OPinions on the woman who killed her son?

[SherriHewsonsNipple]

do you think she desverved 9 years?

Am i right in thinking he wasnt strictly speaking terminally ill

"Friends described her as as a ' pillar of the community' who was always willing to help others."

Not sure i'd want her helping my son!

"She had been a community support worker for adults with learning difficulties before starting her nursing training at London South Bank University in March 2007."

Wonder what she thought of them?

I agree with wannabe as well. And also with Riven; why is it that certain people believe that it is acceptable or at least not as bad to end the life of a person with a disability? what sort of disability? and who assesses someone's quality of life? there is a nasty smell of arrogance and superiority about aspects of this case IMO.

I also agree with wannabe - however much I sympathise with how tortuous it would be to see your child suffering - it was not her life to take, it was not her decision to make.

no riven i did not say i could imagine murdering my child if she were brain damaged. that is not what i said at all.
i have repeatedly said nothing more than i am not able to instantly and absolutely judge somebody who ends the life of a severely permanently brain damaged child's life. I'm not sayin that they should do it, that they ought to do, i'm not saying it was "brave". I'm saying that it is so outside my comprehension that i wouldn't be comfortable harshly judging somebody for doing something that 99% of the world doesn't have to face. It's not fair. it lacks compassion. maybe they should be judged, but not by me

MaggieNilAonSneachta she did not "care" for him he was not at home, so that kind of makes nonsence of her as some struggling loving mother. read wannabes post.

Gosh for a minute there I thought this thread was advocating murdering disabled people because other people can guage their quality of life for them and decide whether it is high enough, or not. Must have been my imagination, or a nightmare?

Oh well, I'll just bugger off and tell my dh to kill me as my quality of life certainly won't match that of non-disabled people's.

According to disabilitymatters, she first tried to kill him only 10 days (other sources say two months) after his accident by injecting him with morphine (requiring resuscitation and giving further brain damage). According to the Telegraph she refused to believe he was not in pain (although this was what the doctors told her). Then they say that a nine year sentence was "excessive to the point of cruelty" because she acted with "love and compassion". This seems a total muddle to me, as I've never heard this as a defense before. "Your honour, I planned for some time to murder my son, it was done in cold blood and with intent (so murder), but hey, I acted for the best of reasons (regardless that they were delusional) so please can I go home now?" I think that one can feel compassionate that she fell apart so badly after the accident, but not in anyway for her deed. The Guardian thinks that she was justified in her actions because he might at some point have had his life support turned off and then died through starvation (which indeed might have been a reason why someone might have acted) but there was no suggestion that such a course of action was immanent. Nine years seems remarkably little in that context.

Daily Mail report about his girlfriend understanding and forgiving his mother for killing him.

When you read her report, she actually says that Tom was beginning to respond, move his eyes, squeeze her hand. That was before his mother first attempted to kill him. After that he never responded again.

She seems to have decided from the moment of the accident that he son would not survive, even to the point of refusing permission for surgery.

I can't read that link, the title makes me heave

What wannabee said.

My MIL is paralysed with cancer, in pain, subject to the humiliation of a catheter and a hoist. But if I made my way into her nursing home and administered a lethal dose of something that she had not asked for, I should certainly be a murderer and nobody would think of questioning that.

And if I did the same to the senile old ladies in the home, the ones who unlike MIL are unable to pronounce on the matter, I would also be a murderer.

So why should a son be any different?

What comes out of that DM article is that his mother always had a rather odd take on mother-children boundaries; she seems to think she always had the right to run his life and decide what was best for him. That is no reason for the court to judge her differently from a mother with more conventional views.

I've now skimmed both those links. I think she was a bitch of the first order. I am so

[goes off to calm down on a pretty thread]

I have to be honest, I really don't get this story.
Woman premeditates, plans and tries to murder man, gets caught and bailed, does it again and succeeds.

How is it okay? Why are people to convince us she is a 'pillar of the community' and a 'selfless person' when she did this because she couldn't see her son like that. No mention of anyone else or whether he actually was okay and dealing with it.

The only possible way I would remotely be understanding is if he had asked her to do it. Just once, even if he said 'If I am ever in this position please do something' but he didn't.
So no excuses.

because there are people who actually think disabled - better of dead

Horrible, horrible, horrible.
Sorry to you guys who this story is hitting hardest

I haven't read most of the posts on here but just to add I feel very sorry for her. All I can think is "There but for the grace of god go I". Who knows what I would do in such a terrible situation?

he couldn't ask her to do it. being classiied as being in a permanent vegative state was being considered. It doesn't soundlike he had any quality of life. personally i don;'t thinkthis woman is any kind pf danger to anyoe - so the purpose of lockin gher away is entirely punitive.

if i had been in that state those that love me would know my wishes in that sitaution. Why do we think her son was a stranger to her?

contrast this with the man whos parents helped to get to clinic to end his life in Switzerland.

ffs it doesn't matter how many times peolple like me and riven, people who actually live with this try to explain that being disabled is not an excuse to murder someone, people still feel sorry for the murderer

She never even gave him a chance he had the accident and within weeks she tried to kill him, she was barred from being his carer and conned her way in to see him. This is not the actions of a loving mother who couldn't cope as she wasn't the one caring for him, .I can only imagine what its like to have a severely disabled child who cant communicate my own son has asd and lots of other problems but can communicate on his terms even if he finds it difficult, do not condone this selfish woman she should of got longer murder is murder.

But Edgar, why should we assume that the mother knew him better than his girlfriend? Though she has now forgiven the mum, it is pretty clear that she was horrified the first time she tried to kill him, and that she thought he was showing signs of improvement and that his mum was totally misguided to think he wasn't. She thought his mum was totally wrong to try to refuse treatment for him? So why doesn't her opinion count? Why is it all about the mum?

If something like this happened to our dh's- how many of us would think that the decision should lie in the hands of our MILs without any input from us?

I find it terrifying she worked with people with learning disabilities. How much contempt must she have held them in?

I think what this woman did was very very wrong, and a jail sentence was appropriate.

saintlydamemrsturnip that is so scarey isn't it

She deserved the sentence.