am IBU to be ablsolutely disgusted that baby Ps mother

[issey6cats]

will be released after serving just 4 years in prison for the murder of baby P shes still young enough to go on to have other children, and its a disgrace that what baby P suffered is thought to only carry 4 years punishment

oh and more importantly, DSIL looks nothing like Maxine Carr

Friday - I'm not advocating the death penalty, or even sterilisation (although Hermione makes an interesting point that pregnancy and childbirth is a more 'humane' way to treat these cases than just preventing it in the first place...) but describing these people and their actions as "indolent" and "stupid" just doesn't seem to be adequate.
I don't think we'd even use those words to describe someone who treated animals like that - never mind a child.

We have to send out a message to STOP people being profoundly damaged by abusive parents by saying:enough, the buck stops here.

That is exactly what will now happen. She will never be allowed to be a parent again.

Surely if she is given a new identity and sent to live in a new area, she's under licence, so will have someone in contact with her all the time?

She will be very intensely supervised by police and probation

indolent and stupid digging trenches in the garden!! Lying to one HCP after the other after the other, making up stories, hiding men in the house, the men hiding, lying abusing.....all out of stupidity with no real cold blooded calculation to get exactly what they wanted, which was to be left alone to continue to torture and abuse children.

People that look, on the face of it, idle, stupid and ignorant are often remarkably resourceful and devious when it comes to their attempts to mislead authorities whose business is to thwart their intentions.

Not quite Froken, as Friday says, she had her own child hood which was horrendous, and she went on to have children and look what happened.

The buck should have stopped before she was able to perpetuate the crimes.

Friday16 - I dislike being told to " discuss" as though I am back at school. What I Do believe is that in cases like this where there is absolutely no doubt of guilt and no question of what sort of individuals are involved then yes, I have no fear of capital punishment resulting in a miscarriage of justice, or even of depriving society of a future valuable member post rehabilitation.

We have to send out a message to STOP people being profoundly damaged by abusive parents by saying:enough, the buck stops here.

Which I'm sure makes you feel terribly, terribly hard. But achieves precisely nothing. Do you think that Connelly (or any other abuser) entered into things thinking "I know, I'm going to become a child abuser, that sounds like fun?" That they made a decision to start abusing their child, weighing up the pros and cons, and therefore had they had it explained to them just a little more forcefully that child abuse is bad (or, indeed, that they risked punishment) they wouldn't have done it? Seriously?

Child abuse cases of the past twenty years have almost without exceptions been shit parents from deeply troubled backgrounds who were fucked before they started. They're alcoholics, drug abusers, often victims of abuse themselves, usually deeply needy (which is why they end up living with violent abusers). None of the cases of recent years have featured mothers who had had anything remotely approximating a decent upbringing or a stable adult life. Stomping around saying "the buck stops here" is all laudably black and white. If only it were that simple.

Yonisareforever The buck should have stopped before she was able to perpetuate the crimes. - how exactly do you propose this?

It is a poor sentence for such a hideous crime, it was noaccident it was not neglect

It was pure evil acts by a woman who was supposed to be protecting her children. Regardless of her back ground and previous abuse she is the one to blame for the death of her son and the abuse of a toddler.

We need a tougher system here, there is no justice in a 6 year served for such awful acts.

Did anyone watch that trevor mac donald documentary last week?
A woman convicted of armed robbery was in for 15 years, another one convicted of murder had been there for 38, another who had killed her baby as a result of post natal depression had been in for 15 years.

These are appropriate for the crimes, they are times of rehabilitation and are a punishment 23 hours solitary confinement working for a privilege.

No xboxs sky tv and movies, no 6 years and you can go off!

I disagree with capital punishment, it seems the easy way out to me. I would prefer that the offenders spent the rest of their lives living with the guilt and reflecting on their abhorrent crimes. Preferably in as uncomfortable conditions as possible.

Having had close involvement in several very distressing child abuse cases (one that was not far from being a Baby P) I have absolutely no shred of sympathy for adults that abuse the children in their care. I really do not believe that there is any person in the whole world, however bad their upbringing, who does not know that it is wrong to lock a child in a cupboard for days with no food or to break that child's back and treat them like a football. That simply is a mockery of every child that has grown up in horrific conditions and made it through the other side as a decent parent.

tinyturtle the American prison system is deeply, deeply flawed. Not something to be emulated, in my opinion.

"Fucked before they started".
That, sadly, sums it up. Tracey never had a chance, having had an abusive childhood herself and 2 parents not worth a packet of crisps.

the buck should have stopped before she was able to perpetuate the crimes. - how exactly do you propose this?

