It's a very disturbing story from beginning to end. Poor children, to get caught up in it. I also wondered why they just kept having children and not use contraception when they seem bound to be removed from their dubious care. Entitlement? Cocking a snook at authority? Belief in their ''true love'' to conquer all and have babies and smuggle them away. It does seem to happen a lot, chaotic relationship/environment, 'replacing' children taken into care.
I did wonder why there was a national alert all over the press though, Hardly seemed the subtlest way to deal with a couple of deranged and anti authority type people on the run with a newborn. Surely the police could have seen that it may drive them to acts of desperation? It must happen reasonably often that people abscond with children after SS involvement. Usually we only get warnings about dangerous escaped convicts.
I can't help thinking a slowly, slowly approach, with police forces quietly working within communities would have served Victoria's safety better. I see that there was a statement about reviewing how children at risk could be better protected should similar circs ever happen again. It was, to my mind, a strategic error which played badly with their known mindset.
This is not to downplay their responsibility. Ultimately they were responsible to keep a child warm and out of danger. Entirely possible she did fall asleep on top of Victoria, we will never know. I find it odd how they left her body, with rubbish in a bag, and didn't tell the police where she was when the 'game' was up. Deeply unsettling. Their behavior was odd in the extreme, the footage of the arrest and asking for food. They seemed at once needy, self obsessed and sort of numb to the horror of the situation.
Glad the other siblings are safe and cared for. No child deserves to be caught up in madness like this. Poor baby. She didn't know much comfort in her short life. No midwifery oversight on the pregnancy and birth either, anything could have happened to Victoria and/or Constance.
I think both CM and MG both equally unhinged and controlling. If only they hadn't crossed paths in the incense shop in Tottenham! Interesting that they trashed properties and left apparently without paying the rent. Chaotic/entitled.
I think the family pressure (private detectives?) and children being taken into care plus the 'man hunt' tipped two already wildly unstable people with entrenched views of the authorities in a toxic relationship over the edge in paranoia and into extreme actions. They obviously cast themselves as doomed lovers. Rather pathetic seeing the photo of them at the police station (BBC documentary last night).
I find it really hard to put myself in her shoes. On the one hand I can see how you would want to run away with your baby if you thought SS were going to take away yet another of your children (I can see why, but she might not have been able to grasp it), but also can't imagine repeatedly getting pregnant with this as a certainty esp when with the same man. Surely, surely, given how cold and wet it was that January, wouldn't you overcome the 'instinct' to keep possession of your newborn no matter what (and undoubtedly it is a strong urge especially when you have only recently given birth and are chock full of hormones) with the rational thought that if you went to the police, that baby would be at least be immediately warm and safe from harm? Also, from their point of view, why did they not go abroad when she was first aware she was pregnant or even before? Why leave it until the baby was born? Perhaps not great at thinking ahead? Just living moment to moment?
I'm not sure Victoria was considered in all this at all, only that she was a sort of prize not to be surrendered. The footage of her being manhandled into that buggy like a bag of spuds was heartbreaking. They showed scant regard for the other children, failing to turn up for visits, not mending their ways or separating even (i.e. with his conviction he was always going to be someone SS were rightly wary of) so she could bring the children up. Basically two rather selfish people. I feel a bit sorry for her, having all those babies removed from her, but she could have done things differently and chose not too, then she was in too deep to untangle the whole sorry mess. As someone said in the interview (friend she met when in cult/Nigeria), you feel sad for her but also just want to shake her!
I hope she gets some serious therapy inside. I can't think of her as irredeemably bad, just massively misguided and stupidly selfish despite all her brains. Not sure really what I can say about him, possibly the less the better.