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.

Of course it’s neglectful. Who leaves a five month old on their own for that length of time, or doesn’t notice if a feed has been missed?! My dc at 5 months old were still in with me and I was forever fussing over them and checking they were okay, waking up at the slightest cough.

Everyone needs a break and a few drinks at
times but if you’re doing that you need to leave someone else in charge.

Not sure how anyone can defend this.

She got pissed with her mate because it was her birthday, fgs,

She didn’t put her baby down to sleep, safely and she was so out of her tree that she couldn’t be bothered to check on her for 14hrs. She chose to do that, and forget about the children sleeping upstairs. She deserves to be judged imo.

Are these behaviours normalised though? While I know a lot of people who would have a few drinks while their baby was sleeping, this is a bit more than that. It’s the combination of a) putting the baby to sleep in an unsafe place, b) drinking an extremely large volume of alcohol and c) not checking on the baby for a very long period of time. I don’t think this scenario is ‘normalised’

When and where have these behaviours become normalised? There is nothing normal about this surely!

Am I reading the article correctly in that she left the baby to sleep on the sofa all night? Or was the baby moved from the sofa to a cot? Either way, it is hugely neglectful to allow your baby to sleep on a sofa whether alcohol has been consumed or not.

I once rang social services to ask their advice about a family. They asked if the parents ever drank excessively while being responsible for their children. Without thinking I said, "well obviously they get sloshed occasionally like at New Year's Eve".

SS calmly told me that that alone was enough to suspect the parents of child neglect.

So, no matter the age of the children, parents who get drunk enough that they're not capable of adequately caring for a child are culpable of neglect in the eyes of SS.

You were surprised that she was so condemned?

Why on earth shouldn’t she be? 😧

I bet the dad would have got off.

This is so sad (for the baby). I don't know any "mums" who think it's ok to get off their heads while responsible for their small baby. Imagine not going in to check on your baby for 14.5 hrs?
I still remember the feeling of jump starting awake when I thought my DC had slept too long and putting my hand on their chest to double check... 14.5 hrs? Jeez.

Although I'm not a big drinker I know loads of couples that get smashed on the weekend while at home with the kids.

Maybe that says more about the company you keep OP. It's not normal, at all, and if I knew people did this, I'd make damn sure they were judged hard for it.

It's the definition of neglect.

People who think drinking to excess and leaving a baby alone on a sofa for 12-14 hours is normalised behaviour must move in some very odd circles.

For her to be that drunk at 9am she must have been completely paraletic at points in the evening. Putting a baby on a sofa to sleep is never safe unless someone is sat with them to watch them. It isn’t just the risk of suffocation, its also the risk of rolling or kicking themselves off the sofa. Its also very unusual for a baby not to be checked for 12-14 hours, even if they were in a cot.

Funnily enough I was thinking earlier about the woman who left her two sets of twins alone who then subsequently died in a house fire. She was sent to prison for ten years. Meanwhile, the McCanns left their similarly aged twins and older daughter alone and one subsequently almost certainly died in an abduction and murder.

There are most definitely double standards.

As for this case, it is strange. We might find the woman’s behaviour distasteful but a baby who passed away overnight when the mother was also asleep obviously wouldn’t be neglect. Wonder where the dad is.

It sounds like paramedics were called at 9, they would have contacted the police, by the time they worked out what was happedned, arrested her and took her to the police station for an accurate alcohol test it would have been even later.

I don’t know anyone who gets smashed while looking after their kids and mine are far from the baby stage.

Poor little baby. Severe neglect.

Yes, it was neglectful. And even if nothing happened, should people be getting absolutely pissed with a 5 mo to look after? Absolutely not.

We don’t know if she feels bad or not or if her life is destroyed. Casey Anthony comes to mind.

Yes but that’s often true. I’m sure plenty of people drink drive without anything bad happening. But if you are drunk and you crash, the fact that other people might be drunk and don’t crash isn’t a defence.

But that's just guidance, a parent can chose not to, it's not neglect. A bit like co sleeping, parents can choose to do this against the advise.

There is a lot more to this story and indeed the friend she was with, and she should have the book thrown at her - and so should the friend

Exactly this. I can’t see how this is anything other than shocking neglect.

If it was a man would you say the same OP?

I suspect many men are pissed and not even in the same house, town, country as their child but are not charged with neglect.

Binge drinking whilst in the care of a baby? Absolutely neglect.

poor baby, rest in peace

There is a huge difference between having a couple of drinks with your baby in a cot with the monitor on, and putting a baby on the sofa for over 12 hours and having essentially a mini party with a mate in the next room. How do you not notice your kid hasn’t moved? Both my DCs have always rolled in their sleep, an arm would move, they were also grunting and making noises. When you’re paying attention, you can see what’s out of the ordinary.

It is so clear that this mother was concerned with having a good time and she didn’t even think of the baby. That’s the neglectful part. Or she knew what’s happened, but didn’t report it until much later.

Not only is a baby dead, she’s leaving behind another DC who’s now lost a sibling and their mother all in one go. Any story involving children makes me really angry.

That is wildly different.