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 think subtances/drugs do make a difference because they have different affects.

Being stoned on anything makes you a less affective carer but some drugs make people violent.

Weed doesnt tend to but synthetic skunk is more likely to.

Someone gouching on smack isnt going to give much of toss about a toddler playing with knives but they are not likely to punch them in the head either.

Crack and meth do make people violent and unpredictable. The high from crack is much shorter than from coke so users tend to get to the narky stage much quicker.

What the mother did was against the law. This was a case of private fostering and you have to infrom the authorities now (to prevent this sort of thing from happening).

If she had left her child with her mother or sister she wouldnt have had to inform anyone as this falls outside the new laws.

Of course the mother is culpable in this case. She left her kid with two people who were incapable of looking after him and then left them to it. But they killed him.

Call me a cynic but she will be telling her 'tragic story' in Take A Break in the next few weeks. No doubt she will be the victim.

I dont know why this gets to me more than anything else but the thought of that little boy wetting himself with fear just undoes me.

ImSoNotTelling, the question you have failed to answer is: would you leave your DC in the care of a 24yr old non-relative crack addict?

I don't think anyone thinks you are wrong to leave them with your parents - but how can you possibly compare your father's liking for a few glasses of wine in the evenings, which as you tell us, does nothing more than make him more chatty, with the crack addiction of a disaffected young man, which rendered him a murderer?

And, if you had left your child with a non related crack addict - for a month - and the child had come to harm - would you blame other people for saying you had (unintentionally perhaps) neglected your child?

As I read it, she left her child with a well-known relative, and I have not seen any reports that the woman was a crack addict.

The crack did not make them kill the child, the fact that they were murdering bastards made them kill the child.

And is there a need for quotation marks around 'tragic story'? Culpable or not - this woman lost her son.

DreamsinBinary OK leaving aside the crack for a moment - Have you seen the squalor that this child was left in - the mother must have realised that there was some risk in leaving a 3 year old in a filthy disgusting bedsit? How is that caring?

If she really knew the relative then would she not be able to see how she was with looking after children?

To leave a child for about a month? Would you not check out what the partner was like too??????

To leave a child and pay someone 20 to 40 quid a week?

It is all about the risk - she took a massive risk, she did not read her child's cues.

The mother and the "carers" are indefensible.

Yes, we have all seen the squalid flat. Thee are some excellent posts below that explain well that a) dirt does not equal murderers and b) the mother may not have had any better in her life to compare it with - that such living was normalised to her

There is no reason to doubt she really knew the realtive. People live with/marry/work with murderers and never guess. If only it were that easy to 'know'.

I don't understand what £20-40 a week has to do with anything?

But it is all about risk - not about second guessing whether your child might be murdered but taking steps to try keep your child safe and nurtured.

The poor child did not get to choose these carers- it was up to the mother to select the appropriate carers and assess the risk.

Leaving you precious 3 year old in a cramped squalid one room bedsit (leaving aside the trip hazards) with the male cocaine addict for over night stays, someone who had a previous conviction for battery ???

All 3 (mother, so called cousin and crack addict had been hanging out together too - according to some reports).

Paying a illegal wage to carers. Yes it matters.

I would not be leaving my child with a male I did not know.

She could have asked for help - she chose not to.

"The court heard that it was also agreed that Miss Hancox would visit Ryan each day, although she subsequently failed to visit him for two or three days at a time."

Home decoration can be so all-consuming.

chegirl that is the bit that is haunting me too. Actually makes me feel sick and has put me off my food today, and makes me want to weep. Interesting that it's the same bit that gets to you. Poor poor boy.

Oh I didn't know about that They'll find out soon enough that karma's a bitch

dreamsinbinary I really hope you aren't in social work, but I'm starting to understand the sort of mentality that leads professionals to repeatedly miss warning signs.
Child in care of teenage relative under a care order, crack addict boyfriend, dirty squalid bedsit (so child sleeping where?), dogs, paid peanuts by haphazardly visiting mother, covered in bruises.
Yet anyone who puts all that together and suggests its very bad is guilty of stereotyping and judging and being an alround nasty type. much better to do nothing while children die, beaten and starved to death I suppose?

