"Drink binge mother left children "

[VengefulSinner]

Story from BBC news site tonight.

I just do not understand people like this

The poor children, left alone while she gets off her face on drink and drugs.

I hope she loses the kids for good.

what might stop people doing this in the 1st place is knowing that they will be judged and punished according to the law

IMO, this has not happened in this case

she will soon get her kids back

if she doesn't get those back,she will have some more

to these very stupid lowlives who we know already do this, on a regular basis, what does this tell them ?

excuses will be made for their cruelty and neglect, just look a bit sad and some bleeding heart will tell you that you are suffering from PND and "its not really our place to blame you..."

a judge will make vapid comments about "Home Alone", you will have to be a good girl and stay indoors for 8 wks

then, back to business, baby

fucking sickening

I agree with someguy, if a bloke did this he would be banged up

Ivykaty- I haven't said that all your children should be taken away if one of them turns out to make bad choices. I just made the point that you can't assume this woman's kids have got more "chance of a decent life" with their grandparents.

I did qualify that by saying that it might be unfair to assume they were crap parents because of the lifestyle their daughter has- I think, though, that poor parenting does often pass down through generations, so the kids haven't necessarily been "rescued" into a great environment, if it's the same environment that produced behaviour like their mother's. I don't know, and you don't know. I'm not sure that that makes me judgemental- I was a bit on the fence in what I said, actually, but I just disagreed with Reality thinking "Phew, everything will be ok for them now", because we don't know that the grandparents can provide the kids with stability and good care either.

I'm afraid I am completely unmoved by your arguments 100x, despite my lefty leaning liberal tendencies. I am really not one of the string 'em high brigade, truly.

There are times when punishment (which is, of course, often undignified and serves little or no purpose in terms of rehabilitation) is called for simply because a vile crime has been committed. The children were lucky to escape injury, but they have been harmed, they did suffer, they will have been damaged, no doubt about it, by the whole terrible episode. It flies in the face of having a justice system at all that you can damage tiny babies and children like this without facing a custodial sentence. Imvho.

Misogyny? Bollocks. This is about the full time carer of four small children and babies, being guilty of abandonment, neglect and endangerment. Selfish, foolish, dangerous behaviour. Which her lawyer described as 'a moment of madness'. Significantly more than one moment, if we're counting.

To be honest, they probably didn't send her to prison for her own safety, as I imagine her fellow prisoners would probably deal out some fairly harsh punishment.

'If a man had done this, then yes he would be condemned as a lousy father but there would be an awful lot of vilification coming the way of the mother who had left him in sole charge, it would be seen as more her fault than his.'

interesting point SGB- though I think it doesn't detract from the sheer awfulness of what she has done, the level of vilification is higher because she is their mother.

Can't agree with AnyFucker etc that it's 'a hundred times worse because she is their mother'. It isn't. It is terrible because 4 children suffered so horribly, not because the mother is 'unnatural'.

Do we think her being locked up will deter other equally irresponsible parents from doing the same? I seriously doubt it - but have no way of proving this of course

Well I think it's more complicated than that of course, but trying to impress upon these people a sense of shame has to start somewhere.

I suspect there's a continuum between lying drunk in the gutter every Saturday night after a night on the tiles and this kind of thing, FWIW.

Also am confused by the 'punish the mother to help the children' argument.

I think we can probably guarantee that when these kids grow up they will not thank society for banging up their mother, however horrible a person she may be. They would want her to be helped to at least have some sort of relationship with them even if they live with other people.

I would wonder, given the non-custodial sentence, if there aren't aspects of the incident that the papers didn't bother to report eg that she attempted to make an arrangement for someone to look after the DC and that person didn't do it. I have vague recollections of a similar case where the woman in question turned out to have asked someone else to come in and look after her DC and this person simply didn't turn up.

That's a really good point northern. I'm thinking about. I do see why we have prisons - honestly - though I do also sometimes wonder why they are full of young, inarticulate, mostly barely literate men and women and whether prison is the best place for them. Then I think, I have no idea

I do see your point though. I'm still thinking. I'll go read your post again

I have reflected on that statement "hundred times worse cos she is their mother"

it was a kneejerk one, and I retract it

I thank yow..

good on you AnyFucker

was wondering if there was in fact any sort of situation in which a man would get solely blamed for this sort of thing. The question always asked would be 'where was the mother'. The only way I can imagine it being seen as father's sole responsibility was if the mother was dead or had abandoned him completely- then I reckon it would be seen as a case for leniency.

I am sick of the 'she had no support' excuse.

Pick up the phone FFS...Sure Start, Health Visitors, Home Start even Social Services are all at the end of the phone, and thats without the family support that this woman seems to have had.

Someone will chip in and say she was too ashamed to ask for help...well she wasnt too ashamed to take cocaine in the house where her children were, she wasnt ashamed to get drunk when there was no one else to feed her tiny baby and she wasnt ashamed of spending the night at a house party while her little girl desperately tried to feed her baby brother.

There are times when I think that courts should be able to impose sterilisation as well as a prison sentence.

oh, I can be made to think again ag

funnily enough though, the calls for clemency and understaning on this thread are leaving me unmoved

< checks again >

nope, this heart is of stone

I wonder what that makes me

I actually feel instinctively myself that she doesn't deserve clemency and understanding, she seems like a toerag of a person to me (and I am a lefty liberal), but her kids are a different thing... they will want a relationship with her and harsh punishment of her will not help them. Although I do think that she should not be left in sole care of them again.

"There are times when I think that courts should be able to impose sterilisation as well as a prison sentence."

Most sense spoken so far on this thread.

harsh punishment of her might make other similar toerags think twice though...

at the moment there seems little deterrent

be a deadbeat parent, why the hell not ?

I'm not sure how it's in the interests of such young children to continue to see this woman, rather than being adopted ASAP.

hmm sort of see what you mean AF...

BUT I just don't think that when people like this, who have had kids for god knows what reason (just because they could? clearly not because they cared) start drinking and snorting etc they're thinking about the consequences at all....

I know it's miserable and deeply cynical but I think this kind of thing is going to keep happening whatever the punishments are and then we have to deal with kids who are doubly deprived. I think most kids would say that even a shit mother in their lives is better than no mother... we might disagree but it is their mum we are talking about...

Exactly AF - You hear of things like this happening far far too much (my link earlier for instance was another that sprang to mind when I read the orignal post)

Too many parents out there that don't see their own chicldren as their responsibility.

btw I don't mean in their lives as in sole charge of them as she's proved she's not capalbe of that...

< switches brain off >

< goes back to cosy world where children are cherished and cared-for >

night all

A shit mother isn't necessarily better than no mother, if it means the children could be adopted into a loving stable home and get a real go- I'm on the same page as SomeGuy and the head honcho at Barnardos in that respect. It's probably too late for a four year old to be able to settle though, and I imagine almost impossible for the four of them to be kept together.

How crap the whole system is for these children.

Good idea AF. Think I'm gonna do the same

I don't know. It's all very worrying that there's a whole sector of society that's totally disconnected and feckless and lost. Worrying for all of us. I agree about inclusion and education but that process should've started many years earlier. Before she had four different children by three different fathers by the age of 22 and topped it off with a habit of substance abuse.

Mind you, if I were stuck at home with four little ones, no future, nothing much to look forward to, I'd be drunk before breakfast. Every day.

those poor babies.

they must have thought she was never coming back.

what a betrayal of trust.

can you imagine how hungry they must have been?