To question the jail sentence for the mum who stabbed her 4 year old?

[Liketochat1]

There's such a sad story of a mum who stabbed her 4 year old daughter in the news at the moment.www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9510938/Nurse-who-stabbed-her-four-year-old-to-death-gets-12-years.html.
She looks like such a broken woman. She not only killed her daughter but also tried to kill herself leaving herself with some brain damage and confined to a wheel chair with other physical disabilities. At the time of the attack she was depressed and facing charges for malpractice and had been left by her partner that day.
She has just been sentenced to 12 years in jail. Do you think she should be jailed? I can't help help but feel she's suffered so much already. Am I unreasonable?

I suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder, I can't imagine even thinking about doing this to my son. Or at least not accessing help immediately if the thought occurred. She was deemed sane. She deserves every one of those twelve years.

And expat my love. Have been thinking so much about you. Biggest of hugs. xx

So sorry for your loss expat, can't begin to imagine how hard that must have been. Sending you a hug

The judge heard the evidence, including the psychiatric reports, and decided what he thought, taking all that into account, was the appropriate sentence.

However, given that he accepted she was suffering from an abnormality of mind, I do think the sentence sounds rather harsh. What really stands out is that the report said she has received no psychiatric treatment since the crime was committed. That is appalling, negligent and cruel.

Why do you think she needs psychiatric help? She has been assessed and is not mentally ill?

She was when she committed the crime but isn't now... Hence being in a standard prison

oops sorry checked the story and it says she has received psychy care, which is presumably why she's recovered (in terms of psychiatry, clearly having killed your own child and being in jail is horrendous and she will be haunted for the rest of her days).

Tragic for all involved, most especially that poor little girl.

Tis strange because a man who abuses a child is obviously mentally ill because it isn't right to get turned on by children.
Yet he wouldn't receive sympathy. But he's mentally ill so...

Thing is mentally ill or not we all have a choice. She made the wrong decision and thus is going to pay for it. She doesn't deserve sympathy because she made an horrific decision. An extremely selfish one.

GhostShip
I wouldn't agree that a child abuser is mentally ill, they know what they are doing and they know that society would consider what they are doing as wrong. It may be that they have some sort of personality disorder that makes them fixate sexually on children but I am not sure that means they are mentally ill. This was what I think thebees was getting at earlier about Ian Brady. There is a real issue about whether someone with a personality disorder is mentally ill and what do you mean by mentally ill. Brady is not insane, he knows that people would consider what he has done as wrong and he is completely in control of his actions. The difference is that he may lack the emotional capacity to respond normally to the harm he has caused and to feel any remorse for it. You can never cure IB, in all probability he will never change because the problems may result at least in part from the physical development of his brain.

I think from a legal standpoint the mental illness / abnormality of functioning has to be such that the person in question doesn't understand the consequences of their actions or unable to control their actions. I suspect most child abusers would not meet those criteria.

You are confusing mad with bad. Paedophilia is not a mental illness. Perfectly sane people abuse children.

It's insulting to the 1 in 4 people who experience mental illness to put them in the same category as paedophiles.

What Edam says, paedopilia is not a mental illness. What a ridiculous thing to say.

Also there is not a real issue about whether personality disorder is a mental illness, it is. Paedophillia is not a type of personality disorder

Being a pedophile has nothing what so ever to do with Ian brady s personality disorder, although his lack of empathy and remorse probably has.

Personality Disorder and Mental Illness I understand not to be the same thing.

I think there's evidence that this woman has a Personality Disorder.

I agree it's hard not to feel sorry for her sat in that wheelchair but I think the sentence was right. Most people in their most distressed and angry state don't kill children - they'd usually hurt or kill themselves first.

Paedophilia is not a mental illness, it's a sexual preference. Combine this with a complete disregard for the feelings of others and you have an abuser They are selfish, cruel perverts. Bad does not equal mad, although it's possible to be both.

Of course, it's possible to be both mad and bad. However, mentally ill people are no more likely to commit violence or murder than sane people.

Personality Disorder and Mental Illness I understand not to be the same thing.

Could you explain that to my psych?

"although it's possible to be both."

Yes you can have a dual diagnosis.

So is personality disorder isn't a mental illness, what is it? In your opinion.

How do you think there is evidence this lady had a personality disorder? You are not the psychiatrist who assesed her, and it has not been reported that her diagnosis was of a personality disorder.

There is a misunderstanding that personality disorder equals bad. The term personality disorder tells you nothing. There are many types of personality disorder. And one, borderline personality, is where the symptoms are usually the result of being abused as a child. Borderlines are, in the most part, victims. Although, as I have said, you can be unwell and bad.

Most people with BPD are not bad people.

A condition?

My ex has a PD. It didn't affect his life too much

That's what I mean, the ones with personality disorders. Sorry that came out like I meant all child abusers are mentally ill!

A personality disorder is a mental illness isn't it? That's the point I was getting at.

I'm not arguing for or against now here I'm genuinely interested.

no, personality disorders are distinct from mental illness. One of the key differences is that mental illness is treatable - although with the usual caveats about there being no magic cure that works for everyone all of the time. It can be transient - even someone with a life-long tendency to, I dunno schizophrenia, may well go through phases of being more ill and less ill.

Personality disorder, as far as I understand current thinking, has been defined as a permanent condition - it's part of someone's make up. Some psychiatrists used to refuse to see people with PD because there was nothing they could do for them. That is changing, but it is still the case, as far as I know (and I am willing to be corrected on this by anyone who knows more about current thinking) that PDs are permanent while illness can be transient.

Respectfully disagree, Edam. Especially with regard with BPD, a lot of sufferers can be entirely out of the boundaries of diagnosis around ten to fifteen years after first being diagnosed (usually not before the age of 18 /20).

The umbrella of mental illness covers all sorts of things.

BPD often gets better with age. I think it's about 50% of people diagnosed with it that will not have enough symptoms to warrant a diagnosis ten years down the line.

"Can I recover from BPD?

There is evidence that BPD symptoms may get better over time, with or without treatment. Research suggests that the majority of people diagnosed with BPD improve in the long term (10 to 15 years), with 50 to 75 per cent no longer showing enough symptoms to meet the criteria for the diagnosis."

FROM www.mind.org.uk/help/diagnoses_and_conditions/borderline_personality_disorder

www.mind.org.uk/help/diagnoses_and_conditions/personality_disorders

If you do fancy diagnosing someone with PD via The Daily Mail, at least read up on it.

interesting, thanks.

But improving over time is not the same thing as treatable, which was the criteria used by quite a few psychiatrists to refuse to see people with PD.

There is a recently developed treatment program called STEPPS which is specifically for BPD. Its a very difficult condition to treat because of the very nature of the beast, but seeing as psychiatrists now don't refuse to see PD patients, I think your statement is almost redundant.