Runnybottom you speak more sense than everyone else on this thread put together

What about the parents whose children were abused by that nursery care worker in Portsmouth? Were they all negligent? Shouldn't they have realised she was a filthy paedophile?

As so many others have said, if the CPS haven't prosecuted then presumably there's no case to answer. And I absolutely agree with the people asking why the dad isn't getting the same amount of grief.

The mother was young and struggling and she trusted her cousin to care for her child. It really doesn't matter if she saw him every day or not - if you trust someone to look after them then presumably they are as capable for 40 hours as they are for four. She has paid the highest price you could possibly pay for that trust.

Yes, runnybottom, much better

No, I'm not in social work. I have no idea how much those who are in social work were involved with this case.

LadyBiscuit, the two cases really don't compare. When a parent drops off a child at nursery, they know that the nursery workers are crb checked, trained and experienced child carers, working under the supervision of more experienced and professional colleagues. They also know that they will be returning in a few hours to take the child home.

Ok, so even with all those measures in place, In the nursery trust can (and has) been breached. But leaving a child at a day nursery for a few hours is surely a far far lower risk than leaving a child with this irresponsible, drug abusing couple in a hovel of a bedsit, for a whole month.

dreams I am the mother of a child struggling to live with the after affects of neglect I am also the mother of a dead child.

Tell me about tradgedy.

This woman is not blameless. She left her child with a 'friend' not a well known relative. A friend she knew was living with acrack head in a filthy bedsit.

Living in dirt does not make you killer.

But if this mother was struggling to look after her own child in a three bedroomed house why did she think unrelated, troubled, inexperienced drug users living in inadequate accomadation would do a better job?

Who knows Che? It's a desperately sad story.

I'm sorry that you have known so much tragedy.

I am not sorry I picked up on 'tragic story'. Stupid or not, cousin or not, negligent or not - her son has been murdered.

Of course its sad, horribly sad. I do not deny this mother will have to live with the awful guilt for the rest of her life. I do not doubt that she loved her little boy.

But neglect is neglect however much sympathy we have for someone.

If someone kills their children because they get in a car when they are pissed I would feel their pain but they would still be responsible.

She let him down and he suffered terribly.

The tragic comment (which I admited was cynical) is because so often when these stories are retold the teller places themself in the role of helpless victim. I really do not feel this woman is a helpless victim in this case.

I agree with runnybottom.

The signs were all there and for whatever reason the mother failed to protect her child.

I'm assuming the father was estranged? He has also failed in his duty of care to the child.

They failed to provide their son with suitable, appropriate and safe care.

They have paid the ultimate price and for me it ends there. But they will have to live with that for the rest of their lives.

Runnybottom has said all I would have liked to in a far more succinct manner.

telegraph article

No doubt someone will get on and flame me for posting this.

Oh and it mattered that the mother failed to see her son every day, and I find it astounding that someone finds it acceptable for a mother to abandon her child, and then say - well social services found there was not a case to answer, or compare this case to the parents who left their children at a nursery and whose children were abused while in care.

Poor Ryan could not shop around - he did not know any better - he only had one mother and one father and they both let him down terribly.

"After losing touch for five years, they bumped into each other in a Wolverhampton street in 2008 and quickly rekindled their friendship."

It appears that she didn't know her "cousin" all that well.

I think the reason she wasn't put on trial was because the CPS thought that a jury might not find her guilty as she has suffered enough.

I think she was neglegent in her actions.

poor poor little boy.

rip lovely boy.

what is really sad that none of these people viewed the situation as an abnormal, wrong or possibly harmful situation. This was probably 'normal'life to them. The mother did in a way neglect her chlid - whether she couldn't cope or was depressed and desperate are all mitigating factors. What is awful is that children are being brought into this kind of world and that it is all being normalised.