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?

She is an evil evil woman, what she did is beyond words

Reading elsewhere it appears that the little girl had marks on her hands from struggling to get away and stop the attack. Awful. Just awful.

Very easy to make assumptions based on stuff presented in the media, i am friends with a woman who is friends with this lady and had been for many years, believe me this woman was in such a dark fucked up place when this happened, facts are not always presented and the whole true picture given in the news, i don't agree with what she did at all, but until we are in a same kind of fucked up hell in our heads you will never know what you may or may not do or if you even realise you have done anything. She will be a prisoner in the body she now has and will be probably abused enough by other prisoners/people for the rest of her life, she will suffer sure in more way than people may ever understand. It is a sad sad story :(

Afraid I'm out of 'compassion' for this person, but then, I, too, have watched my own child die and washed and changed her into clean pajamas, and have struggled with mental health problems for years and am in the throes of bereavement for my little girl, who died of treatment for her cancer.

I have compassion for those children who are gone, too, and their families who had to stand by and watch, able to do nothing.

But can't honestly say I have any for this person. She had options, she had medical knowledge, she wrote texts to this partner saying she was going to make him pay, she's not insane.

Nope, won't ever be walking in a mile and don't have compassion for people who do this, male or female, who are found to be sane.

MsVelvet - sorry, I disagree. Some people are just cunts. She's one.

Would you feel the same way if she had brutally murdered someone elses child? There always seems to be sympathy for parents who do it, they're often portrayed as the victim, as if the child of a murderer is somehow less deserving of human life than others.

Of course they would be another tragic victim if they were genuinely suffering a mental illness where they didn't know what they were doing, someone who is having hallucinations and thought they were stabbing the devil would get deserved sympathy because they had no intention of murdering anyone, they're just responding to hallucinations. There's a huge difference between a malfunction of the brain and a choice to commit evil.

Depression doesn't make you kill people, it doesn't affect your ability to differentiate right from wrong, it doesn't make you incapable of understanding of what you were doing, it doesn't steal your conscience.

This woman knew what she was doing and had texted her former partner telling him she was going to ruin his life. She violently stabbed her daughter to death for revenge, she wanted him to be tortured with guilt for the rest of his life for what she had done, she believed he would spend the rest of his days thinking he could have prevented it by staying with her. Her actions were motivated by pure malice, she had no morality and no conscience to stop her in the first place. She looks like she now regrets what she did, of course she does, she's spending the rest of her life paralysed because she wanted to get back at her ex, her tears are for herself.

The judge was right to give her the sentence he did, it was only ten years because her injuries will continue to punish her but the judge had to give her at least that as a warning to other selfish, narcissistic parents who think themselves entitled to murder their children and to make it very clear that it is not acceptable.

She was found sane, she was found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, she should go to prison. End of as far as I'm concerned.

*Just Fabulous "Mental illness is something that a lot of us don't seem to have a lot of sympathy or understanding of."

MissPerception you speak for yourself. *

JustFab - I think this thread speaks for itself. The majority on here are baying for blood. We have posters and indeed medical people on this thread dismissing depression. We even had people who have suffered depression crucifying this woman.

Perhaps I should have said that "I don't have a lot of understanding of mental illness however I have a lot of sympathy for people who are affected by it" There by the grace of whatever you believe in.......

If you have seen this woman's photograph in the Daily Mail you will see a picture of a utterly desolated woman who has destroyed the most precious thing she'll ever have. She will never be at peace for as long as she lives.

MsVelvet, the reason why she was in that dark fucked up place was probably because of breaking the law in the first place and being caught. She obviously did not have one moral bone in her body, or else she wouldn't have given out patient's confidential details.

Well the article I read ( and yes, it's just media) said she attempted to gas them both a few months prior. Yet she did not seek help?

Crucifying? She got ten years for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The judge took her mental health into consideration when passing sentence. She committed a crime and was found guilty of it and sane.

How is this not having sympathy or dismissing depression or mental illness?

I have google images her. I see a disabled woman crying. That's all. The cameras were on her. She didn't like that. Other images with the cameras not so obviously on her, she looked calm

As a nurse, was she an A&E nurse?

"someone who can stab their own child to death must be, for whatever reasons, in a place so horrific that I, along with most people, cannot even imagine it, for which I for one am grateful and about which I can't help but feel some compassion towards this person"

I agree with this. A lot of people are minimising the 'reasons' behind this woman doing what she did - money, embarrrassment, revenge.

And just because you've been depressed and you couldn't have killed your children means nothing. Thank God the majority of us will never suffer so much that the situation comes to this. God forbid.

