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

263 replies

SealSong · 10/07/2018 20:42

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.

OP posts:
Meeep · 12/07/2018 18:02

When I put anorexia (assumed) I meant I personally assume that's what it was.

SummerGems · 12/07/2018 18:03

And this is why home education should be regulated.

Also, if this had been the father and grandfather and a girl we were talking about would people here be expressing sympathy? Somehow I don’t think so.

Yes something was quite clearly very wrong but let’s be honest here they have been tried and sentenced in a conventional court. He was the victim, they were the bastard perpitrators. Evil sick fuckers. No sympathy for them here..... hope they wrot in hell.

BusterGonad · 12/07/2018 18:05

I too would like a link to the court case papers.

ThatEscalatedQuickly · 12/07/2018 18:09

I think I have read that he was not known to have any special needs, when in school. I haven't seen anywhere that he had any LD or autism.

There is reference in one of the BBC reports to him having been identified as possibly having additional needs/LDs in primary school (as well as signs of neglect - tooth decay etc) but that the parents didn't follow up or cooperate with appointments to establish what was wrong.

petrolpump28 · 12/07/2018 18:12

flopsy....what to do? nobody is interested in a hunch

CantankerousCamel · 12/07/2018 18:17

How utterly sad :(

thebear1 · 12/07/2018 18:18

An awful case, poor boy was completely let down. I think there has not been much comment as it hasn't been a high profile case.

LunaAzul · 12/07/2018 18:19

One of other followers for his Twitter account is his sister.

She’d been retweeted onto my Twitter TL by someone I follow. Still tweeting completely normally whilst the trial was going on.

The pic linked on the BBC of him is shocking.

ReginaBlitzkreig · 12/07/2018 18:23

I don't believe they intended for him to die. They just don't seem to have any grasp of reality.

Not sure about that: I think they failed to care for him or withheld care in the knowledge that this would harm him significantly. After all, sister got to adulthood okay in mother's care.

Also, it has been fairly high profile. The BBC has covered it throughout.

flopsyrabbit1 · 12/07/2018 18:28

petrolpump28 why do you think something is not right?

mariemalade · 12/07/2018 18:29

@LunaAzul just looked at her Twitter account...utterly bizarre. Both herself, mother and son tweeted obsessively on one or two topics only. I've always felt the fandom world is one that should be researched. How does one become that obsessed with a band/team/movie/games etc?

petrolpump28 · 12/07/2018 18:54

sorry flopsy its " just" a feeling and there are cultural issues .

TheRealNotdog · 12/07/2018 19:01

@ahola just fyi, autism doesn't have a 'look'

MajorasMask · 12/07/2018 19:38

For those who want the court info, it’s on LeedsLive here www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/family-dead-teenager-baby-leeds-14751369 - scroll from the bottom up to read the evidence as it was given, I haven’t found full transcripts

Judge’s sentencing remarks are at www.judiciary.uk/judgments/sentencing-remarks-of-mr-justice-spencer-r-v-cranston-others/

This is close to where I grew up, broke my heart. I do think there’s a lot about the family that needed robust intervention but sadly it was far too late, should have been when his sister was missing school and certainly there needed to be regular checks once he got taken out of school. RIP Jordan.

Thesearmsofmine · 12/07/2018 19:51

I have been following this case too. The poor boy was let down from an early age, i believe services were involved with the family due to him having black teeth(among other things) in primary school and they should have continued monitoring the family particularly when taken he was taken out of school. I home ed my own children and it would be very easy to just live under the radar if you wanted too.

Kpo58 · 12/07/2018 19:51

Unfortunately I don't think that there is much any agency can do if the family fail to cooperate or let them have access to the person they need to see. Until the is changed, more people are going to die

bluerunningshoes · 12/07/2018 20:00

Are there no regulations if a teenager drops out of the school system and is home-schooled?

sadly all it takes is for the parent to say that the child is homeschooled. that's it.

Thesearmsofmine · 12/07/2018 20:04

If the LEA believe a child is not being adequately educated they can ultimately take parents to court and get a school attendance order for the child. I don’t know what correspondence the family had with the LEA in this case or if it has been resported.

Kpo58 · 12/07/2018 20:16

How would the LEA be able to prove that? There is no set curriculum for home schooled children and the parents may just not let the inspectors into the house, not be at home or just say that they child doesn't want to see them so they must leave.

YourVagesty · 12/07/2018 20:16

I don't understand how a robust looking boy didn't run away or fight the situation. Apparently they had three fridges full of food.

The lack of emotion reported re: the 999 call and when the paramedics were there is just baffling. People of low intelligence have feelings obviously so I feel like there's more to this story. It's utterly puzzling and heartbreaking.

Kpo58 · 12/07/2018 20:19

I don't understand how a robust looking boy didn't run away or fight the situation.

For the same reason as if you beat a lion cub enough when it's young, when it grows up into an adult lion it doesn't believe that it can defeat you, so doesn't try.

Thesearmsofmine · 12/07/2018 20:23

Kpo if a family doesn’t give any information to the LEA or does not respond then I would expect them to take it further because there is no proof any education is taking place. Home educators are always advised to respond to correspondence from their LEA.

That said we don’t know what happened in this case, if the family had any contact with the LEA or not. It does surprise me that a family know have been known to the Social Services who then remove their child from school don’t have any follow up to that.

Thesearmsofmine · 12/07/2018 20:25

YourVagesty a mix of reasons I guess, from being under their control, maybe his mental health wasn’t good, maybe it was a slow slide into this instead of one day him just no longer having food.

MajorasMask · 12/07/2018 20:27

Regarding why he didn’t run away - he had some sort of accident and hurt his leg. It was from that point that things really deteriorated apparently and he ‘refused’ to move (likely because the leg was painful) but they saw this as a choice he had made...

Apparently the grandmother was always calling him a hypochondriac Sad and I think (speculating) that this is why he avoided medical attention

Sorry I’ve read a lot on this case as I deal with similar at work and couldn’t stop thinking about the poor lad. And the saddest part is we will never really know his side of the story, all the info is from the three people who neglected him

YourVagesty · 12/07/2018 20:52

All good points KPO, TheseArms and Majoras. It's just so hard to comprehend. One of those cases that you just can't rationalise. Terrible.