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

I can't find it in me to feel anything but sympathy for this mother. There but for the grace...

There were times in my DCs early years when I could have run away and I had a stable, loving background that taught me how things should be and how to cope, a supportive husband, supportive parents and enough money.

Of course she should have asked for help and for all we know she did. Just because you tell social care you need help doesn't mean you get it.

Of course it's an absolute tragedy, but it's a tragedy for both of them. If it was known that she'd left the child so many times previously, what was that if not a cry for help?

[quote Porcupineintherough]@ghostyslovesheets is it so messy and complex to remove a child that is being repeatedly left alone at such a young age? It's hardly a "grey area" at 18 months, is it? No chance that they could fend for themselves in any way.[/quote]
did they KNOW she was being repeatedly left alone?

@Mrsmadevans

It is tragic what has happened but there is nothing we can do for Asiah. What worries me is that she will be able to have more children when she comes out of prison. We should keep her in prison until she is too old to have more children thereby preventing any future children from being born and possibly neglected, tortured and starved to death like their poor sister . By my reckoning she should be about 48 before they let her out , 28 years sounds much more like it .

I'd rather she was never let out but I agree with you, past childbearing age would be better than her current sentence.

Supported accommodation is varied in what it offers,and if staff offer monitoring
I don’t know the exact specifics of the accommodation but it was ymca and suported in that it had staff onsite who did not enter the flats,they didn’t key work or monitor staff. YMCA Staff have no provision to access property without permission and are not employed to key work or monitor tenants

There will obviously be a serious case review as both mum and baby were known to children services
The mum was known to social service and the child was under C&F Mum wasn’t under a mental health team

@PickUpAPepper

This wouldn't be the comments if a father, troubled teenager or not, did this to a baby. No, the comments then would be "He should get life." "He was likely abusing the mother too." "Being a troubled teenager is no excuse for this."

Really? If we were dealing with a single father - there’s a reason why that phrase sounds so odd, it’s not used because it doesn’t happen often enough - who had been left in sole care of a baby from 16, even with state “support”, feeding it and changing its nappies and clothes etc etc? After having been raped even once himself? I don’t think so. I’m not seeing anyone on this thread who isn’t horrified. It’s why we’re talking about it.

If you support women, you support other lives too. Fail women and you fail other lives. It should be better known.

Another one trying to make it sound ok that the sexism here is so wrong you cant excuse it. It doesnt have to be the exact same happening. It's the same types of crime for goodness sake. Young men who have been abused themselves commit crime and no one says what's being said here. Most men who are abusers have been through some type of abuse themselves. But no one treats it the same as when it's a woman. A teenage boy abused a child and he doesnt get the same sympathetic and shocked comments about there has to be more to it and that hes been failed. The biased take on what I've put and how you have taken it says it all.

I'm not knocking social workers either, I am knocking the rules that mean people are given ' second chances' when it's clear they should not be in charge of or have custody of a child. I have read that the authorities were aware she had left her alone previously yet she is seen on cctv going out the door leaving her child to starve to death.
It should never have got to that stage , but it did. Heads should roll, but they won't be and it'll happen again and again too no doubt :(
Nine years is pitiful for what she did.

She had no bond with the child
It's not beyond the realms of doubt that the child was as a resulr of rape, at the least by grooming.
It's also not beyond the realms if doubt that a mental break associated the child with that and she couldn't cope.
Obviously that is not to condone it but things are rarely simple.

and I am in no way saying Children's Services are blameless here - of course they had a duty of care to both mum and baby and they failed but working within children's services I can tell you it is just chaotic - there are not enough SW as it is - lockdown has increased referrals and active cases, SW's are over worked and can not cope with cases they already have - their is no money in the pot - none

SW also have cases nation wide so a LAC visit to one child can take all day - if you are 15 it makes it hard to see them all once a week never mind touch base every day

The system is fucked - you will see more of this if nothing changes

Of course she should have asked for help and for all we know she did. Just because you tell social care you need help doesn't mean you get it.

I’ve heard of women walking into social services offices, putting their children down and walking away. She could have done that if she couldn’t cope. She didn’t. She went off on a birthday celebration fest and left a child alone for several days. She could have even done that and rung the police or social services as she walked out of the door. She didn’t.

It’s utterly beyond me how anyone could sympathise with her.

I've heard about too many cases of death and neglect over the years, but something about this particular case has affected me more than some of the others. I know it's not ' simple' I understand the pressure social workers are under , I understand that children can't be signed into care on a whim , but so many people let this little child down , she didn't stand a chance.
The system is clearly broken.

The system is clearly broken

on that we agree!

