Mother pleads guilty to manslaughter of 20 month old daughter

[justanotherneighinparadise]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9406105/Teen-mother-admits-killing-20-month-old-daughter.html

What an absolutely appalling story. I can’t get my head around it.

This utterly heartbreaking :(
Makes me just want to scoop my daughter up and hold her and never let go.
How on earth can people.. MOTHERS' be SO SO SO cruel!! :(

I bet the 'mother' had plenty to eat and drink during that 6 days

She was 18 the day she left.
16 when she had her baby
15 when she got pregnant - unknown father.
14 when she went missing from home.

She managed to get to 3 different cities in 6 days, as a single mum on benefits in sheltered accommodation.

Someone else bears a hell of a lot of responsibility for this situation. She could have gone out to meet someone on her 18th, assuming she'd be home that night. We have no idea what happened. My heart bleeds for them all.

@Lougle

I'm not saying that it was right or excusable. I'm just saying that I get the impression that she didn't anticipate her child would die. It's an awful situation. The child was failed, but I'm sure she wasn't just failed by her mother.

Are you saying that because she called 999 and said her baby wouldn't wake up? It's possible she was genuinely surprised (in which case there must have been either learning disabilities or a severe mental health problem in play), equally possible that she thought they wouldn't know why her daughter had died and so was trying to pretend to be surprised so she could pass it off as a tragic unexpected death. Baby P's mother also called an ambulance pretending that she had no idea why he'd just 'stopped breathing', when he'd been beaten to death.

No, I'm saying that it's unlikely she intended to kill her child and the details so far released indicate a vulnerability that probably contributed to the incident.

And the people she was out partying with should be downright ashamed of themselves too

I doubt they knew about the neglect. I suspect that most people out partying with a parent would assume that the parent had made suitable arrangements for childcare.

I honestly don't understand why she was charged with manslaughter and not murder

The prosecution has to show beyond reasonable doubt that she intended to kill or cause grievous bodily harm to get a murder conviction. I can't see anything in the press that indicates an intent to kill. Yes, it should have been obvious that leaving her child alone for 6 days would lead to its death but that is not enough on its own to establish an intent to kill. On the information we've got I would say this is clearly a case of gross negligence manslaughter.

@picklemewalnuts

She was 18 the day she left. 16 when she had her baby 15 when she got pregnant - unknown father. 14 when she went missing from home.

She managed to get to 3 different cities in 6 days, as a single mum on benefits in sheltered accommodation.

Someone else bears a hell of a lot of responsibility for this situation. She could have gone out to meet someone on her 18th, assuming she'd be home that night. We have no idea what happened. My heart bleeds for them all.

I agree completely with you...