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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To wonder why this mother has not been prosecuted for the death of child

225 replies

Marmotte3 · 10/10/2015 00:03

www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/he-wouldnt-settle-so-i-had-to-take-him-in-my-hands-while-driving-inquest-31595840.html

The article details the outcome of the inquest - death by misadventure. The father blames the airbag for killing the child but it is clear to me that it is the mother who is responsible for the death.

Maybe I'm wrong, I suppose it's possible there is a separate legal prosecution against her but it doesn't sound like it form the article.

OP posts:

maggieryan · 11/10/2015 11:13

Archfarchnad, I also didn't say it didn't happen. I'm sure it happened to a relation of yours but certainly isn't the norm as you made out. I agree with the OP. Traffic guards are certainly not soft, opposite in fact. I've been stopped also many a time in dublin and believe they really are trying to get you on something, they're neither friendly or anyway accommodating (but that's another thread in itself)

maggieryan · 11/10/2015 11:15

Sorry not the OP, another poster. Incidentally is there any way to edit a post once you put it up? Thanks

noeffingidea · 11/10/2015 11:19

If the baby hadn't been crushed between his mother and the airbag he would
have contact with the windscreen.
My big strong adult son was recently in a head on collision (not his fault) , the airbag saved his life but he was still injured. I shudder to think how that tiny vulnerable baby suffered.

noeffingidea · 11/10/2015 11:20

No there isn't MaggieRyan. No edit facility.

HorseyCool · 11/10/2015 12:13

No seat belt on, driving into oncoming traffic and had an infant in her arms while driving. Total stupidity but a prison sentence won't bring the baby back. I hope That she isn't on Mumsnet

ConstanceMarkYaBitch · 11/10/2015 12:39

What would be achieved by prosecuting this woman? Would it make you feel a bit better about it?

Stop comparing it to the UK case and quoting UK laws. It's a different country, different laws, and a different society.

Sazzle41 · 12/10/2015 02:47

While this is awful, unless there were underlying mental health issues, I really think its basic common sense you pull over if a child wont settle. I dont see how stress or sleep deprivation alone make you lose very, very basic common sense.

I went 2 days without any sleep after my DF passed - I made plan b arrangements re a car drive as i was a wreck/wasnt fit to drive. Having said that, we are all different, there are people who dont 'get' things like that, even when not stressed/not sleeping.

That is, I have friends who regularly do unsafe stuff re child safety in cars/at home re supervision: and call anyone shocked 'uptight'. I'd rather not take the risk than be as 'laid back' as they are. The woman who left her toddler playing by a pond while she sat out of sight indoors, texting & he died, springs to mind. Unbelieveable.

ladyslattern · 12/10/2015 05:19

Mummmcake totally agree with your considered and measured post.
I hope she is finding her way through this beyond nightmare time especially for the sake of her older child. Tragic.

ThatsNotMyRabbit · 12/10/2015 08:52

"What would be achieved by prosecuting this woman"

What is achieved by prosecuting anyone then. Drink driver kills pedestrian - "Ooh I feel awful about it" - oh well you've suffered enough then. Off you go....

Brioche201 · 12/10/2015 09:20

the link is just about the coroners inquest into the baby's .I don't know how you infer from this that she hasn't been/won't be charged ?
Her older child is in care now, so there is perhaps more going on

ConstanceMarkYaBitch · 12/10/2015 10:55

Obviously few here know the reality. As a traveler woman, its fairly likely she is illiterate, or at best semi-literate. Statistically she'll have the educational attainment of a ten year old. She's four times more likely than the general population to have mental health difficulties, many times more likely to be a victim of domestic violence, has a 50% chance of dying by the age of 39. She is unlikely to have engaged with health services and advice, she won't have seen midwives or health visitors, she won't have read any parenting books or websites such as these.
1 in 10 traveller children die before the age of 2 (compared to 1% in the gen pop) and are ten times more likely to die in traffic accidents.

If you think throwing her in prison will do anything for society, teach anyone anything, or achieve anything other than make outraged DM readers feel a bit better, you don't know much.

twelfstripe · 12/10/2015 11:16

constance As shocking as those statistics are, prosecuting her is not the same as throwing her in prison.

