Mum who killed disabled daughter jailed for life.

[SaintRiven]

here
good.

While I in no way condone what she did, I think had the father/family of this little girl taken the time to understand the mother's issues, she may still be alive!

Mrs Hill was an alcoholic depressive, who stated that she did not want/couldn't care for her child, for whatever reason. She voiced wanting to have her adopted, yet the father still 'worked long hours' leaving mother & child alone, even tho he knew she did not want the child around.

My guess is, is that he would not have choosen a child minder/nanny for Naomi with the above issues, so why did he think he could leave his child with his wife, who clearly was in not fit state to care for her?

So now it's all the man's fault. And the family's fault.

Thing is, when someone commits a crime it is rarely because they have purely decided to become evil.

Often the most prolific killers have had the most horrendous childhoods, either because of abuce they have suffered or because of severe personality issues which were not addressed. Often criminals have suffered from mental illness, addictions to drugs and alcohol.

So perhaps it could be said that behind every criminal there is a society that has failed them. But even if this is the case, there comes a point at which we all have to take responsibility for our own actions.

Naomi hill's father shouldn't have had to give his child up for adoption. If Joanne Hill didn't want a child she could have left. But instead she decided to kill the child, in fact she did it in the most chilling way possible - by drowning a child whose greatest fear was water.

The disability is irelevant. The fact remains this woman killed a defenceless child, and mentally ill or not, she should have to pay for that crime for the rest of her life, be that in a secure unit or a prison.

argh. Daily Mail. argh
'4 yo cerebral palsy daughter'
why can't they ever get it right FFS

so lets blame the dad, fo what, for loving his dd?
the mother murdered her daughter, all the excuses in the world won't bring her back.
really wrong to blame the dad imo.

i suppose for most crimes there are mitigating circumstances. i thnk that there are few where its straight forward.

one could argue the way that the justice system is, and the way that the prison system is, that becuase of all the prisoners no matter what their crime, they are probably being dealt an injustice.

however, the system is what it is at this mumnet in time. within this moment in time, this woman murdered a child and should be punished for it.

I'm not sure what argument there is for a lack of support being an issue . This poor little girl had mild CP affecting her walking and hearing but her mother was apparently in complete denial. How do we know that offers of help and support weren't just dismissed ? It sounds premeditated by her own admission and carried to in a coldblooded fashion.

if lack of support was an issue we'd all be at it!

the little girl didn't fear water

the mother feared water

I'm going to hide this thread; both the story and the pitchforks are putting me off my breakfast

I too am very at the fact that the father is now being made culpable.
I think it would have been pretty much beyond any parents comprehension that their partner would take the action she did.

When my DS2 was struggling the most my DH left each day to go to work because he had to. And because it never would have entered his head that I would hurt our children - in spite of the state I was in.

TBH I wasn't in court so my only view is that it is tragic that that sweet little girl died, and died they way she did. Terrible

This isn't a lack of support case- at least not lack of practical support. The child's disability was so mild.

It sounds as if she should have had more access to mental health help - as many will know mental health support is in a pretty shocking state in the UK. However, she purposely killed her daughter in a shocking manner. She needs a long sentence, perhaps better served in a secure hospital rather than a prison, but a long sentence nevertheless.

riven you know that's not true

none of us know the woman

agree with the ejb1976

how we feel or do not feel about our own disabled children have nothing to do with this

It's daft to say it's a case about a disability.

Father's statement

Mental health, yes.

But this is not your 'standard' disability case of someone worn down from years and years of battling the system, caring for their child and wondering what will happen to their child when they die.

That statement is heartwrenching.

Sorry I only caught some of that statement yesterday and though it was naomi who was afraid of water. But in a way I think it makes it worse. Imagine your greatest fear. imagine knowing how it would feel if someone did that one thing to you that you feared the most, and then, knowing that, imagine doing that thing to someone else.

To me that suggests that this act was calculated.

A horrible, horrible case, desperately sad for everyone involved.

I'm not sure there is unanimous condemnation of fathers who kill on MN - there's usually a pretty lively thread with plenty of people saying 'he must have been mentally ill', whether or not there is any actual history of mental illness. Presumably because it's hard for anyone to comprehend such a wicked act as deliberately killing your child in cold blood, or out of spite against the other parent, so there's a tendency to leap for mental illness as the reason.

In this case, there was a long history of mental illness. But clearly no-one thought it would end like this, otherwise the father wouldn't have left them alone together.

It's striking that the mother drowned the child, despite the mother having a real fear of water. Clearly something was very wrong with her thinking but the jury decided that it wasn't enough to exempt the mother from responsibility.

Feels even more poignant to me as my grandmother was a reception teacher in Connah's Quay (obviously long before this little girl was born) and I spent a lot of time at her school when I was little. It was such a happy place.

It's as calculated as the man who smothered his 2 daughters to death at the weekend. He was presumably mentally ill as he hung himself afterwards.

All awful awful cases. Poor, poor children and the poor parents father in this case and mother in the other.

I cried when I saw this yesterday

the poor father

sad all round

I haven't seen anything in reports of this case that supports the claims that she was ashamed of her daughter - only the claim that she made her wear trousers to hid the calipers. Which a lot of children do, it's not necessarily an indication of negative attitudes on the parent's part. Presumably there was more evidence in court, though.

Agree Edam - the "evidence" in the mail report about her being ashamed made me feel a little uncomfortable - trousers over splints, her taking 1/2 hour to phone her DH after the DX because she was so shocked by it, not wanting to tell the other mums about the DX, not letting her play out. None of that sounded particularly unusual or blameworthy to me.

It just makes me wonder whether this woman's case has been judged at least partly on the old double standard. That women who kill are treated more harshly because anger and violence, especially towards a child, are 'unfeminine'. Violence is seen as intrinsically masculine. Look at the different treatment of Brady and Hindley, for instance.

The guy who smothered his children and hung himself may have been mentally ill, how do I know? But he may equally have been perfectly sane and lashing out in order to punish his wife for leaving him.

I think she should be in a secure unit; she has to be given 20 years undoubtedly but nothing will change in prison. I'd be less adamant if she hadnt had recognised mh issues pre-crime. But 20 years is the minimum imo and poor, poor baby . Kill yourself if you have to- never hurt your baby.

'Presumably because it's hard for anyone to comprehend such a wicked act as deliberately killing your child in cold blood, or out of spite against the other parent, so there's a tendency to leap for mental illness as the reason. ' absolutely Edam and theday I do understand is the day I give up on myself.

The thing is, I disagree with the automatic assumption that killing a child = mental illness. It's the wrong way round. Mental illness may (very rarely) cause someone to kill, you can't assume a killer is mentally ill. (And you are far more likely to be killed by someone who is perfectly sane, as it happens.)

But equally, there are people who have a history of mental illness who kill. That's clearly the case here, although the jury decided she was sane when she drowned her poor daughter.

I also think the mild thing is a distraction

If you are seriously depressed (I know there debates in thi caase) then you are. the root cause- serious sn, mild sn, straying dh, chemical imbalance are irrelevant.

We call it te scone theory here

dont matter why you made the scone or what book it came from, the scone is the reult

(well unless i am baking- the charred mess then!)