@ExpressDelivery

I can't find it in me to feel anything but sympathy for this mother. There but for the grace...

There were times in my DCs early years when I could have run away and I had a stable, loving background that taught me how things should be and how to cope, a supportive husband, supportive parents and enough money.

Of course she should have asked for help and for all we know she did. Just because you tell social care you need help doesn't mean you get it.

Of course it's an absolute tragedy, but it's a tragedy for both of them. If it was known that she'd left the child so many times previously, what was that if not a cry for help?

I don't know about little ones because I work with older children, but I've known at least three families do this and the children have been taken home. I.e. back to the parent.

I’m with you @the80sweregreat. I’m struggling to process how people can be so darn cruel.

She really had no business keeping the child.
I agree with there being an obsession with keeping children with parents, no matter how terrible they are.
I feel the same about courts forcing visitation with worthless abusive parents.

It's hard to say what the real story is but it's clear she had been abused. She may have had low IQ and functioning from abuse or disability and make easy target for predators.

It's tragic that no one thought to visit or check on them for nearly a week. Just a tragic situation in every way.

If society thinks it's fine to let neglected children go back to their parents, then we really are fucked :(

The system is broken.

And the horrible thing is I can see so many parallels with my childhood and so few things have changed despite the passage of so much time.

And I worry now that the two school staff who risked their careers to do what they did when I was a child would be so overworked themselves that they might not realise what was gonna on (that’s not a criticism of school staff - I worked in schools for years and they’re also working with higher workloads and less staff and less funding)

I’ve just been reading that very insightful Guardian article about the Baby P case that someone posted. There was a timeline as part of the piece which went something like:

March: Baby Peter was born
October: Peter (then aged 7 months) was found to have bruises and injuries and his mother was arrested. Peter taken to live with someone else
January: Peter returned to his mother

The last bit is heart-breaking. Why oh why did they give him back to her?!

On the BBC home page there are 3 horrific stories of abuse/violence against small children and it's so hard to read. I'm going to stop reading the news for a while now. I feel such deep pain and sadness for these children it actually makes me feel physically sick. No one deserves the horrors they have gone through. These are the ones that are in the news. I imagine there are more similar cases that never get reported on. Absolutely sickening.

@the80sweregreat

If society thinks it's fine to let neglected children go back to their parents, then we really are fucked :(

I don't think it's that society thinks it's fine but that we know the care system isn't any better.

Of the children I work with the ones in really horrible dysfunctional families still fare better than the ones in care. We can't reach the "looked after children" at all.

The care system doesn't even always manage to keep them alive

I agree with there being an obsession with keeping children with parents, no matter how terrible they are.

This. How many more children have to die before there is a change in the law?!

I Hate to say it but perhaps she is beginning to realise the extent of what she has done, but how is to at going to affect her. She is already terribly vulnerable and then realising that she killed her child and she hasn't had a stable upbringing herself. As much as we feel angry at her, I feel so so sad for her situation.

@ExpressDelivery ExpressDelivery

l can't find it in me to feel anything but sympathy for this mother. There but for the grace...

*December 5, 2019: Kudi leaves Asiah alone in the Brighton flat to head to London. She meets her boyfriend for dinner in Fulham and tells pals her mum is looking after the baby.

December 6: She eats at Donut Shack with friends in Putney, South West London
December 7: Kudi attends a Juiced 90s concert in Elephant and Castle with a pal
December 9: The mum travels to Coventry with her boyfriend and others to help celebrate a friend’s birthday.
December 10: Kudi heads back to London and stays overnight at a friend's flat.
December 11: She catches a train back to Brighton and pops into M&S before heading back to Asiah at the flat.*
So you'd have done all this partying and socialis knowing your baby was alone with no food or water, and slowly dying?

@bluewanda

I agree with there being an obsession with keeping children with parents, no matter how terrible they are.

This. How many more children have to die before there is a change in the law?!

It clearly will never happen :( ' lessons will be learned ' my arse it will.

Of the children I work with the ones in really horrible dysfunctional families still fare better than the ones in care. We can't reach the "looked after children" at all

Yup 'care' varies so much I would rather a child be with a shit parent who has support and can work on being a better parent than in care!

Also kids LOVE their parents - they really do - even the utterly shit ones - you will not believe the fight older kids put up to stay in awful situations - the constant running away, returning home, refusing to leave to return to care - because they are mum and dad - you have to fight that and it's impossible!

Of the children I work with the ones in really horrible dysfunctional families still fare better than the ones in care. We can't reach the "looked after children" at all.

This is the biggest problem.

You can’t rescue people from terrible situations if the place of safety ends up worse overall.