It is likely she would receive a suspended sentence.

I think the sentence is the decision of the courts, and it is not up to anyone else to decide whether 'she has suffered enough'.

Denmancanttouchthis · 12/10/2015 11:23

similar case here

This was quite local and there was an outcry that the mother wasn't prosecuted.

AnotherEffingOrangeRevel · 12/10/2015 11:32

She made a mistake, like we all - ALL - do.
She has had the horrendous misfortune that she lost a child because of it. I can't even bring myself to think about legal issues as it seems so trivial in comparison. This woman - a mother like most of us on this site - is actually living this nightmare.
YABU, if not downright irrelevant.

AnotherEffingOrangeRevel · 12/10/2015 11:48

As for the "this could never happen to me" brigade, well....
Perhaps not this precise issue, but if you are a parent you will have made some "error", or some decision, or overlooked/misinterpreted some " official advice" at some point which could have led to the death of your child. And had it done so, I hope the world will be kind, as it should be to this mother now.

TittyBiskwits · 12/10/2015 11:54

but if you are a parent you will have made some "error", or some decision, or overlooked/misinterpreted some " official advice" at some point which could have led to the death of your child

I hardly think driving down the wrong side of the road without a seatbelt on whilst holding a child is 'misinterpreting official advice'. I think it comes more under the category of breaking the fucking law whilst blatantly endangering your baby's life.

AnotherEffingOrangeRevel · 12/10/2015 12:00

99 times out of 100 the child would not have died on parents' lap. We all take risks thinking we're somehow immune. We're just excellent at denying our own and condemning other people.

WhatsGoingOnEh · 12/10/2015 12:07

Yes, the mother was wrong. But why didn't the other driver move around her? They had time to flash their lights, beep the horn, and the collision was at a very low speed -- couldn't they have swerved?

I think the mother sounds like she was severely sleep-deprived.

FattyNinjaOwl · 12/10/2015 12:10

I wouldn't do something illegal. Would you? No? Then you can't condone what this woman has done.

Elledouble · 12/10/2015 12:20

I was shocked to see a mother getting in the back of the car with her baby in her arms leaving a baby group last week. This was a horrific tragedy, but I really can't understand - even having been through the sleep deprivation and PND - what would possess anyone to do this.

shins · 12/10/2015 12:32

www.rte.ie/news/2012/0503/319515-suspended-sentence-for-woman-over-dundalk-deaths/

Recent Irish case where a woman was prosecuted for dangerous driving causing the death of her niece and nephew. She got a suspended sentence.

ovenchips · 12/10/2015 12:40

The jury delivered a 'death by misadventure' verdict in the inquest held by the Coroner's Court.

With that verdict, how then can a person, in this case the mother, be prosecuted (or whatever people want to happen)? She can't be and won't be.

I happen to think on the basis of the scant facts I have read, it's the right decision. Doesn't really matter what my opinion is but I have read about the case through the online newspaper reports of it. It does help to inform your viewpoint if you read the few facts available about it rather than hypothesising.

And for the remarks which keep referring to her driving on the wrong side of the road and wondering how on earth she could have done that, the jury found that the layout, parking and signage to that road needed changing 'as a matter of urgency'. Which certainly suggests that the road usage etc was not clear to drivers using it and had real significance in this case.

KitZacJak · 12/10/2015 12:51

She has had the worst punishment possible already I suppose. It's not like she would do it again or be a danger to anyone else, I think her lesson has been truly learnt. RIP poor baby.

twelfstripe · 12/10/2015 12:53

what's I'm guessing there wasn't room for the other driver to take evasive action. The other driver is in no way to blame.

If someone came towards me on the wrong side of the road my first reaction would be to brake and sound the horn.

It sounds like there wasn't space and/or time for any other action.

I'm sure the poor lady who was driving the other feels pretty bad about the situation, even though she wasn't go blame in any way.

ConstanceMarkYaBitch · 12/10/2015 12:58

It was a low speed, low impact collision on a small road in a housing estate. That doesn't make it any less of a terrible idea, but I think some posters are imagining someone bombing down a main road at 80kph or something. I would imagine that she had no idea that the airbag could do so much damage at such a low speed.

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