TW. Lady who buried newborn in Gullivers world

[GreenCandleWarmth]

Hello all
Obviously we have to be careful what we say but I've been reading this trial and the notes. This lady gave birth 28 years ago. A concealed pregnancy and dumped the already deceased baby on the edges of a theme park. She was only found in 2023 when her son was arrested and his DNA marched that of this baby. How can you have kept this a secret all this time ??

Infanticide has been considered to be a lesser crime than murder for over 100 years due to the effect giving birth can have on the mind of some women.

Disgusting the amount of comments making excuses and minimising what she’s done. What she has done is murder. Unless she literally was in psychosis then there is absolutely no excuse. She could have given him up instead. I hope he gets justice.

The court accepted a plea of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility based on psychiatric reports too, what additional evidence are you aware of that indicates it was murder?

Killing a baby with tissues straight after birth doesn’t indicate premeditation to me, which is fundamental to murder, but clearly you know more than the court, psychiatrists and detectives.

I expect she may have been suffering something more than depression, like a psychosis or something.

that said I have heard of evil girls or women who have killed their new forms eg. That 14 year old in Hereford who tried to conceal a pregnancy and killed the baby. And that cheerleader in the US who did same thing. Neither of them were psychotic.

This! People love to dismiss this kind of thing as 'evil' as it makes them feel more comfortable. Women have been

This woman is a loving mother and in a different set of circumstances where she got the help she needed she could have been a loving mother to this baby too.

Obviously it's tragic. People live to trot out that they would never do something like that or you'd have to be psychotic, not appreciating how depressive cognitions can distort your world view.

Depends on the support around you too. If someone else is in charge of your life and that person wouldn't be ok with the baby going for adoption or would be angry at you for being pregnant (and might dish out consequences) that's a different situation to if you grow up with loving parents who you can turn to no matter what and a loving partner who will want what's best for you and the child not just what's best for themselves.

I can see how two people in two very different situations could act very differently on finding out they're pregnant and after giving birth. With this woman maybe the tissues was an attempt to stop him crying? Concealing a pregnancy doesn't work if someone then hears a crying baby. Manslaughter implies it wasn't deliberate to kill him doesn't it? Terrible tragedy. Feel so sorry for the baby.

Actually, in law, it is.
I appreciate you don’t like that, but there you are.

Agree with this. It's a tragic situation for all involved

The two examples you cite for “evil” baby killers are literal children. Even if they weren’t psychotic, it doesn’t take a huge deal of imagination to think why a child who has just gone through the terror and trauma of having an unwanted birth without medical or emotional support and is in a family situation where they are so scared of telling anyone they know about their pregnancy that they conceal it entirely might commit such appalling acts. Not that it makes their actions acceptable. But writing them off as “evil” is awful as well.

Oh do bore off.

Abortion is completely different to infanticide (legally, morally, ethically and practically) so please don't compare this to abortion!

She murdered the baby and has no sympathy from me. I hope she’s been scared of every knock at the door.

She would have planned to kill her baby the whole pregnancy or it wouldn’t have been concealed.

good point

It’s really not.

There is a lot of things to play here. I cannot condone her murdering her child, and yes she does deserve to be punished. She may well have been suffering from post natal depression and I have been there and felt that I wanted either myself, my baby or both of us dead. I got help but back then that would have been harder. When asked by psychiatrists the reason I hadn’t hurt my child was because I couldn’t - something stopped me. I love him too much to ever hurt him. I cannot imagine actually hurting my own child.

i also think that when a mum abandons a baby somewhere safe- ie a hospital or police station they shouldn’t be charged with child abandonment- yes it’s not ideal and these mums are judged so harshly and I think that is also a part of the issue to play- they are judged if they give up a child and worse so if they just leave them somewhere to be found no matter how safe and quickly they are found.

That's no excuse for murder. A lot of people who murder have 'issues'.

Infanticide hasn't been treated as murder for over 100 years. Maybe you could campaign to bring back laws from Victorian times though.

Having a secret doesn’t automatically make you a murderer. 100s of pregnancies are concealed every year for a whole host of reasons, maybe she had the same reasons as those mothers?

It's a form of denial generally rather than premeditation.
She was already experiencing post natal depression from her first pregnancy.

The reason she has a manslaughter charge is because it was agreed there was substantial evidence that at the time of the offence her ability to make a rational judgement was impaired.

I had postnatal depression too but you cannot compare one person to another.
I sat there and unblinkingly said that I was a terrible mother,, and I'd been sorting out my finances to kill myself as I didn't want to inflict myself on my baby and they would be better off with just their dad- he could meet someone new who could do a better job. I meant all that totally rationally and don't understand why other people looked worried.

Plenty of mums with postnatal depression who think about killing their babies genuinely believe they are saving their babies from a cruel future.

She WAS diagnosed as having severe mental health problems.

This is a historical diagnosis.

And note the word severe.

If this was a retrospective diagnosis from today, then it could be viewed as more of excuse. Clearly there were noticeable issues that were observed by doctors.

Given this was 30 years ago, getting a diagnosis like that would have been more unusual too.

What is your medical experience and what did you find when you examined her medical records?

Otherwise stop talking nonsense. They won't have 'dismissed' this.

Nope. Denial issues can be psychological.

She should absolutely serve a custodial sentence. Otherwise the value of a baby's life is reduced to nothing.

Jesus, that poor woman. She must have been in such terrible distress.

I cannot see what possible good a custodial sentence would do for anyone.