I was listening to something on the tv the other day and this exact question came about,

One suggestion that was offered up, do health visitors and social services treat every family as guilty?

I fear that to prevent such horrendous situations, baby p, david pelker etc etc things may have to go this way if a family has a social worker or an assigned professional for any reason to avoid these cases they should be put under pressure to be providing proof their children are being looked after correctly.

On the other hand.. health visitors, drs and social services need to be making sure their cases are being examined all the time. The children are being checked over regularly and the family is being made to feel they have the support to successfully raise a family.
Children are repeatedly being brought into the news as a result of monstrous parents that have caused their deaths and it must be stopped.

This country is very politically correct and someone is always being sued for something, we need to remove the kid gloves, say enough is enough.

if someone becomes offended by a social worker calling them out but it saves a childs life then so be it

It does seem that, rather than having courts and juries and judges and shit, life would be so much simpler if we just handed the legal process over to Mumsnet's keyboard warriors. No need to actually consider the evidence, like real courts do, or spend time listening to witnesses. Just a quick skim of a summary in the paper and straight to sentencing.

Connelly was the subject of a succession of trials. They had access to evidence and testimony. Those trials saw the witnesses, saw the evidence and saw the defendants. They reached the decisions they did. There could have been appeals against the sentences had the CPS felt them too lenient, or the Ministry of Justice could have called them in. Neither happened. In the absence of something a great deal more substantial than frothing on t'internet, I'd start from the position that the legal system probably got it roughly right, because they had access to orders of magnitude more evidence than any of us.

• Not quite Froken, as Friday says, she had her own child hood which was horrendous, and she went on to have children and look what happened.

The buck should have stopped before she was able to perpetuate the crimes.*

How would you suggest we stop this cycle continuing? Should women who have had terrible childhoods not beaallowed to be mothers? Should her poor daughter who has suffered such terrible abuse and witnessed such awful things be prevented from having her own children thereby punishing her for her mother's
crimes?

tinyturtle what does political correctness or 'being sued' have to do with this?

'Social workers treat every family as guilty' - every family? every single family in the country? How does that work then? Who pays for all these social workers? Where do we find places for all of these children who will be pre-emptively taken into care until their parents 'prove' that they are fit to look after them? What you are proposing is totalitarian nonsense.

skyler read my post properly again.

I did not propose it, it doesn't say every family either.

OP I agree with your sentiment It's disgusting. A lot of people mention extenuating circumstances etc sound and I hate to sound like the Daily Mail brigade - I really do, but some things are black and white in outcome and should be black and white in consideration. Extenuating circumstances: are loopholes which allow people to get away with murder.
If there is anything we have learned from recent news: abuse can happen in any home, culture and religion, but quite often more than one child is involved and parents go on to have further children.
Of course that's my opinion - based on what I have experienced x

That's your opinion, Friday.

Plenty of us working within the justice system feel that sentences routinely fail to reflect the nature of the offending or, indeed, the effect that it has had on the victim. Sure, the courts pay lip service to the Victim Impact Statement but within the sentencing guidelines there ain't much they can do.

A nice example for you - I had a stranger rape case in court a couple of weeks ago. The bloke was a squaddie, he ran up behind a young woman walking home at 2am, took her down to the ground, ripped her lower clothing off while strangling her with his other hand. He was only prevented from raping and possibly murdering her by the very brave actions of a woman living nearby who heard the kerfuffle and raced outside to stop him.
Attempt rape carries the potential of a life sentence. The judge gave the absolute maximum that sentencing guidelines allowed him - 6 years. He described him as "every woman's worst nightmare".
Rehabilitated or not, that man will be back roaming the streets in around 3 years due to time served on remand.

If there is anything we have learned from recent news: abuse can happen in any home, culture and religion

Yeah, that's right. Recent cases have not in any way been correlated with multiple deprivation, social isolation and poor mental health.

"It could happen anywhere" is politically correct nonsense. Hands up: when was the last abuse case in which a child was killed after extreme neglect culminating in violent abuse by their university educated, employed, happily married home-owning biological parents in the leafier suburbs of a home counties commuter belt town? Of all the lessons to take away from the last ten years, "it could happen anywhere" is the most stupid. That's why all this "health visitors calling on every child" stuff is a total waste of time: there is no concealed undercurrent of neglect and physical abuse in nappy valley (there may be emotional abuse, but Peter Connolly did not die from having his self-image harmed by poor weaning practice). The risk factors for abuse and neglect are well understood. That's why in every single case of the past generation the families in which children die are already well known to social services.

Plenty of us working within the justice system feel that sentences routinely fail to reflect the nature of the offending or, indeed, the effect that it has had on the victim

So do something about it, then.