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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
Lockheart · 06/08/2021 17:03

@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.".

If the father had suffered sexual abuse from the age of 14 and had made someone pregnant at 15 then yes, I'd say the same thing.

You can't discount the impact of severe abuse on a teenager.

Their trauma and neglect doesn't magically disappear when they become parents themselves.

All you have then is two generations who have been utterly failed by those who were supposed to look after them.

Marguerite2000 · 06/08/2021 17:04

@hehehhehe

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

Why are you speculating about the father? He wasn't mentioned in the report , therefore we know nothing about him and what role he played in the child's life, if any.
TheViewFromTheCheapSeats · 06/08/2021 17:05

It’s not an excuse, but an inevitable spiral of shit that was happened. As a society we also had a duty to protect the child- when it was so obvious she had no one else to.
We get mum was bad, but if that was so obvious why was the sorry mess allowed to pan out.

HyacynthBucket · 06/08/2021 17:05

And this happened in sheltered accommodation in a city that is so woke it cant even call mothers mothers. What were their workers doing or thinking? Wrong priorities it seems.

Bibidy · 06/08/2021 17:05

I just can't understand how this can happen in supported housing. The whole point is that someone checks in.

So either they failed in their duty or she lied and told them both she and her baby were going away so they didn't check, but it doesn't seem that was the case.

PatchworkElmer · 06/08/2021 17:06

That poor little girl 😞

Lbnc2021 · 06/08/2021 17:07

@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.".

Exactly.

That poor beautiful baby. What a truly heartbreaking death.

BlackSwan · 06/08/2021 17:08

She should have been sent down for murder.

Judge said it was manslaughter because she didn't intend to cause her daughter death or really serious harm. How is that remotely plausible! What a travesty.

LakieLady · 06/08/2021 17:08

@Upamountain43

There are some key failures here - if she had left the child 11 times before i cannot understand how she was in supported housing and this happened.

I often feel the public are too hard on professionals as it can be virtually impossible to correctly predict which child needs removing and get it right every single time.

But in this case.....i think there are some people who need to have some answers.

I bet the support worker in question is bricking it, and rightly so. Although the decision about raising a safeguarding is a management decision where I used to work, not one made by frontline workers. They just have to report it and the manager decides.

The thought of having to appear before a serious case review was my worst nightmare.

ExpressDelivery · 06/08/2021 17:09

Exactly. What us supported housing if a toddler can be left alone in it for 6 days no one knows? How is it different from any other housing?

Its had been identified that this mother, barely more than a child herself, needed support and yet?

Of course she must bear responsibility and she has got 9 years, but there must have been a massive failing in the system too.

I'd take what her father says with a pinch of salt. She was in care for a reason.

LifesNotEnidBlyton · 06/08/2021 17:10

You might say the same but most here likely wouldn't. But I dont need what she's been through explaining to me. You don't know what anyone on this site knows about so trying to justify comments with an explanation of why we should feel sorry for her isn't helpful. Most male abusers went through being abused themselves but most people don't use that to evoke sympathy for him when they do something to a woman or child.

54321nought · 06/08/2021 17:12

poor poor little baby. I want to pick her up and hug her and kiss her

Goldbar · 06/08/2021 17:13

The percentage of single teenage parents who are boys must be miniscule, if indeed there are any at all. It's not generally teenage boys who are left holding the baby. The responsibilities which are often placed on young abused girls who have never known good parenting or loving care themselves to parent appropriately are great indeed. Caring for children is a heavy, relentless responsibility. Even with intensive support for the mother, many babies end up in the care system. There are no excuses for what this mother did but a teenage boy is vanishingly unlikely to find himself in this scenario so comparisons are unhelpful.

GrolliffetheDragon · 06/08/2021 17:14

@LifesNotEnidBlyton

You might say the same but most here likely wouldn't. But I dont need what she's been through explaining to me. You don't know what anyone on this site knows about so trying to justify comments with an explanation of why we should feel sorry for her isn't helpful. Most male abusers went through being abused themselves but most people don't use that to evoke sympathy for him when they do something to a woman or child.
Except that isn't true. There is no evidence that male abusers were abused, except for child-on-child abuse, where I would have sympathy for both.
ShitPoetryClub · 06/08/2021 17:15

igelkott2021

You say that the only people to blame are the perpetrators, then in the next sentence point your finger at mothers who "inflict" stepfathers on their children.

NotMaryWhitehouse · 06/08/2021 17:15

@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…

Too true. And where were her family, l who must have known she was out partying? The families are alway so so so sad afterwards- but how do women like this end up in the system in the first place?

Just so awful for that little child, breaks the heart.

JustLyra · 06/08/2021 17:17

@BlackSwan

She should have been sent down for murder. Judge said it was manslaughter because she didn't intend to cause her daughter death or really serious harm. How is that remotely plausible! What a travesty.
And you know better than the judge - who had all the facts of the case in front of him - how exactly?
caringcarer · 06/08/2021 17:18

Forced sterilisation should be used for baby murderers.

TheVolturi · 06/08/2021 17:19

This is absolutely tragic, what that poor little mite must have gone through is unimaginable. Heartbreaking.

Pegasusmail · 06/08/2021 17:20

Poor little darling baby Sad
I don't know how this could have happened but its clear she wasn't truly loved. Bless her. There has to be lessons learned from this.

LakieLady · 06/08/2021 17:20

Thank you for the background, @Lockheart.

It would seem that the system failed the mother almost as badly as the poor baby.

Oakmaiden · 06/08/2021 17:21

I strongly suspect she assumed someone would check on the baby, see it was alone and look after it until she got back.

But no-one did.

fourminutestosavetheworld · 06/08/2021 17:22

@Oakmaiden

I strongly suspect she assumed someone would check on the baby, see it was alone and look after it until she got back.

But no-one did.

She convinced support staff that she was taking the baby with her, according to media reports.
Sleepyblueocean · 06/08/2021 17:23

The type of supported living she was in was very low level support. Staff wouldn't have been doing checks of where everyone was and asking to go into people's flats etc.

LifesNotEnidBlyton · 06/08/2021 17:23

Well I don't know where you get that from. But it's wrong so there isn't any use to talking about it if that's what you believe.

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