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AIBU?

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Original poster

Nine years for starving a baby to death

999 replies

PropertyFlipper · 06/08/2021 15:07

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

OP posts:
LocalHobo · 06/08/2021 16:38

Thanks LavenderAskew

Her father's comment makes it sound like he/her family would have offered support with their granddaughter if they had been allowed to.

RevolvingPivot · 06/08/2021 16:39

Yes it is the same one. But I was confused with the days. Wasn't she sentenced in March?

Bitofachinwag · 06/08/2021 16:39

@CovidCorvid

It’s awful…she must have realised the baby would die?
She might not have realised how long she had been gone for.
RevolvingPivot · 06/08/2021 16:40

There was talk about sex trafficking maybe she wanted to get home but couldn't

CloseYourEyesAndSee · 06/08/2021 16:43

@Flaunch

If someone has left a baby 11 times before I’t isn’t a crystal ball that will tell you’ve they’ll do it again, is it but experience.

That baby was massively let down by social services who’s inaction allowed her mother to starve her to death.

Reporting indicates that she started leaving the child in the months before her death, when she did not have a social worker. May I repeat that social workers don't have crystal balls. Parents can and do escalate their neglect or abuse very quickly and children can die before anyone is aware of what is happening. You don't know what social services did or didn't do. Wait for the SCR before judging.
awaynboilyurheid · 06/08/2021 16:43

Sex trafficking? she got a shout out for her birthday from a DJ in a nightclub, she wasn’t held hostage.

igelkott2021 · 06/08/2021 16:43

@ExpressDelivery

I'd like to know the full story too, it's a tragic story. Presumably there's a father who completely abandoned the child too...
Well quite. But it's ok for him to do it, naturally.

I think 9 years is justified in this case, she didn't deliberately set out to kill her child, she was just completely stupid. I don't want to minimise what she did, but there is a big difference between being stupid and being a remorseless murderer.

Maybe the father had no involvement for whatever reason,
Which is not the same as leaving a baby with no food or drink for five days it isn't but it still sits uneasily with me that it's always the mother who is prosecuted for the direct neglect but the father has buggered off (quite possibly knowing the mother is that fickle and stupid).

igelkott2021 · 06/08/2021 16:45

As for the social workers why do we always want to blame authorities for things: eg this, Baby P, the Manchester Arena bombing, the London Bridge attacks. The people to blame are the perpetrators. Nobody makes them go out and murder others (or neglect them so they die).

I also saw in another case, that a stepfather has killed his stepson. Why do mothers inflict these men on their children?

DelicateFuckingFlower · 06/08/2021 16:45

I wonder if perhaps she wasn't able to come home. It sounds like she was a victim of child sexual exploitation, and possibly wasn't making her own decisions about where to go and how long to stay away.

Chimentolo · 06/08/2021 16:45

I did wonder if the baby was already dead when she left.

Of course she wasn't, the investigation would have picked that up. The police aren't THAT remiss.

Lockheart · 06/08/2021 16:46

@awaynboilyurheid

Sex trafficking? she got a shout out for her birthday from a DJ in a nightclub, she wasn’t held hostage.
What makes you think that this means she wasn't a victim of child sexual exploitation?

It's breathtakingly naive.

It's been fairly well documented in the reporting of the case that she was believed to have been suffering sexual abuse since the age of 14.

carcarbinks · 06/08/2021 16:48

I think this was murder not manslaughter. Why are children allowed to die like this?

ExpressDelivery · 06/08/2021 16:49

Not without drinking.

But if that's what killed her she didn't starve.

JustLyra · 06/08/2021 16:52

@carcarbinks

I think this was murder not manslaughter. Why are children allowed to die like this?
What do you know about the case that the court has missed?

Because there will be reasons it's a manslaughter conviction.

LakieLady · 06/08/2021 16:53

@Skysblue

It’s all so sad. I do wonder about the mother’s mental capacity, I suspect with a more highly paid lawyer she’d have gone to a mental hospital, not a prison. Her behaviour doesn’t seem to have been at all rational. Anyone must know that leaving a baby that long will kill it. Yet if she wanted the baby to die doing it this way made no sense. I think she had mentally cracked up. A lot of people seem to be doing that lately, the news is full of violence against women and young children.

It’s a tragedy that the baby wasn’t removed from her earlier/ being more closely monitored, but Britain already has the highest child removal rate in Europe. Very sad and very tricky. I doubt the prison sentence will achieve anything except to destroy her life.

