Mother charged with neglect

[Knackeredboot]

This article has been posted on Facebook and has attracted a lot of angry comments about it from people saying the mother should be steriliser and that she's evil.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c864g0evz9jo

The crime was neglect of a baby that resulted in its death from a mother that had failed to notice that her baby hadn't woken in the night for her usual feeds due to the mothers level of intoxication.

There's no indication that the baby would usually have to be woken for feeds, just that it was the babys usual routine.

The mother was awake but drunk. But had she been asleep then would that have been considered neglect too? She checked on the baby from a distance but did not try to stir. Again, I wouldn't go into my 5mo's room regularly in the night for a close up check on them as I would be asleep also.

It says that the level of intoxication was 2.5times the driving limit which is irrelevant as she wasnt driving.

Am i missing something here? I feel like the commenters are being incredibly hard on her based on the little detail in the article. Although I'm not a big drinker I know loads of couples that get smashed on the weekend while at home with the kids.

It’s disgraceful isn’t it - what happened to personal accountability? I heard she’s a 37 year old woman and it’s not her first child. There’s teens I knew growing up who did a better job with their baby.

It’s just basic common sense not to dump a baby in a sofa overnight for 14 hours.

Had she been 15 or 16 I may have said her common sense hasn’t quite come through but yet at the age she was I struggle to believe this.

Her judgment was likely badly impaired due to her being drunk or she just didn’t care.

It’s all very well talking about lessons being learned but this innocent child has lost their life. For the sake of children there are some lessons you can’t just afford to “learn” later on especially when it’s something so basic yet critical to their health.

She has to carry the emotional burden of that for the rest of her life which is probably worse than what any judge can sentence on her

Well if she feels the worst has already happened to her she won’t object to being sentenced as that will be a walk in the park right?

Preferably this woman will be imprisoned until at least her fertile years are well
behind her because sadly it’s not unheard of for women like this to have more kids to try and make themselves feel better or in their minds “replace” the one they ‘lost’. We can’t forcibly sterilise people (rightly so) but in some cases such as this one I feel we should severely Restrict their opportunities to reproduce.

It’s like if someone drink drives and wipes out a family it’s not enough for them to say they feel awful and will never get over it. Sure some are genuinely remorseful and they will indeed never get over it, but that shouldn’t mean they should escape a criminal conviction /sentencing.