.

What everyone else said. I’m in London, it’s very very cold here today and when I read about this we (me and two two year olds) had just come back in from the cold very gratefully. The sort of circumstances that would lead to this kind of behaviour (the mother didn’t seem to want to dispose of the baby so much as have jt seen and rescued, it seems to me) are very sad.

That says a lot about you

I was abused as a child. I became pregnant. I planned to have the baby and leave it in the toilets at school. I wasn't thinking rationally probably because of my young age and the fact I was still regularly being abused. I hadn't spoken up as I was the oldest of several siblings and while I was taking the abuse it meant they didn't have to. I also knew that once the secret was out we would all be taken into care separately like we had previously and I wouldn't be able to protect them then.

I hope that everyone involved in this sad situation is ok.

ActDottie · Today 11:34

TERFisTHEnewTREND · Today 11:19
**
God bless everyone in this story. There are no winners here. I hope both mother and baby are doing well”

Hear, hear.

No. Assuming the baby was abandoned by the mother, and as the event took place in England, and the charge would (probably) have been infanticide, not murder. Balance of mind disturbed by recent childbirth is a possible defence.
Sentencing tariff is the same as that for manslaughter.

(I think the law was going to be changed with other homicide offences, but it didn't actually happen. Or have I missed something important?

Left to die. In a popular walking after. Wrapped up in a blanket/towel inside some sort of shopping bag (could be an insulated food bag) during daylight hours.

Doesn’t seem like someone who doesn’t care at all or wants the baby dead.

sounds like someone who’s concealed a pregnancy for some reason and has used the best items they have and can use to put the baby somewhere it will be found so that both her and the baby are safe from whatever reason the pregnancy was concealed for in the first place.

What is needed is safe places for these babies to be left and these women to get confidential check up or even give birth in no questions asked.

OMG I am so sorry you went through all that. Bright blessings upon you ✨️