She's been judged, she's been sentenced. 12 years is a reasonable sentence for manslaughter. I'm assuming the judge who passed sentence knew more about the case than we do and gave the most appropriate sentence he could.

missperception I really don't like the picture you're painting of people with depression. It doesn't make us insane, it doesn't make us evil, and it doesn't make us kill. So depression cannot be used as an excuse. A lot of people suffer from depression but don't flaunt that fact. I bet many a killer has been clinically depressed, but it hasn't been broadcast because that matters none.

Its funny becsuse people are trying to paint a picture of a poor broken woman who was forced to kill her child.

And most people look utterly desolate when they know they're doing 12 years hard time.

This topic would be completely different if it were the father.

10 years. Apologies.

frothyom I feel so sorry for genuine mentally ill people when idiots like this woman kill their own flesh and blood then feign illness to lesser the consequences. Its terribly unfair.
I have worked with some really great people who have smi and are amazing parents, would never see any harm coming to their children. It puts a poor light on those who manage well & don't commit horrendous acts.

I am stunned to see so little compassion even amongst posters who themselves have suffered with depression. Mental health can affect different people in different ways. Perhaps be thankful you have never been in this mother's desperate state.
She may well have thought her daughter was dead. I sincere doubt she deliberately left her to suffer.
Vigilante justice and lack of compassion achieves nothing. A desperately sad situation.

And I would feel no differently if it were the father if the circumstances were the same.

'be thankful you were never in this desperate mothers state'

Do you understand depression AT ALL? It doesn't take away your free will. Love I've sat up all night googling how many pills it would take it kill me.. I understand what it feels like to be that low you don't want to live. But that doesn't mean you can JUSTIFY and pooh pooh the fact that she stabbed her child and let her die a slow death.

Its like the man who beats his wife and kills her 'but I've got anger issues, I'm on medication' would you show as much sympathy to him? Oh but compassion! He's in a desperate mental situation too is he not?

And I've already said, my mum was in the state. Actually her state was much worse. And she didn't kill me. She wanted me to die. But she didn't kill me. Because she knows that is wrong.

How can you possibly say that your mother was in a much worse state? You know absolutely nothing about his woman. You can't compare one person's mental state to that of another person.

I meant state as in situation. I'd say you have to be in a mess to want your own child to die so you can kill yourself. And like I've said my mum has been on suicide watch so I know how severely depressed she was.

The fact of the matter is my mum had a choice and so did this woman. But this woman chose to stab the fuck out of her daughter

Diminished Responsibility is a partial defence to a murder charge. It must be proved by the defence to the satisfaction of the jury on the balance of probabilities.

The CPS website covers this in detail - there needs to be an abnormality of mental functioning that
"Abnormality of mental functioning means a state of mind so different from that of ordinary human beings that the reasonable person would term it abnormal. It covers the ability to exercise willpower or to control physical acts in accordance with rational judgement. It is a question for a jury. They are not bound to accept medical evidence: R v Sanders [1991] Crim LR 781. "

And that

"Impairment must be substantial, there must be evidence of this and it must be raised by defence, c.f. R v Campbell [1987] 84 Cr App R 255, R v Kooken [1982] 74 Cr App R 30. The new section 2(1)(b) states that the abnormality of mental functioning must have substantially impaired the defendant's ability to do one or more of those things as mentioned in the new section 2(1A):

a) to understand the nature of the defendant's conduct;
b) to form a rational judgement;
c) to exercise self-control.

Subsection (1B) provides that an abnormality of mental functioning provides an explanation for the defendant's acts or omissions in doing or being party to the killing, if it was at least a significant contributory factor in causing the defendant to act as he did. This does not require that it should have been the only cause or even the most important factor in causing the behaviour. But it must be more than a merely trivial factor. The defence should not be able to succeed where the defendant's mental condition made no difference to their behaviour - when they would have killed regardless of their medical condition.

It is for the defence to prove that the person is, by virtue of this section, not liable to be convicted of murder. The evidential burden is on the defence on the balance of probabilities i.e. the civil standard (in contrast to Loss of Control, see below).

If diminished responsibility is not raised at trial, it is unlikely that the Court of Appeal will allow evidence that was available then to be called at appeal. It will not therefore substitute manslaughter for murder.
www.cps.gov.uk/legal/h_to_k/homicide_murder_and_manslaughter/#diminished

This is a high hurdle to meet so I am prepared to assume that the jury who actually heard the evidence was best placed to determine what she was guilty of.

I am fine with the sentence.

And I think it's pretty bloody insulting to other depressives that people think we should be shown sympathy if we kill someone.