Anyone been following the Jordan Burling death case *warning, distressing*

[SealSong]

Has anyone been following this baffling and tragic case?
Mother and Grandmother have been convicted of manslaughter today.
Jordan aged 18 died at home, emaciated and with bed sores, having had no medical treatment.

Details of the court case in here - warning contains very distressing details.

I am struggling to understand how this could have happened. How the mother and grandmother could have failed to get medical attention, and also how Jordan just gave up and wasted away, when there were no apparent special needs, mental illness or specific health problems (as far as is known). Although surely he must have had some kind of undiagnosed mental illness or something.

I'm surprised that there hasn't been a thread on Mumsnet about this case, it has been in national news, but not very high priority I suppose.

One of the strangest and saddest cases I have ever heard of.

I feel very sad for Jordan actually. A life wasted, he never had a chance. Also I feel that if this family had been a more middle class southern family instead of a working class northern family this case would have had much more press attention.

oh that is so shocking. I had not heard about this.

There is something really wrong there isn't there? The mother and grandmother both look like they might have some atypicalities perhaps, but it doesn't mention that.

I’m also struggling to understand this, particularly as he saw his dad relatively regularly too. And his mum AND his gran AND his sister.... How did all three become so evil so suddenly? So very very sad.

I was just reading this today. It's just all very weird, isn't it? How could a healthy and apparently normal teenager waste away and die immobile, incontinent, and emaciated, without his family ever getting a doctor for him? I know the news stories say he didn't want to be seen and would have refused a doctor, but by God as his family member I would have called one anyway, early and often.

What a horrific and shocking case. Lots of failings there. I take it an SCR is going to be carried out?

But how much of a 'normal' teenager could you grow up to be in a family where the mum gave birth to a baby and left it in a rucksack to rot in a cupboard?

Agent, I don't for a moment believe that they are evil.
Something went very very wrong here, and they were negligent to say the least, but evil, no. I don't believe they intended for him to die. They just don't seem to have any grasp of reality. Why that is, though, I do not know. Poor Jordan.

Yes I read about that a while back but not about the conviction - really horrible

IAmLurkus, I expect so.

Not just any cupboard, but your bedroom wardrobe.

It is utterly tragic, the suffering that poor boy must have experienced. The whole thing is like a movie plot set in the Deep South or something, totally unreal. RIP poor boy and that poor baby found in the bag.

His sister had a baby many years ago, in her bedroom, the remains of which were found by the police. The father committed suicide. This family were not ok, health or otherwise, and I find it astonishing that there seems to have been no interest from Jordan's school as to why he simply stopped attending when he was what, 12? The family had no interaction with GPs or dentists; neighbours report that they were subjected to attacks on their property by local youths but never retaliated and rarely left the house. It is a bizarre case, and very illustrative of the dangers when people do nothing because it's 'not their business'.

Dear lord dlljr what happened to his sister about the baby she had? Surely if the police found the remains she must’ve been investigated by the police? Was the baby still born it was there questions over possible manslaughter then as well. Jesus, it’s all so grim. God love that poor boy Jordon. If that’s the background he came from I can see why he might have just given up.

It wasn't the sister that had the baby, it was the mum. The baby would have been older than Jordan. According to the article the op linked anyway.

There were obviously massive problems- this was not something that came out of the blue.

Yes it looks like there were probably inter-generational 'issues' in this family. They strike me as possibly having learning needs, also.

There is something clearly terribly wrong with the whole family, but for Jordan to have dropped off the radar for so long... such an awful case.

After reading the psychologist reports and some of the evidence I just feel really sad for the entire family. The grandmother's IQ is in the 5th percentile, the mother has a dissociative disorder, there's an uncle who lives there with a learning disability. Jordan was taken out of school at an early age and there were likely learning difficulties there. The grandfather committed suicide. It doesn't appear like anyone in the family really had the ability to understand the severity of the situation or provide adequate care. I have no idea how they could have slipped through the net in terms of SS support

Hellbentwellwent I'm really not sure. Sister is due to be sentenced, though I'm really not sure what good a punitive sentence is in a case like this; particularly when there would appear to be question marks around the sister's mental health etc.

LadyPeacock I've not clicked on the op's link but according to the Guardian the baby was the sister's, not the mum's.

Reports I’ve read said the baby belonged to the Mum. The sister would be a possibility though, would there be viable dna?

Shit, I'm sorry; I even went back and checked before posting earlier and still misread it. Guardian does say it's mum's. Sorry. Awful fucking week and no sleep.

Handsoffmysweets

We need better education, especially of women. We need much more money invested in social care, health and education.

We need a much better system health, education, social care all communicating with each other. We have got to put a stop to people slipping through the net when they cross county lines.

We need better MH support, we need to improve the MH of the entire country. We need much more early intervention, better and more frequent antenatal care, continuity of antenatal care so that relationships can be established, problems picked up and support put in and kept in place.

We need the whole of society to actually realise that child protection is everybody’s responsibility and to stop minding their own business.

In the meantime there’ll be another SCR and ‘lessons will be learned’ until the next time.

Under the SS radar it seems. So tragic. Reads like a horror movie.