if this mother wasn't coping then wtf didn't she ask for help rather than paying someone 20 f****ing quid to look after her child?

[wannaBe]

so very very for this little boy. here

SD bruising on the ear is suspicious - it is indicative of non accidental injuries.
Although am sure this 'mother' would not have known that.

I wonder if she thought about what might be happening to her little boy when he was "clinging" to her and didn't want to let her go? She still managed to leave her child in that state after only 20 minutes though.

She was the one with the duty of care no matter who she'd handed him to- unless she'd relinquished parental rights.

She didn't take the trouble to see him very often and if my children acquired bruises I'd want to know how.

A bruised ear is a bit suspicious actually.

She was complaining that she felt that she was also on trial.

then surely the father who is conspicous by his absence needs to bear some repsonsibility

some women are not cut out for motherhood, and she has paid the ultimate price for not coping

unless she was purely feckless and lazy which i doubt, but it is a possibility

but it smacks of a desperate situation and the child suffered terribly and also paid the ultimate price

none of the adults in this situation will come away from this smelling of roses

Iphoned SS in tears when DD1 was attacking DD2 (DD1 has SN and at the time sereve SAL delay) begging for help, took them 4 weeks to come round and get us the help we needed, but that took another 7 months to get respite in place

poor poor little boy

"SD bruising on the ear is suspicious - it is indicative of non accidental injuries."

Well, that's news to me. Clearly I am a shite parent and not cut out for motherhood then

Being v judgemental on the basis of the brief video, the mother doesn't look like the sharpest tool in the box. As she said, her only crime was naivety.

I dint comment on your parenting SD

I work in child protection, bruising to the ears esp to the back of the ears can indicate non accidental injuries.

SoupDragon agree with the last bit of your post

I highly doubt bruising to the ear was the only sign he was being mistreated tbh. Do you think he came to her well fed, happy, having made things and done activities? Do you think she even cared or bothered to ask what he actually got up to? Sounds like most of the time he spent locked in a cupboard, I wonder if a verbal child of 3 was able to tell her these things that were happeneing?

I think she was more than aware he was not getting good care and a loving, stable environment with that pair when she handed him over screaming and clinging to her after 20 mins.

Naivety is putting it very mildly indeed.

happening

I wouldn't have left a dog in that filthy bedsit, let alone my most precious possession in the world.

scumbags.

and leaving him with them in the run up to christmas. Christ, its like some awful tale in a bloody Dickens novel.

What is wrong with people.

This is just another awful story of ignorance and marginalization. I'm sorry for this poor little boy.

Does anybody know how they were able to secure two murder convictions in this case?

How did it differ from Baby P when the three adults could only be convicted of lesser charges because they all denied causing the death and so they couldn't establish which one of them was responsible?

"I highly doubt bruising to the ear was the only sign he was being mistreated tbh"

You highly doubt, but in reality you have no idea at all and are just guessing.

It's too easy to claim that you would have noticed signs of abuse that were missed by other people. You don't know.

'If you told SS you were going to palm your 3 yo off for weeks on end to strangers for £20 per week surely they would have to step in immediately?'

If you have any experience of SS, you'd know that their response would be either 'thank god it isn't going to come out of OUR budget' or 'let's bully this woman and make her life even more hell for daring to ask for help!'

Agree with MrsPixie.

If she cared she would know her son was unhappy at the very least.

And she may not have known they were capable of killing her son but they clearly aren't the nicest of people. To put it mildly.

She failed to protect him.

That mother is guilty of more than naivity. She had responsibility for her child. She hadn't seen him for 4 days. Even if I was having trouble coping, and had to hand my child over to a friend to care for temporarily, I would a) choose someone who didn't live in a shit tip; b) have regular contact with the child; and c) respond like a mother to the child's signs of injury and emotional state

I just can't imagine what he must have felt when she ignored his cries and handed him back to his abusers. Abandoned, that's how he must have felt

Sick and stupid, the lot of them. Poor baby.

Mother should realise she is responsible for this too. Makes me want to vomit when I think of all the things this little boy went through before he died.

There's no way she was redecorating that whole time (or at all possibly imo). I also agree his parents should have been prosecuted for neglect. They obviously saw him very little in all that time, poor mite, and his mum didn't check how he was when she saw him for all of 20 mins. She abandoned him for weeks, and I agree she knew that he wasn't being treated with loving care and attention (although I don't think she knew he was being phyically abused).

I don't understand why anyone would want to batter a child to death Poor boy, RIP.

I agree with Riven

Riven, I don't think it's the same thing at all. For one thing, although you have asked for help, you haven't abandoned your children (or sent them to a filthy hovel to be looked after by a teenager.) Even if you were to take such an extreme measure, you would, I'm sure, keep up regular contact with your dc. (more than 20mins once a week)

Nor does this compare with a nanny who kills. Nannies are employed to look after a child in the parents' home, therefore the child is living with the parents, has regular contact with them, the parents doing some of the childcare themselves when the nanny isn't working. That isn't neglect.

I appreciate that the mother in this case wasn't in a position to employ a nanny, and was probably desperate for help. But to send her son to that hovel, and not even check on him regularly or take more notice of his disturbed emotional state that last time she did see him - surely that's neglect?

unexplained bruise on ear, clinging to mum, does't sound all that unusual for a 3yr old child does it?

I think it's very difficult in this story to deduce too much about the mother seen as though the news articles are about the perpetrators of this awful incident.

I would assume (could be wrong) that when he died the mothers conduct was looked into and it was decided that there were no real grounds for prosecution for neglect, she left him with someone she knew (I think the state of the house is somewhat irrelevant although admittedly it's not pleasant), ok she didn't see him for 4 days, but you know what 2yrs ago when I wasn't coping I think in all honestly someone could have taken my children for 4 days and I think I'd just have been mighty relieved and quite possibly not gone to see them either.

Agree with riven.

The mother wasn't coping so she asked a close relative to look after the child.

People who are assuming that the mother knew that something was wrong and sent the child there anyway are assuming rather a lot IMO.

Children sometimes get clingy when they go to nursery - the parents don't normally assume that this is because they are being abused and might be murdered any second. They assume it is normal toddler behaviour. Why should the mother have thought differently to what thousands of other mummies every week think?