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

What an absolutely vile comment

Yes, nothing at all vile about suggesting that because person A, then person B must have absolutely no reason for not turning out in the exact same way.

The reductionism in your 'argument' is beyond parody. Seriously.

You’re just making a fool of yourself now. Go read the comments from the judge and the police involved in the case and find me where they mention that she was sex trafficked or coerced against her will to go to London for six days and that it was a mitigating circumstance in her sentencing.

Again, I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THE 6 DAYS IN LONDON.

Get this into your skull ffs.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

You’re just making a fool of yourself now. Go read the comments from the judge and the police involved in the case and find me where they mention that she was sex trafficked or coerced against her will to go to London for six days and that it was a mitigating circumstance in her sentencing.

Again, I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THE 6 DAYS IN LONDON.

Get this into your skull ffs.

There’s no need to shout. We know what you’re talking about. If there had been any mitigating facts from any point in her life, the defence would have used them. They didn’t.

Again, you fail to realise that the woman was 18 years old.

Oh, I’m very aware that she was 18 years old. Legally an adult who knew exactly what she was doing, as the judge said. And it wasn’t just these six days was it? She’d left the girl around 11 times before to fend for herself on her own. Get your FACTS (another word you don’t seem to understand) right at least.

She got nine years because that’s virtually the maximum you can get for manslaughter

No it is not. Manslaughter carries a maximum penalty of Life imprisonment in English Law.

Realistically lots of people have been through what she has though. I attended a school unit specifically for teen mums, most of us had been exploited in some way. It was so common they had a specific class.

None of us starved our babies to death. Upthread is mentioned a woman in her 30s who, due to addiction, starved her baby to death/left her baby to die. Her age isn’t a factor here. She put herself and her wishes above her baby’s health and well-being, and many people all around (social workers, family members) turned a blind eye to this. It’s horrifying but I don’t think desperately trying to find reasons she might have been a sex slave/dragged away against her will is helpful. She may just have been an incredibly selfish person.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

She got nine years because that’s virtually the maximum you can get for manslaughter

No it is not. Manslaughter carries a maximum penalty of Life imprisonment in English Law.

With manslaughter, there is no mandatory sentence and the consequences under UK law range from: A prison sentence – typically ranging between 2-10 years.

There’s no need to shout. We know what you’re talking about. If there had been any mitigating facts from any point in her life, the defence would have used them. They didn’t

Which is totally immaterial, because this bunfight started because @bluewanda can't seem to grasp that people are speculating about the period of her life prior to the '6 days', i.e. the period that we haven't been told all about. The period we don't know all the 'FACTS' (not my emphasis) about.

With manslaughter, there is no mandatory sentence and the consequences under UK law range from: A prison sentence – typically ranging between 2-10 years

To?

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

There’s no need to shout. We know what you’re talking about. If there had been any mitigating facts from any point in her life, the defence would have used them. They didn’t

Which is totally immaterial, because this bunfight started because @bluewanda can't seem to grasp that people are speculating about the period of her life prior to the '6 days', i.e. the period that we haven't been told all about. The period we don't know all the 'FACTS' (not my emphasis) about.

Read what I wrote again. Slowly. Especially the bit I put in italics to make it easy for you. 🙄

If there had been any mitigating facts from any point in her life, the defence would have used them. They didn’t.

Which is totally immaterial, because this bunfight started because @bluewanda can't seem to grasp that people are speculating about the period of her life prior to the '6 days', i.e. the period that we haven't been told all about.

Stop making things up. There were posters earlier on the thread who said there’s no way she could have afforded to go to London and that she must have been trafficked or there against her will. I thought you said you RTFT - seems you conveniently missed that bit

If there had been any mitigating facts from any point in her life, the defence would have used them. They didn’t.

Exactly. I wonder how many times we’ll have to repeat it before @XDownwiththissortofthingX understands?

@bluewanda

The judge and legal representatives did. I’m pretty sure the defence would have those FACTS in her mitigation if they existed.

Precisely. But @XDownwiththissortofthingX knows better than all of them

Whoop-de-fucking-do for them.

What an absolutely vile comment.

Between that and referring to Asiah dismissively as a 'long dead child' by the time this woman is released from jail so of course she can have other children. Dreadful.

Read what I wrote again. Slowly. Especially the bit I put in italics to make it easy for you. 🙄

If there had been any mitigating facts from any point in her life, the defence would have used them. They didn’t.

I am perfectly aware of the point you are making, the issue here is we are at cross purposes.

I have not, and I am not suggesting that people know better than the defence team that worked her case.

What I am suggesting, is that when @bluewanda continually refers to 'none of this happened during the 6 days in London', I am pointing out that the speculation was not primarily concerned with those 6 days, rather what may or may not have happened at other points in her life.

