Nursery worker found guilty of manslaughter

[LadyEloise1]

Such a dreadful case.
A nursery worker Kate Roughley, has been found guilty of manslaughter when a 9 month old baby, Genevieve in her care at a nursery died after being placed face down, tightly swaddled and strapped to a bean bag and covered with a blanket.
She left the obviously distressed baby girl in that position for 1 hour and 37 minutes.
Beyond horrific.
Where were the other adults at that nursery ?
How could they allow it to happen ?

The poor wee baby and her grieving parents.
How can they ever get over that

This job (and caring for the elderly) are woefully underpaid and don't require qualifications, or a very low level.
Therefore they often attract a certain type of people.
The government doesn't value care, and parents complain about how much childcare costs.
One of the answers is a higher salary, and a minimum level of qualification- no lower than level 3 for anyone.
More checks, drop ins and monitoring is also needed.

This absolutely. 👍

The trouble is...One cannot teach empathy and nurturing to students {any age}
I was appalled at a Vets where I once worked to hear a dog scream.

I whipped round, and saw the Head Nurse {Qualified} standing over a Collie, he was between her legs she had lifted him up by his collar, and was twisting it.

He had messed in fear.

I said ''What the hell are you doing?''- she replied ''No dog growls at me and gets away with it''

This was in a very expensive veterinary hospital.
The collie had an ear infection
He was supposed to have had ear washes of white vinegar- Another girl and I had done this, one holding him and soothing him, while the other washed out his ear- he was nervous, but not at all aggressive.

The nurse was a bully, I'm afraid..Another time she told me to go to lunch, but I wanted to clean up the vomit of a dog who had liver failure..she said ''leave it..it will only vomit again'' {I didn't leave it}

This still makes me cry- these animals are voiceless, as babies and the vulnerable elderly can be.

Minimum qualifications sound a good idea, but plenty of ''educated'' people can be bullies.

Not saying educated people can't be bad; but the likelihood of attracting those types of people is higher in jobs that are very low paid and low qualified. I don't have stats to back that up, but that's what I believe and what my years on this earth have shown me.

Agree!
I have regularly walked past a nursery for many years as it's on the way to the local shops and son's school when he was at Primary- and I have rarely heard crying there.
One cannot see the children because of a high hedge/fence, but when they are playing in the garden the staff sound nice and the children seem happy. {Dressed in hi viz tabards when on airings to the Park}
I see them ''crocodile'' to the local park sometimes, the babies in buggies, and again, the staff seem nice and the children happy.

No shouting, no rough handling.

I do feel that for these types of jobs some sort of vocation is needed as well.

I suppose what one doesn't want is someone who is there by default- because they aren't qualified to do anything else, who are just clock watching and there because they have to be.

I get the impression that was the case for this person.

There needs to be more regulation and whistleblowing within the field. Standards and conduct need to be upheld, whether you’re highly educated or not.

But also 5 members of staff had degrees and professional/teacher status so that should have been a very good sign!
Nurseries only have to have 50% qualified staff.
Also she was being very well for 2022 - £11.50 an hour. Minimum wage then was £9.50

I doubt any parent could have known what was going on in the baby room.

In terms of ratios:
in April and May 2022 the staff to children ratios at the nursery were at various times one to nine, two to 11, two to 13 and one to 16

It should have been a max of 1:3. That along with the fact that there were only 6 cots for up to 16 children so bean bag beds were clearly routinely being used for sleeping makes me feel the owners should be prosecuted too.

I doubt she thought anything of the parents.
She was just stressed and suffering with compassion fatigue. She'd forgotten these babies were real, live, feeling human beings and just saw them as irritants making her day even harder.
The culture of the nursery was that rough handling, disrespectful and bullying attitudes and strapping crying babies to beanbags was normal. She'd treated babies like that all the time, this time she just went too far.
It's like when you get treated badly by nurses in hospital - to them, it's just another long, stressful day full of people demanding things and making their job harder. Some will then take all that out on their patients.

I see that another worker has now been charged with ill treatment towards other babies so it is clear this behaviour was the norm there. Even with CCTV.

One adult to 16 babies is crazy. I'd probably feel stressed if I had to care for 16 babies by myself for 30 minutes, let alone all day. Meanwhile the owners have swanned off to France with the money they made exploiting staff and ignoring what was going on.

I assume with such a massive child to staff ratio, staff didn’t get time for breaks away from the children either.

how did no one notice so few staff?

There’s no excuses about pay or staffing because evil is evil no matter what.

No excuse for her behaviour, but the nursery owners created an unsafe environment for staff and children in order to profit.

It makes me sick every time I hear it on the news. I hope she gets the longest sentence possible. A day less than twenty years would be a scandal. The poor family.

She’s been sentenced to 14 years. The victim impact statements are absolutely crushing.

Yes I saw that. At least she did get a hefty seNtence. I bet she appeals.

I wish they would bring back life sentences that would mean locked up for life.

Poor little Genevieve never got to live hers and the lives of her parents have been destroyed. Their pain will never go away.

14 years is nowhere near enough. She'll be out in 7 getting to enjoy life again while the parents' lives are ruined forever and little Genevieve never gets to live hers.

Those poor parents. I hope they're somehow able to find peace somehow.

I really hope she has a truly horrific time in prison . Poor little baby girl 😔

And still of an age to be able to have babies of her own.

The owners are absolutely liable too. This was a toxic work culture and they just took the profits and ran.

As for her. No words. Since when do you "punish" babies? 14 years is nothing.

She won’t do half time in custody for a case of this nature. Likely 10 years and the rest on licence with some pretty stringent conditions. Both of which mean she won’t be able to have her own children thankfully.

Her mother looks like the definition of a broken woman. I’m quite hardened but I’ve been holding back tears since I read about this case a couple of days ago, it’s absolutely sickening. So needless and so cruel. Her family will be in my thoughts for a long time.