Nine years for starving a baby to death

[PropertyFlipper]

I’m struggling to see the justice here. This sorry specimen will be out in five years no doubt. Devastating.
Teen mother, 19, bursts into tears as she is jailed for nine years

@mathanxiety

Wrt crystal balls and what social workers can or cannot predict, surely a record of being 'missing' since age 14 and a stint in care followed by motherhood at a young age would result in flagging? Girls don't hit the streets in their early teen years unless there are serious problems in their lives.

The child had a child protection plan from birth. The mother must have done well enough before this to assure them that she was safe. You can't keep children on plans indefinitely because the parents had difficult childhoods or because they are young. You have to have threshold and evidence.

She wasn't on CP at death.

To come off CP isn't the next step down CIN?

I don’t care about her mental health problems or her past. Any human being knows that a baby will starve to death after 6 days. Hell even a child would know that. There are no excuses.

@DingDongThongs

To come off CP isn't the next step down CIN?

Yes. Usually a CP plan wouldn't last longer than 18 months, and then 3-6 months on CIN. We don't know when they closed the case, but she may have come off CP at 6 or 12 months and then been on CiN before closing.

@DingDongThongs

To come off CP isn't the next step down CIN?

Yes, as far as I know. Well, CP is the step up from CIN so would have thought the same in reverse. So there should have been a SW.

Where were her friends? Did she tell them her parents were caring for her?
They obviously fell for her bull shit too.

@the80sweregreat with a bit of luck any future children will be removed at birth. Surely no one is given the chance to kill a second child?

[quote Porcupineintherough]@the80sweregreat with a bit of luck any future children will be removed at birth. Surely no one is given the chance to kill a second child?[/quote]
I would hope so!
It's just so sad.

Absolutely heartbreaking, she chose to go out to celebrate her birthday and leave her child die an excruciating death. I don’t see how there can be any excuse or how it is not murder.

She should have been tried for murder.
There are no excuses for what she did. None.

@Soubriquet

RE the crying. I would say yes she learned crying didn’t do her any good and maybe she didn’t cry for the first, or even the second day. But by the 3rd and 4th? She must have started making some form of noise

The 5th I would have said she would be too weak

Poor little lamb

I think it would be the other way round ie cry, no one comes, then stop crying

There should have been a SW because the child was left 11 times in two months, it’s known that she was left for two days on one of those occasions.

That’s why writing someone off as evil is dangerous.

It means the questions of who knew she’d been left alone 11 times (the supported housing people say they only knew of once), what happened on the previous occasions, how and when was it known the child was left for two days, was the repeated leaving her known by one person or multiple people, was it reported to social workers, if it was was was there no social worker involved and if it wasn’t why not?

These are all questions that will be asked and should be answered (not necessarily to you and I, but in the relevant reviews and meetings).

Looking at this and saying “She was evil. End of” makes it too easy for anyone who does have questions to answer to avoid answering them. It allows the damage of slashing services (by politicians of all guises) to be hidden.

Proper funding of services and proper reviews won’t save every child because evil does happen. But it’ll save some and it’ll certainly protect more than are being protected now.

@DoingItMyself

if she had left the child 11 times before i cannot understand how she was in supported housing and this happened

Quite. The mother clearly needed support and the baby needed protection.

Reminds me of my former pupil who was skipping school. I pressed him for reasons and he said 'My mum goes off, miss. There's no-one else to look after my little brothers. She went for a week but she's back now.' He'd have been about twelve.

No, anyone who leaves a one year old alone should have their child taken off them. 11 times that she admitted to!

@the80sweregreat

She should have been tried for murder. There are no excuses for what she did. None.

She didn’t commit murder, a trial for it would have brought in a not guilty verdict and she’d have walked free. I have a feeling she’s going to have a terrible time in prison and nothing will be achieved in however many years she spends there. My only hope is that she never has more children.