Now if there are no mitigating factors presented in her case, then that is what it is. I am not disputing that. What I am saying, is that when the woman's own father describes her as having been 'missing since she was 14', when it's clear that she became pregnant at 15 while already in the care of the LA, that people might want to think to themselves about how these things came about, under what circumstances they could possibly have occurred, and perhaps, indulge in a bit of speculation.

Perhaps someone did posit that she had been 'trafficked' to London while her child was still in the flat, but my take away from what most people were discussing, was how on earth the things I mentioned above could have come about. Regardless of what we know was presented, and what we've been told, it's commonplace that judges and juries are privy to information that is never disclosed to the public at large. THIS, is what I think is propagating the speculation. Just exactly how did this girl (because she was a girl at the time) come to be pregnant while in the care of a local authority, at 15 years old?

dismissively

Or 'stating fact', as other people might see it.

Amazed that some people think that because mitigation wasn't reported it means it wasn't made.

I work adjacent to the courts. It's common for solicitors to refer to court-ordered reports without stating out loud what they are referring to. The judge has the report and knows but the court reporter doesn't and so can't report the mitigation.

Or the information may be subject to a contempt order because it relates to another ongoing court case.

Or the reporter might just have left it out.

Surprisingly the Daily Mail seems to be the only outlet with any length of words dedicated to mitigation, and even that's possibly incomplete.

Amazed that some people think that because mitigation wasn't reported it means it wasn't made

Well, yes.

I perfectly understand the points x down is making and blue etc.
I can't understand why you all keep misunderstanding each other.

Some posters are talking about one strand and theme and some are ruminating on how she's come to this point.

And it's been a really illuminating and interesting thread in between these pointless bun fight comments.

It's clear we are all deeply moved and upset by this awful tragic death I havant seen one poster who isn't.
Some posters are more interested in the why and what to do next.
For me the why is partly addressing our not for for purpose care system and what next, I'd like to explore sterilisation being offered.

@Panickingpavlova

I perfectly understand the points x down is making and blue etc. I can't understand why you all keep misunderstanding each other.

Some posters are talking about one strand and theme and some are ruminating on how she's come to this point.

That’s how it reads to me as well. I kind of made a similar point in my last post - discussing from an individualistic POV will only concentrate on the women in question, almost in a vacuum. Which is fine if that’s the theme you want to discuss. Others are discussing from a society POV and the bigger picture - again, fine.

@Kanaloa

Realistically lots of people have been through what she has though. I attended a school unit specifically for teen mums, most of us had been exploited in some way. It was so common they had a specific class.

None of us starved our babies to death. Upthread is mentioned a woman in her 30s who, due to addiction, starved her baby to death/left her baby to die. Her age isn’t a factor here. She put herself and her wishes above her baby’s health and well-being, and many people all around (social workers, family members) turned a blind eye to this. It’s horrifying but I don’t think desperately trying to find reasons she might have been a sex slave/dragged away against her will is helpful. She may just have been an incredibly selfish person.

I 100% agree with you. People seem to be breaking their necks to try and explain this woman’s behaviour to somehow make her crime seem less horrific than what it is.

But you’re right, maybe she was just a selfish, horrible person- but unfortunately do-gooders on this thread won’t be able to comprehend that possibility.

Ok. I'll make one final post and then I'm going to leave the thread for good, because as much as it's interesting discussing and debating, it's clear that it's so emotive that people are just going to be riled up no matter what.

I want to sincerely apologise to anybody I've offended, it isn't intentional. I am autistic, and I am prone to obsessiveness, pettiness, pedantry, and tend to see and describe things completely dispassionately... until I think somebody is wrong on the internet.

Again, I'm genuinely sorry if I have upset anyone in the thread.

@Sweetchocolatecandy

Thank you, I also feel like this! For me, to look at prevention I would rather they examined why the baby wasn’t removed/special measures put in place when they discovered the baby was being left alone rather than ruminate on how the mother had a hard life. To me that’s the best way to prevent this in the future, early and harsh intervention where possible.

As has been pointed out before on this thread. It's perfectly possible for her to be a person damaged by her experiences AND still be a selfish horrible murderer.

@Lovemusic33

A sad story, I’m thinking there was a huge failure by social services, she had left her child several times leading up to her death and no one did anything? They were housed in a flat for women at risk by social services yet no one was keeping an eye on the child the months leading up to her death? She obviously wasn’t capable of looking after a child, this child was put through hell leading up to her death.

I’m not sure if the sentence is too short as we don’t know the mothers mental health or her background (only what we are told in the media) but of course what she did to the child was disgusting and horrific but I would like to know why social services didn’t remove this child when it was clear she wasn’t a capable parent.

Sorry the failure sits with the mother alone. This mother left the child alone 11 times previously, to which I'm sure she was told it's unacceptable etc. This mother choose to go off drinking for 6 days knowing damn well they left a child alone with no way to support itself The only thing SS have failed on is not removing the child the first time it was left alone, and for that they need to answer why they thought it ok to allow that to happen.

As for the mother, she's got away lightly with a 9 year sentence. But then our justice system is piss poor