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

Hell of a dichotomy, isn’t it?

A pp said she must have registered the birth. Rather obviously not.

It does raise a heck of a lot of questions. How did the partner never clock on? Was he never in the bedroom?! How was a social worker first on scene? Surely the partner called the police? Or maybe we’re not getting the full story, I imagine the true picture probably hasn’t been released to the media.

I hope this little girl sees some normality in her life now. If she was born during lockdown, how old is she now? Surely older than 3, of course, so found when she was 3?

This is just beyond cruel. So utterly appalling. Why not give the child up for adoption at birth so she's afforded a life and a chance of happiness from a loving family. The mother is cruel and calculated and knew what she was doing the minute she started leaving her child alone. There's no excuse at all.

I hope she becomes part of a loving and caring family but I cannot help but think this will mentally and emotionally damage her for years to come.

Seriously can't believe how there's women crying out to be mothers but are infertile yet she's got the blessing of having children already and a baby.

7 years is a joke of a sentence. She'll be out in 3.5 and the rest on licence.

I just finished reading it, sent it to my partner thinking "what the f have I just read?"
Is the partner so disengaged that he did nor question the pregnancy and did not know of the child? That poor girl will suffer lifelong harm. Physiological and mental. Heartbreaking

They absolutely are with all the "she must have severe MH problems" posts

Anyone who did what she did wasn't of sound mind.

Not in the sense we know of humans minds.

Doesn't excuse it.

But sometimes there are explanations as to how something came about.

On ITV it said she went to work too! obvois;y they did not report what her job was as they are keeping her identity secret to protect all the children, but what the fuck? you give birth, hide the baby from everyone you know and have contact with and yet mange to "care" for the older children and go out to work! what level of dissociation would you have to be able to do that?

The ITV article says when the boyfriend found the baby he called social services and the police.

It says baby was discovered by visitot and I think she called social worker. But yeah, the partner disengagement (really unaware?) is questionable

7 years in jail.

If she's let out early, she will have been in prison for less time than her child.

I wish people would actually read the articles instead of posting nonsense.

When I first started reading it, I was assuming a girl who may have been raped/ wasn't able to get an abortion. Hiding the baby through fear of violence or something? That would obviously be terrible. But she had other kids? Who she 'cared for well'? Why on earth was she so desperate to conceal the child? It's absolutely horrifying.
I'm only hoping that she was mentally ill rather than evil.

What was her end game? Keep her there till she was what? A teen?
And how cramped she must have been. I cannot fathom this level of cruelty

So much of this story does not make sense. How is it possible that her other children did not know?

I wonder how old they are :/

I doubt they were well cared for. Maybe not locked up in a drawer for hours but they must have too been neglected in some ways.

Sorry accidentally quoted you

The baby was discovered by her partner when he went upstairs alone to use the loo. He'd been told by the mother he was never allowed upstairs or in the house alone, and when he stayed over the mother put the baby in another room. He didn't know she existed until he went upstairs alone and heard a noise.

If you read the ITV article it reports all those details.

No, it doesn't say that.

There are more details in The Standard article www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/baby-drawer-case-divan-bed-chester-crown-court-cheshire-police-b1196458.html

"When the mother's boyfriend began to stay at the property overnight the child was moved into another room and left there alone, the court was told.
The youngster was discovered when her partner returned to the house one morning to use the toilet after the mother had left.
He heard a noise and entered one of the bedrooms, where he saw the child.
The man left the home but alerted family members and later that day social services attended and found the child in the drawer of the bed."

The whole thing is very odd!

We don't know how long the boyfriend was with her, he wasn't living with her and wasn't allowed to be in her bedroom or alone in the house so may have been quite a recent partner?
Also during the lockdowns he might not have been there for quite long periods of time.

Sadly once she was found a round of corrective surgery would have to be started - the last thing a deeply traumatised child needed. She will also need extensive speech therapy for the cleft palate alone, let alone physiotherapy for lack of muscle development and so on. She probably couldn't suck either so lacked the comfort of self-soothing by sucking. Poor little mite. I don't suppose we'll ever find the mother's motives.

I had a work colleague who adopted a child who had been badly neglected as a baby and toddler and they had real issues as a consequence. There really aren't any fairy tale endings for children who suffer terrible neglect in the very early years, the damage goes very deep. My colleague was an amazing mum but she found it very challenging at times

This needs to be shown whenever people have a go at 'busy body agencies'. That poor child. Not even the father knew she existed all that time

I wonder if it's a super religious family who saw the cleft lip as a curse or something shameful and she thought she would be blamed. But she could have handed girl over for adoption or something. Beggars belief

Oh and being married with other children does not discount rape thought article is silent in that so probably this is a full sibling of the others. Or perhaps a result of an affair. Who knows. Nothing justifies what she is done but yeah we are all grappling with why

I don't think people are trying to excuse her behaviour, just understand it. These aren't the actions of a normal, functional person. People seek explanation for these kind of events so that they're aware of how to identify and prevent them from occurring.

To me, it seems like she was in denial throughout the later stages of pregnancy, then had some sort of mental health event once the child was born during lockdown - due to lockdown measures, it was easy to fly under the radar. I hope that this case is extensively reviewed so that it doesn't happen again to another child/other families where this has occurred are identified in time to place the child under more appropriate care.

It's sad for all parties involved.

In the Granada article, it says she banned him from going into the bedroom, her ‘safe space’ and placed the child in another room when he stayed over. So did the other kids know about her?

A 3 year old wouldn't give a shit about any of those things.

It's just sensationalism.

One mention of a child missing Christmas and everyone's 'oh noooooooo its horendous nooooo!', mention the mental health of women and everyone's like 'meh'.

But why? Do people try to understand the behaviour of the men who murder, abuse or neglect their children?