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

@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…

The news is actually full of women committng violence and cruelty against their own children with or without the assistance of a bf) who very rarely is the child's biological father.)

allJustLyra firstly the judge is a woman, not a man.

Aren't you very clever.

Considering the scum mother left the defenceless baby alone for almost 6 days - I would have thought unless she was insane (which wasn't part of her defence) she would have been completely aware of the fact the child wouldn't have survived.
It's utterly fanciful to come to any conclusion other than one that she intended for the child to be dead by the time she returned.

"Nearly six days... ought to have done it... guess i can go home now..."

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.

Let hear it again, “Lessons will be learned”.

Really! That will be a first.

@RevolvingPivot

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

She shouldn't have left the baby in the first place. Just popping to the corner shop you could get knocked down by a car and die/be unconscious.

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

Ultimately, yes, but social services are the agency with the statutory duty to safeguard to children, so they have some responsibility too.

@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...

Thank you for saying this.

This is one of the worst cases of child cruelty in British criminal history. No question.

It's just so depressing

Apologies for not sharing the link - it didn't post for some reason.

And in the same week we have seen a three year old killed by the woman who should have loved and protected her and the creature she shacked up with. And then the poor little fella down in Wales. I just don't know what to say anymore.

What happened to this poor baby is horrific but I wish people would educate themselves on the kinds of circumstances that lead to this.

The mother was a teenage runaway. 14 year old girls from happy homes do not just run away. There is either a history of childhood abuse, or drugs and sexual exploitation. When she was herself a child. That she was in supported housing with her baby, who she had fallen pregnant with when she was a child, and was still considered to be 'missing' by her parents suggests there was a very good reason her parents were not aware of her whereabouts. She likely had a shitty upbringing and no real role modelling of good parenting.

It is heartbreaking but there were definitely failures in keeping this poor baby safe. But it is bigger than just having an "evil, scummy, mother". It is so much more complicated than that

15 years for beating a child to death:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9869365/Mother-23-jailed-killing-daughter-3-way-wanted-sex.html

Sentencing the pair, Mr Justice Foxton QC said: 'On the evening of August 8 you Redfern went to Priest's flat. The two of you went to have sex. Kaylee wanted to stay up and play. There is no direct evidence of what happened next.

'Kaylee was sick more than once during the night as a result of the severe beating. You lost your tempers and it is clear you were joint participants in that assault. You both knew you had seriously injured Kaylee.

'You, Priest did nothing to seek medical help. A prompt call could have saved Kaylee's life. You both lied repeatedly during interviews.

'From the severity of the injuries caused by the assault it is clear there was an intention to cause serious harm. The injuries were caused by a ferocious assault.

'You and Redfern were equally responsible. You had ample opportunity to raise any concerns. Kaylee was very vulnerable and you were in a position of trust. You did nothing to summon help.'

What an absolute scumbag.

I'm sure I read somewhere that SS didn't know who the father was.

My youngest DD went to school with a girl who had learning difficulties. All of her care/support dropped like a stone on the day she left school. She's since had 3 children with 3 different fathers, and her FB page is a horror story of neglect/poor parenting. She can't look after herself let alone children. Only last week she had one of them in A & E again because they'd eaten a tube of toothpaste . I hate to think how many children are born to those who can't even look after themselves, intentionally or not.

Poor darling baby I've found the news very hard to stomach this week, this must be the 3rd serious case of child neglect.

@BlackSwan

allJustLyra firstly the judge is a woman, not a man.

Aren't you very clever.

Considering the scum mother left the defenceless baby alone for almost 6 days - I would have thought unless she was insane (which wasn't part of her defence) she would have been completely aware of the fact the child wouldn't have survived.
It's utterly fanciful to come to any conclusion other than one that she intended for the child to be dead by the time she returned.

"Nearly six days... ought to have done it... guess i can go home now..."

The only utterly fanciful thing is that you think you know better than the person with all the facts in front of them that it was manslaughter, even without the only thing you considered would make it so.

