RIP Finley Boden

[Bandanadrama]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/finley-boden-chesterfield-shannon-marsden-b2314673.html?amp

Sleep tight angel. I have no words😢

Finley’s sad story has gutted me. I have been in tears ever since I read it and the gruesome details of how he was tortured and suffered in the last few days is just horrific.
I want to do something to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I want to honor his memory. I believe this was an avoidable situation. The parents used the Covid lockdown as an excuse and managed to get away. But I wish the guardian (I am sure she’s beyond heartbroken) could have done something.

Can we start a petition or a request that instead of having just one guardian in cases of suspected drug use, violence etc there should be a team of 3 experts instead of solely depending on the observations of a single individual? I am sure you lot have many suggestions.

Can we please do something? It feels like I have lost a loved one and I am just so overwhelmed with sadness and grief. There shouldn’t be any more such tragic cases. Babies need us as a society to protect them. This was failure at an abysmal level. It should never happen again.

@Finleysmemory me too. It’s really upset me. I generally avoid stories like this as I just can’t shake them and i the experience heightened anxiety. I can’t compartmentalise this kind of thing.

I can’t believe we as a civilised society still have these cases of cruelty.

Exactly this. I try, sometimes, to think what a solution could be, but I come up against two problems each time. 1. Recruiting more social workers and paying them an excellent salary. 2. Government's lack of interest. If there's no money in it, they don't care.

What happened to the Sure Start programme? I realize that the kind of people who do these terrible acts wouldn't be the types to access such a programme anyway, but something needs to be put in place.

I forgot the quote. I was replying to Finley's memory.

Poor baby never stood a chance. Really hope his low life disgusting parents are made to suffer. How anybody can hurt an innocent baby is beyond my comprehension, especially those who were supposed to keep him safe. The authorities need to think long and hard about their actions. So very sad. RIP angel xx

It’s heartening to know that quite a few of you share the same angst. The thing is we will all be moved by such stories for a few days and get on with our lives. We need to take action and bring about some Change.
I know this issue is complex and like @Freshfoods suggested there’s no guarantee it will work.
Yet if voices like ours don’t try to rally together and do something then nothing significant may ever be done. There should be an independent investigation as to how this grave situation went unnoticed for so long in spite of social workers trying to visit them etc.
How can we honor 10-month-old Finley’s memory and try to prevent more tragedies.

Not long after my Ds was born, my dd who would have been 2 at the time came home from nursery with a shocking black eye.

She had banged it on the corner of cupboard.

Health visitor came round to do usual checks for ds, but stopped as soon as she spotted dd. She started asking all sorts of questions such as how she did it, am I ok and stuff like that.

At the time, I was annoyed. I told her it was done at nursery and she kept bugging me and bugging me, before finally letting it go and tending to ds, but now, I fully understand what she did and I actually admire her for it. It takes guts to speak up like that

All I can hope is that his parents have the most horrific time in prison. I imagine they will. The father particularly will be with other violent killers, except they haven't killed a defenceless baby. He will be treated like the coward he is. Good.

Wish I hadn't read about this case. Poor little Finley. That photograph of him sleeping on his monster of a father is so upsetting. He was just so innocent and trusting and helpless and they inflicted so much pain on him. Just heartbreaking...

So sad. I can't see a thread anywhere about 1-year-old Elaina Rose Aziz who drowned in the bath while parents were taking drugs. Such a short sentence for such a clear case of gross negligence manslaughter. And the father even shorter, only sentenced for child cruelty. Amazed there hasn't been discussion of it here, and amazed not to see any reporting of social work deficiencies where the parents were known to be taking drugs and yet the baby was not taken into care.
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-country/drug-taking-parents-tot-who-26985031

Tories scrapped Surestart.

Surestart was not used by the sort of parents that torture children, obviously I wish it was still open. I have worked for a DV charity. It’s all heartbreaking, all of it.

I would be all for children being removed from drug takers. I have met a few Mothers who have co operated fully and given up their children, they are actually excellent Mothers because they knew their chaotic lives were bad and wanted their children to have a chance.

I know paramedics and social workers have been mentioned and as much as they are viewed negatively and understandably so also spare a thought for police officers who deal with this day in and day out.

Surestart aimed to help children who needed it before things got bad.

Finley’s fate haunts me. And I don’t understand. Between 4 and 9 months a baby chooses their primary care giver, the person they trust the most to respond to their needs. And then bang on 9 months the family court think now is the perfect time to send you into the care of strangers. And I guess many many birth givers who lose their kids mourn that loss and want them back, that’s biology. But it’s also biology that when mum is separated from the kid forming a bond is impaired (delayed? Needs some kind of bare minimum emotional intelligence from the mum to establish? It’s obvious she loved the father more than Finley and Finley needed her to love him more…). These parents had never spent any time with him why did they think they wanted him in their lives? And then obviously struggled with it. Why not give him back? To people who love and care for him? It’s 5 am and I can’t sleep thinking of his nightmare (and I fell a little bit of the way down the rabbit hole, it’s not just Finley’s nightmare, other birth givers do this to?! Owwwwww). My babe is 4 months old and I cannot fucking imagine. Sometimes I feel like I can’t look after him or I don’t prioritise his needs. Then I know it’s time to hand him over to someone else. Heart breaking :-(

Just read a timeline. About how they could have both clearly have seen he was deteriorating and in pain and chose to hide him away from health care and parade him about in the pram. Major bones broken, sepsis, pneumonia, unable to sit or feed himself. I don’t know what to do with this grief

I can't even comprehend this. I wish I didn't know it, but I feel Finley deserves us to remember him and say his name. Sick sick bastards.

At least they have been given a long sentence. Another positive is she'll be too old to have any more children if she's ever released.

This is it exactly. Knowing the details is painful. (And If you didn’t know before I bumped this thread I am very very sorry) not the pain that Finley suffered by any stretch but still the source of grief and intrusive thoughts. But now knowing, just looking away and trying to forget feels wrong.

That is a something. The sentence length is decent. They certainly don’t deserve to walk free for that series of choices they made.

Looking online for when I should start doing a routine for my 4 month old, read that routines make babies feel safe. Thought about Finley being taken away from his and his people and placed with these strangers who certainly wouldn’t have been following a routine for him. No safety there