Mum kept baby hidden in drawer for nearly 3 years !!

[benjaminjamesandgraham]

Even Christmas day she was kept in a drawer - oh how can someone be so cruel
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gz1dv8ly2o

The ITV article said she didn't allow the partner upstairs or to be alone in the house, and always had the TV or music on in her bedroom.
He discovered the baby when he went back into the house after she had left.

can’t believe what I have just read. That poor poor girl. In tears thinking about the awful start in life her mother has given her and can only pray she manages to develop well going forward. Breaks my heart that so many of us are desperate for a child whilst some mothers treat their children like literal garbage.

This is totally horrifying but I feel there is a lot of missing information with this story. MH problems? Why did she not disclose? Baby was born in March 2020, that was when the country shut down - SS/MH services failure? My adoptive daughter was left in a cot to cry for a lot of her first year, she is also teeny tiny due to poor nutrition - not neglected to this extent, but her first year has left a psychological scar. This child’s neural pathways will have developed differently as a result of this neglect, because her instinctive needs were not met. But I do feel that we are not hearing around the whole story. Also, I believe they are many more children out there that have fallen through the cracks, many services stopped during Covid and many never got going again. .

What the fuck has Christmas Day got to do with it?

I read she had the television/music permanently on upstairs presumably to drown out any whimpering coming from the poor baby.

Specifically there are growth hormone deficiency syndromes linked to cleft palate. I have worked with many children with complex genetic conditions, and it is quite common that they may not cry. I'm not for one second saying this isolation and being left alone isn't horrific for the poor child, but the news that the child is tiny, can't sit/crawl/talk and was fed with a syringe and doesn't cry are not necessarily learned behaviours or a direct consequence of the neglect, and I expect they are contributing factors. If the child had been screaming like a normal newborn I doubt the mother would have wound up in this situation.

That woman should never leave prison.

@AllYearsAround God, that's horrible. I'd only read the BBC one.

Well she managed to care for her other children well enough.

Agreed I stay away from these kind of things because I find them so upsetting, I do blame myself for clicking on the post will definitely rethink such subjects in future!

This is what I was thinking.

I agree. Absolutely bizarre behaviour. It may just be downright wickedness and cruelty but I'd suspect there are also some psychological issues at play. In any case, poor, poor child. Children are so reliant on their parents to protect them and there have been so many sad cases of parents failing lately, often dating from Covid and not helped by lack of support and outside scrutiny during that dark, dark time.

Well, this.

The woman's partner told police on one occasion, on Christmas Eve, the mother and the other children went to his parent's house in the early morning, not leaving until the evening of Christmas Day - leaving Child A alone the entire time.

Mother hid child in drawer under bed for almost three years in 'wicked beyond belief’ act | ITV News Granada

Because the partner said that they were out of the property from Christmas Eve morning to Christmas Day evening, and the baby would have been left there by herself.

Post partum psychosis is unsurvivable unless treated rapidly. It is the mental health equivalent of a massive cardiac arrest. It isn't something you can hide and just continue normal life with.

This is awful.

But I suspect there is more to the story than the beeb have reported.

It doesn't say who the father of the child is, so we can assume not her partner. If the child was the result of rape I can fully understand her detachment from the situation.

I'm not excusing her actions or neglect. But having been raped myself although lucky not to have become pregnant, I can see how this could happen.

What the ever loving FUCK

I think the clue was in the thread title. It says exactly what thread is about people have a choice therefore to open this or not.

This is absolutely horrific. That poor child. What the fuck is wrong with some people!?? That poor baby, I hope she goes on to have a happy life away from that monster

Would there be a small chance that this little girl could recover and go on to develop normally if she was given intense psychological input and was adopted by a loving, stable family?

Well, not really.

There were 3 years worth of other days the child was left and neglected.

Christmas is completely irrelevant and if they've put that in to make the story 'newsworthy' then the journalist that wrote it is sensationalising a childs suffering.

What I can't get my head around it that this baby would have been hard to feed, likely wouldn't have been able to breastfeed or bottle feed - so the mum must have quite painstakingly been feeding her with a syringe.
On one hand this level of care and effort and on the other hand unbelievable cruelty and neglect.

Whenever something truly horrendous like this happens, people are very quick to suggest mental health issues. They’re so reluctant to believe that people are capable of really appalling things.

I’ve just read the ITV report. The judge said that the motive was not clear. If there had been a mental health issue you would have expected that this would have formed part of the defence and so been mentioned at sentencing as mitigation.

Completely agree. Her sentence is a disgrace.