Another tragedy

[PottyCock]

here

I don't normally post to link stories like this but what on earth is going on in the world? Poor little soul. Totally heartbreaking.

It is interesting the headline of the report elects to focus on the mother's failure to stop the father committing this murder, rather than the father's responsibility for her death.

It strikes me as intrinsically misogynistic, and perhaps even a sign (very depressingly) that we are growing to somehow 'expect' these paternal killings.

Tragic story, that little girl must have been in so much pain

I see what you mean about the focus on the Mother's lack of action in stopping the Father, but how many times has this happened: where the Father/Stepfather kills/injures a child and the Mother is supposedly ignorant of their actions? I think it is actually a good thing that she will be prosecuted as well as by her inaction she was complicit in the death of her daughter.

He was not the childs father

It is so awful isn't it? I seem to remember much of the hatred after the baby P case was directed towards the mother rather than the bastard who killed him.

Sadly, Doncaster council are investigating the deaths of 7 under 1s at the hands of their parents/carers. We were all so shocked by baby P, but it's depressingly common.

Can I just say that this offence of failing to protect your child is a fairly new one.

What was happening quite frequently in the past was that a baby would die at the hands of it's parents, and both parent's would deny any knowledge. Because the courts therefore couldn't prove who actually killed the baby, there were lots of instances of both parents going free from court on the basis that you can't punish both parents just because you don't know who struck the final blow.

Because this was happening too often, a new offence of failing to protect a child was brought in, so that neither person could get away with it.

I don't think it was to do with punishing women and frankly, in this particular case, if the mother didn't injure the baby, then she certainly failed to protect him and should still go to prison.

What I competely fail to understand is why women allow their boyfriends to hurt their children

You could see it two ways. You could say that this is misogynistic: punish the woman even if she is less guilty than a man because we dislike women.

Then again, you could say that the opposite is misogynistic: oh, you can't expect a woman to have the same level of responsibility as a man, naturally she is going to accept whatever her partner does, you can't blame her for that.

There is no evidence that the court actually is going to let the murderer walk off unpunished. The reason the headline focuses on the mother is that it is still fairly uncommon to see her as partly responsible. Everybody accepts that the murderer will be punished: that doesn't hit the headlines because it's obvious.

In the present instance, it seems fairly clear that the mother knew what was going on and did nothing to stop it. How would we have felt if it was a stepmother who did the beating and a father who knew about it, was around when it happened, yet made no attempt to interfere, to call for help or to leave.