@the80sweregreat

Where were her friends? Did she tell them her parents were caring for her? They obviously fell for her bull shit too.

I doubt her child was at the forefront of their partying minds !

So we now allow people to care for children who have previously been left unattended for two days ? Someone knew she was capable of doing this yet she was allowed to carry on looking after her?
It is beyond me, completely beyond me

There but for the grace of God!

Ten years ago this "mother" was a child and needed protecting. She, like thousands of others, went under the radar.

Now she is being vilified.

What she did was atrocious, but she is a product of her upbringing, sexual grooming and life experiences.

Until any of us can understand that then these tragic cases will continue in my opinion

I think people like writing others off as "they're just evil" with the "no excuses" trope because thinking otherwise forces them to confront the reality that normal people can do horrible things, and it could happen to them, their children, their family, or their friends.

The idea that a healthy, sane, happy child - who would ordinarily grow up into a healthy, sane, productive member of society - can be traumatised and grow up to do something awful is too uncomfortable.

So rather than examine the root causes (which, ironically, would save more lives given a scenario where we had better social and mental health care which could identify risk factors and act earlier - if this mother had had proper support to deal with her own abuse then Asiah would still be here today), they stick their fingers in their ears and pretend that only evil people do bad things.

Never flawed people, or traumatised people, or stupid people, or vulnerable people, or desperate people, or unwell people. Only evil people. No excuses.

It's the sort of situation where some might feel she should be made to experience the same as she inflicted. I mean, as so many are happy to convince themselves it's just naievety

lockheart, the flaw in your argument is the fact she had form for leaving a vulnerable child at home many times before but she was allowed to continue to have custody.
How can anyone say this was right ?
The child should have been taken into care the first time she left her. No question at all.

@Blossomtoes would you have such a problem with prison "not achieving much" if it was a man who killed a child by hitting or shaking them? Because death by starvation and thirst is a horrendous, horrendous death. That poor baby suffered terribly and she did so alone. 9 years is nothing compared to what that child went through - and the chances are her mum will be out and partying again in 4.

Will prison make her a better parent? Of course not, that's not what it's for.

@the80sweregreat

lockheart, the flaw in your argument is the fact she had form for leaving a vulnerable child at home many times before but she was allowed to continue to have custody. How can anyone say this was right ? The child should have been taken into care the first time she left her. No question at all.

Did I say it was right?

(Hint: no.)

She should have been much more closely supervised. The child should have been in care.

But to write her off as just evil and say there's no excuses (as you have done) and ignore the underlying causes which ultimately resulted in Asiah's death helps no-one, least of all the young children who suffer as a result of being raised by teenagers who have suffered and are suffering.

@the80sweregreat

So we now allow people to care for children who have previously been left unattended for two days ? Someone knew she was capable of doing this yet she was allowed to carry on looking after her? It is beyond me, completely beyond me

that's a very simplistic take on things to be honest - we don;t know WHO knew she had been left alone before - maybe her previous SW did but didn;t record it properly, the child had no SW at the time - maybe the previous SW had left - the case needed allocating - all the other SW where already dangerously over case loaded, no one could take it on - manager felt it was low risk - things like this happen all the time.

As a care leaver she would have had a PA - they need to make contact every 8 weeks - usually by phone but they don;t have capacity normally to keep chasing people.

SW can't remove a child without either parental permission or a court order - not for any period of time - these require evidence to be acquired and a case to be drawn up and submitted - again the child had no SW at this point.

In an ideal world social workers would have the case loads they can cope with - to provide good support and be able to keep on top of issues and concerns - in reality they are fighting fire after fire with no time to deal with the other stuff

The system is flawed, staff are burnt out, agency staff widely used, turn over high, there is a lack of consistency, information gets lost and people fall through the cracks

please go and train to be social workers because that's what is needed - not armchair worriers

Ok, but it doesn't excuse the fact that other people let this child down , not just the little girls so-called mother!
I'll write her off as evil because she is.