Poor darling baby sad I've found the news very hard to stomach this week, this must be the 3rd serious case of child neglect.

I know, I'm really, really struggling with it all. Part of me wants to just switch off the news but then I think these stories need to be heard. We can't just bury our heads in the sand.

Never heard of mental health problems then? It's not just a trendy phrase. In social terms, victims can pass on their abuse.
It's an awful case. I do think the baby should have been removed from birth, perhaps a 'side parent' ought to be appointed by the state for all under-18s. You have to ask questions about just why child removal is so high in the UK. We are a seriously sick society.

@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

If he couldn't or wouldn't offer support then better to step away than be there the way this mother was. Yes I do think it is in a child's best interests if parents who can't/won't step up are honest about that and the child is placed for adoption. Oh that this mother had given the baby up. I do know of a 14 year old who was pregnant, a mother at 15 and social workers put great pressure on her to keep the baby. After 18 months she finally said she wasn't going to do it. Again it would have been much better for all concerned if they had listened when she originally said it. She either didn't know or wouldn't say who the father was.

@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…

Yes. A tragedy that this care leaver wasn’t raised well enough, a tragedy that she hasn’t had the social and mental support she would have got in other countries and a tragedy that no one intervened to keep the little child safe. The whole thing is a damning inditement of our health, care and social services systems.

You have to ask questions about just why child removal is so high in the UK. We are a seriously sick society.

It is profoundly depressing. I feel so upset.

From reports this woman was in a mother and baby unit with her baby and was then moved to medium support housing where support is on hand if needed, so she must have convinced social workers that she was able to take care of her baby. She would have been heavily monitored and taught how to care for her child.The baby looks very healthy and well cared for as well, so she knew what she was doing and to suggest that she may not have realised the danger she had left her child in is laughable.

She wasn’t left holding the baby with no support and she had every opportunity to get it from the staff on site. She had been warned numerous times about leaving her baby alone.

She was online selling concert tickets earlier in the day before she returned home to find her child dead. She wasn’t capable of making a phone call to let someone know her baby had been alone for 6 days? In the days before that where she could have been saved? She nipped into M&S on her way home, no rush to get back to her.

The poor mite had flu so would have been feverish and unwell as well as starving, thirsty and sore from not having her nappy changed.

She was posting online trying to become a model in the months after her baby’s death. Doesn’t sound remorseful to me.

I don’t care what this woman’s background was, or the excuses people want to make for her, she is a monster who knowingly inflicted a torturous death on a defenceless baby.

She should be locked up for life.

@LakieLady

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

Ultimately, yes, but social services are the agency with the statutory duty to safeguard to children, so they have some responsibility too.

Absolutely - and you would think it would therefore be paramount to our society that such a service would be well funded and adequately staffed

but years of local authority cuts, reductions is services and staffing plus burn out in existing staff is causing things to collapse

If you want high quality, effective, timely safeguarding you have to fund it.

@Handsoffstrikesagain

It all went wrong for the mother from an early age. Social services let the mother and the poor baby down. This case is littered with failings. What I’m struggling to comprehend however is the belief some people have that this evil little cow would have not any idea about cause and effect, what would happen if she didn’t feed her child etc. No one is that naive or stupid and we need to stop making allowances for that. She would have been fully aware that you don’t leave babies and young children alone. Fully aware that you need to feed and water them. She just didn’t care. The child should have been removed at birth. We need to stop making excuses or finding reasons for why such basic needs were not met. No one on here would be doing this were it a man that left the poor baby alone for days on end.

Excellent post.

The problem is going in to the care system almost never brings good outcomes (like for this poor woman) so the authorities will try and leave children with a parent if at all possible. Obviously, that was a grave error here, but often, even in situations where parenting falls far short of what you'd expect, the children are still better off there than in care

Of course, a child this young would likely have been adopted, which can bring better outcomes, but not always. There'd be outrage if the state started removing children without giving parents a chance though.