"Stepfathers" in the media for all the wrong reasons

[JoanThursday1972]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11937439/Mother-monster-boyfriend-guilty-death-two-year-old-girl.html#reader-comments

This story made my blood boil.

What also makes my blood boil is the reference to him being "stepfather". It's a random the woman met on Facebook, moved him in after a few DAYS and then 16 WEEKS LATER the child is dead.

I absolutely HATE the media calling these creatures stepfathers.

This.

No, she doesn’t. The mother was neglectful. That doesn’t mean it’s her fault the child was killed. Stop blaming women for male violence.

Erm... if your neglect leads to the death of your child, then yes it is your fault!

What point are you trying to prove here?

Imagine sitting on your arse watching a man you invited into your home beating your child, with a wide-eyed defence of "But it wasn't me?" 🤷🏽‍♀️

Agree.

For a start they aren't even a decent father figure but importantly step fathers are generally decent men who step in and support their wives/husbands children.

These men are no type of father at all.

They are evil monsters.

Gosh, she may not have delivered the fatal blows, but she knew that he was violent towards her and the child, therefore she should have done something. She allowed him to be violent which led to that child's death.

That’s a bit unfair.

How was he supposed to know - remember this happened in lockdown when a lot of NRPs didn’t/couldn’t see their children. Plus it’s not like a NRP can just sweep up a child and run away with them. She was fine one day and then 16 weeks later she died. This happened quickly.

Her neglect didn’t directly lead to the death of the child. The physical violence of the man did. The man killed the child. My point is that yet again when a man kills a child it’s the woman’s fault. She is at fault for her negligence. The man was not compelled to kill a child because of her negligence. He chose to do that. Unfortunately there are loads of neglectful mothers with useless partners who are not the child’s father. Not all those step fathers abuse the child. Violent men target vulnerable women.

Who says generally step fathers are decent men who step in? Children are at an increased risk of abuse when they live with a man who isn’t their father.

"Her neglect didn’t directly lead to the death of the child."

I would say it did. She didn't protect her child when she knew on previous occasions that he had been violent towards that child.

NRP were always allowed to see their children even in lockdown

He made the decision to beat a child to death. She was neglectful. He didn’t have to kill the child because of her neglect.

what if staying together to raise the children together means the child grows up in a volatile or unhealthy atmosphere? Isn’t that bad too?

Also, a lot of single mothers (like me) that I know, put their children first & wouldn’t move a man in until the child left home in order to create a stable & happy home?

staying together in an unhealthy relationship damages children.

Her neglect enabled his violence though. It would not have occurred without her actions and in-actions, the choices SHE made, made it directly possible for him to enact his violent choices.

He would not have been able to kill the child without the mother allowing him access, allowing him time alone with the child, not taking action to prevent further harm when the danger became evident by her I creasing injuries in his care. It was her willingness to look the other way and do nothing that allowed him to inflict that violence on her child. It was foreseeable, it was 100% preventable.

That is more than negligence in my mind - that’s complicity.

Christ Almighty.

She didn’t (just) neglect her daughter.

She practically handed her daughter to an abuser. She stood by and did nothing when her daughter was being beaten and battered.

She is guilty for CAUSING her daughteR’s death. Without her enablement he wouldn’t have been able to kill her.

She is 100% to blame, as is he, and frankly you’re minimisation of her crime is stomach churningZ

saying this woman was ‘neglectful’ is like saying a rapist is touchy feely. Utterly offensive.

I am not in any way minimising her crime. I am magnifying his.

Its not anything like that. Neglect is extremely serious.

You are minimising her crime.

You’re claiming she was neglectful when actually she’s been found (rightly) guilty of causing/allowing her daughter’s death.

You aren’t magnifying his crimes - they don’t need magnifying we can see them perfectly well

Yes it is. But not as serious as the crime she ACTUALLY committed which was allowing her child to be murdered.

This @Eyerollcentral am really shocked at your defensive comments! Any parent who allows their child to be abused and don’t remove them to a safe place are guilty ….you really don’t get it ..bloody shocking!

Neglecting a child is a serious crime. A lot of people here are absolutely minimising the male crime, just because she was a crap mother didn’t mean he had to kill the child. Male violence is male violence. It’s the responsibility of men. Women do not exist to be gatekeepers of make violence. Whilst this attitude persists so will make violence.

I actually now think that @Eyerollcentral is not worth arguing with…an absolute waste of time TBH .

I can assure you I DO get it. The mother has rightly been found guilty. The headline of this thread is that it’s her fault the child is dead. It’s the fault of the man who killed her. I’m not defending the mother in the slightest. I am centring the crime on the murderer, because in this reading it’s almost as if it is inevitable he killed her because the poor child had a crap mother.

I worry that you are too intent on sticking to your (weak) point. Why do you keep bleating about ‘neglect is a serious crime’. Burglary is a serious crime but that wasn’t the crime James committed, she committed the act of allowing/causing her DD to be killed. So neglect and burglary are both irrelevant in this case.

Name one person who has minimised Bevan’s crime. Just one poster who said claimed it’s not that serious or not that bad. Go on. If you can’t (and you can’t because that hasn’t happened) you are under the misapprehension that pointing out the mum’s crime is somehow minimising Bevan’s crime. It’s not. They’re both deplorable in different ways and it’s not a race to the bottom. But bleating on a sour neglect is pretty offensive for what that pork 2yo experienced

It is as much her fault as she essentially facilitated it and utterly failed to do the basics of motherhood - which is to protect her child from harm.

The train track analogy earlier was a good one.

He may have dealt the blows but she paved every brick of the way to her daughter’s death.

It WAS inevitable due to HER poor choices.

She may as well have walked the child into a pen of lions.

She welcomed a violent man into her house, knew he was violent, knew he was harming her tiny daughter. That would be bad enough if she did nothing. But actually it’s worse than that because she actively continued to allow him access to her daughter, alone, and did not protect her.

She had choices. She could have sent the child to her mothers (they were close), or the child’s father, called the police, ANYTHING. But she stood by and watched him
murder her 2yr old daughter.