Would also be interested to know why the father wasn’t on trial for abandoning the child…

I agree with you, @Skysblue.

The mother wouldn't have been in supported accommodation if she wasn't vulnerable in some way herself.

My previous job included clients in supported accommodation. Funding cuts have meant that, in lots of cases, the level of support has been significantly reduced. Caseloads have nearly doubled on some projects. Support workers are no longer able to provide the intensive support that some clients need, and my former colleagues have been saying for some time that something like this is inevitable. But this is what people voted for.

I daresay that some support worker or social worker, overstretched, overstressed and nearing burn out, will be hung out to dry over this.

I'm bloody glad I jumped ship when I did.

ToykotoLosAngeles · 06/08/2021 16:53

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.

Doesn't sound like she was held against her will to me.

hehehhehe · 06/08/2021 16:54

16:30ancientgran

Agree she would have been better placing the child for adoption but don't see the relevance of this to my comment which stated that the child's father should have stepped forward. Failing to do so places the remaining parent under additional pressure. Or do you think it was in the child's best interests for him to do nothing

JustLyra · 06/08/2021 16:56

@igelkott2021

As for the social workers why do we always want to blame authorities for things: eg this, Baby P, the Manchester Arena bombing, the London Bridge attacks. The people to blame are the perpetrators. Nobody makes them go out and murder others (or neglect them so they die).

I also saw in another case, that a stepfather has killed his stepson. Why do mothers inflict these men on their children?

Placing appropriate levels of blame at relevant authorities isn't taking away blame from the perpatrators unfairly. It's not saying it's not their fault.

However, in the case of a teenage runaway with a history of abuse and a recent history of neglecting the child there is likely also blame elsewhere.

bluewanda · 06/08/2021 16:56

Doesn't sound like she was held against her will to me.

Or that she was so off her face on drink/drugs that "all responsibility went out the window", as another poster suggested Hmm

AlexaShutUp · 06/08/2021 16:56

This is an awful story. Utterly heartbreaking.

It's hard to know what was going on in that young mum's mum's. Whether she didn't care or whether she didn't have the mental capacity to see what might happen. I imagine that she herself had been pretty badly failed by the system to be in the position that she was in.

Given that she had left the child unattended on so many previous occasions, it seems like a spectacular failure of child protection processes that there was no monitoring over such an extended period. The mother clearly wasn't fit to be left with the responsibility of caring for that child, no matter what the reason for that might have been.

That poor, poor little girl. What a miserable life she led, and what a tragic ending.

x2boys · 06/08/2021 16:57

@DelicateFuckingFlower

I wonder if perhaps she wasn't able to come home. It sounds like she was a victim of child sexual exploitation, and possibly wasn't making her own decisions about where to go and how long to stay away.
She went night clubbing,
ToykotoLosAngeles · 06/08/2021 16:58

@bluewanda

Doesn't sound like she was held against her will to me.

Or that she was so off her face on drink/drugs that "all responsibility went out the window", as another poster suggested Hmm

Nope. She knew it was wrong because she lied and said her mum was babysitting because you don't leave a toddler alone for half an hour, let alone 5 days.
TheViewFromTheCheapSeats · 06/08/2021 16:58

It’s not just the mum that should be before a judge.
How the hell that child wasn’t checked on. Vulnerable teenager runaway (from 14), supported housing, massive history of running away and leaving the child. Mum clearly has massive issues onwards from a young teen. It just sounds almost inevitable that child would come to serious harm, might as well let toddlers roam next to motorways unattended if that’s the level of safeguarding they get.
No one even thought to check in? Put her in housing where they checked in? Wondered why they hadn’t seen them?
I’d love to see how much was paid to house them without safeguarding.

LifesNotEnidBlyton · 06/08/2021 17:01

Another thread where the comments wouldn't be the same if the sex of the person was swapped. Comment after comment about "I'd like to know the full story" and "The father likely raped her" "Why isn't the father in trouble for leaving his chuld there".

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.".

x2boys · 06/08/2021 17:02

@LifesNotEnidBlyton

Another thread where the comments wouldn't be the same if the sex of the person was swapped. Comment after comment about "I'd like to know the full story" and "The father likely raped her" "Why isn't the father in trouble for leaving his chuld there".

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.".

Indeed!