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

I'm sure if the mum knew she never would have left him there. They were putting on a good mask to her alright . I can't imagine what she's going through. OK so she felt she couldn't cope but she didn't resort to hurting him, she took a break. She obviously loved him, she was looking foward to showing him his room etc. She's been betrayed in the worst possible way

I don't believe some of these responses. The woman handed over her 3 yr old to a teenager living in a squalid filthy bedsit with a crack addicted boyfriend and 2 dogs, gave then 20 quid a week, and saw him for 20 mins 4 days before he died. On Christmas Eve. With 75 seperate injuries. Thats a little beyond naivety.

And where was the father? There are plenty of comments from him about how lovely his son was and how everyone loved him....not quite enough to home him or care for him though?

Ok, so maybe she can't be expected to have know that something was wrong on that final visit. I accept that point fully.

But I do still think she neglected that boy. She wasn't taking a 4 day break - he'd been with his abusers for a whole month. And from what I understand, the teenage girl she left him with wasn't a 'close relative' (although she had seen her a few times and thought she could trust her).She claims to have left him with them because she was decorating her house - that doesn't take a month. Nor does it explain the lack of contact she had with him during that time.

"Why should the mother have thought differently to what thousands of other mummies every week think?"

Because she didn't keep a check on him for weeks, it is totally different scenario to dropping your child daily at a registered CM or nursery, and a Nanny would work in the home so also completely different. She simply must have seen the state of the place and clocked it wasn't a child friendly environment.

She didn't do enough to protect her child and I feel there were better ways of getting help if you really can't cope, than what she chose to do. But it doesn't make much difference now as it's all too late.

You lot should write for the tabloids.

People keep shouting that she "left him with teenagers". The woman was 19 and the man 25. They were adults, not "teenagers" in the sense that it is being shouted on this thread.

Or does everyone think that people who are 19 and 25 are not old enough to have children? Or look after them?

Their age had nothing to do with it. By saying "she left them with teenagers" it is again blaming the mother. They would have done this abuse whether they were 19, 29 or 59. because they were nasty bastards. their age is irrelevant and only being used as a way of trying to prove that the mother "should have known better".

Where are you getting all this stuff about the house and drug abuse? The OPs link doens't say anything about that.

She was 18 and under supervision after leaving the care system. He was 24 and under supervision on a suspended sentance for drugs, and known to be on crack. There are pictures of the bedsit available on other links.
There is more than one source available.

Of course the mother should have known better, as should the father, as should anyone. On what planet is any of that situation remotely acceptable?

cannot believe people are blaming a bereaved mother for the totally unforeseeable cruelty of someone else, as if she wouldn't be blaming herself enough already

have gone for weeks without seeing my children when ill, admittedly in hospital, but they were cared for by friends and sometimes relatives - sounds like the mum was depressed and struggling, am sure if there were grounds for culpable neglect she'd have been charged too but it doesn't sound as if she was to blame for anything other than having a hard time and trusting a lifelong friend

I'm not sure anyone has said this situation is acceptable.

Simply that the mother may have been stupid and niave. Rather than calling for her to be prosecuted immediately as she obviously knew what was happening.

I ask where the other information is coming from, as people seem to have made their minds up from otehr sources, I have only read the OP. I am not going to google and sit here reading tabloid reports thanks.

the report from the independent contains some different information to that on the BBC.

Mrs Sawdust - one report I've read this morning suggests that they actually lived together in their early teens (the mother and the woman who killed him) but lost touch for 5yrs.

I think you need to take the squalor and the age of the perpetrators out of the debate, they are in fact pretty irrelevant imo.

A married couple in their 30's, with "respectable" jobs, and a lovely home could just have easily been the perpetrators, people living in squalor/squalid homes, and young as well aren't by default child abusers and murderers

She let a pair of crack addicts have her child while she decorated her house. Fucking hell.

and people who think social services are just going to sweep in and make everything magically ok if a parent asks for help are more naive than the mum in question

Absolutely Toccata

If the mother has been in the care system then presumably she may not have a good model of what is appropriate and normal.

ie if a relative who she knows well, who she sees at her parents house often, and who she gets on well with, offers to look after her son while she redecorates, she might think that is fair enough. And be grateful for the help if she was not coping.

Nothing about this situaiton is acceptable, but why assume the mother did this in the full knowledge os what was going on, and that she didn't care? Why not assume she was niave and taken in? Presumably her family didn't have anything to say abotu it not being a good idea.

If she was 18 and had a 3yo son, she was maybe 14 when he was conceived? And she was in the care system? And now her son is dead at the hands of a relative? And people want her prosecuted?

I have no opinion on whether she should be prosecuted, and presume she did not know what was happening. But the fact remains that she did hand over her child to others who were clearly in no position to look after him either.

I'll ask again, since no-one seems to care, where was the father? There is no suggestion that he had any difficulties, where was he and his family?

BTW you can't accuse people of making up parts of the story just because you don't know much about it, having read one short article. Hasn't stopped you having an opinion though, why shouldn't someone else have a different one based one more information?

If these people were all middle class no way would anyone want the mum prosecuted. Jesus Christ hasn't she suffered enough??

I'm not accusing anyone of making anything up

I simply asked where the other information was coming from. It could be that posters knew the family or lived in the area, or could have read the local papers or anything. If it's stuff people have read in certain tabloids then it's not necessarily gospel.

This seems like a failure of our society to look after vulnerable people to me.

Demonising this woman will help no-one.

Presumably the baby's father is in prison for having sex with an underage vulnerable girl.

Hahahahahaha.

The mother was 21, not 18.

And of course the squalor and age matters! Yes repectable middle class 30 somethings can be child abusers too, but they don't tend to farm out babies to crack addicts for fag money, on the whole, as far as I know.

You can, in fact, voluuntarily place your child into care if you can't cope. I know this for a fact.

I really hate this lynch mob mentality

can't you just come away from this thanking God that you have the capacity to make better choices for your own family?

wonder how many people who have experienced the care system firsthand would choose that over a trusted friend for their own child?

People always want to blame the mother don't they.

Even when it was some other people who murdered this baby.

You see it all the time. Whenever anything happens to a child everyone screams "where was the mother???".

Child mugged on way to school - why wasn't mother walking with child or driving them?

Child goes to nursery which has an abusive member of staff "why wasn't she looking after her pre-verbal children herself?"

Child is abused by a family member "why didn't she just know? How could she let this happen".

I think it's one of these self-proteciton mechanisms to make sure that bad tihngs only happen to other people, never to "good mummies like me".

What lynch mob mentality? Having the opinion that this woman isn't up for mother of the year is hardly lynch mobbing.

Only on mumsnet do you get called so unreasonable for stating that neglecting your child (for whatever reason) is, well, neglectful.

Mental.

Ridiculous examples SONOT, its not the same thing at all.
Whatever, if you choose to believe that the mother had no responsibility whatsover towards her child, thats fine.