The Trial of Louise Woodward

[purpleme12]

Did anyone watch this?
I'm watching it now
It seems they suddenly changed the options for convicting for murder or manslaughter or not guilty to murder or not guilty?
I don't know how the American system works
Why did they do that?
Why can they decide to take away one option midway through?
It then says they've gone through all the trial with 16 people on the jury but then they take 4 people out so they can't vote?! I don't understand

Nobody knows how Matthew died ,I don't think Louise killed him ,but that's my opinion , possibly something happened and she wasn't attentive as she should have been but who knows ,but yes I do think it's incredibly irresponsible ,of BOTH parents to employ a young inexperienced girl to care for their very young children.

@Pallisers I can’t talk for anyone else but no i meant the parents not just the mother

And I’ve certainly not forgotten that a baby died but a young girl who may well have been completely innocent also had her life turned upside down and is still being talked about now, she’ll never escape the gossiping and scrutiny of what happened.

I remember watching the case at the time. It's one of the reasons why I am against televised court hearings.

Awful case. My personal belief at the time was that she was not guilty but much of that may be down to my not so unconscious bias in that she was a young, white English girl being torn to pieces in an American court.

But yes, agree that an unqualified, inexperienced 18 year old girl has no business having sole, full day charge of someone else's toddler and a young baby. To me it highlights the lack of maternity leave, child linked benefits and flexible working arrangements in the US that meant that the parents felt that this was their only childcare option.

@THisbackwithavengeance
Agree but with both parents doctors I doubt very much that a nanny or nursery wasn’t feasible

[quote Frazzled2207]@THisbackwithavengeance
Agree but with both parents doctors I doubt very much that a nanny or nursery wasn’t feasible[/quote]
Young doctors paying back huge student loans.

Fair point but they weren’t as young as all that.

I stand by my earlier point that none of us here would consider leaving two very young children with an inexperienced teenager that we barely knew.

She was young, inexperienced and naive. I think it’s possible she was somehow technically responsible for the death (also possibly the parents). However no way was LW a murderer.

I didn't have any children at the time but now years later, I fully understand how difficult and inappropriate that age gap would have been for such an inexperienced teenager.

I do remember a lot of talk about how she came across at trial. It was almost like she was being tried for her demeanor in court.

I remember the case at the time. There was a lot of support for Louise and I think the attitude was that the parents were looking for someone to blame. I didn't get the impression that people were necessarily assuming the parents were guilty, but just that Louise was innocent. I think one theory was that the older brother had accidentally caused an injury (which the parents may have suspected).

babies that age, just mobile, have accidents all the time.
I remember my mindee (and later my dc) having a lot of bruises.

I remember following this case. I wasn’t much older than Louise Woodward was at the time. I have to say I thought she got off very lightly.

Matthew Eappen was chunky 8 month old at the time so not a fragile tiny baby. It takes some force to create the injuries he had. He wasn’t walking.

We all know babies roll off the bed, hit their heads on things when crawling, you can accidentally hit their heads on doorframes when walking through them while holding them (I did that with DS at 5 days old and was devastated!) but they are fine.

IIRC Mathew’s mum was working part time and there were some issues with her behaviour before this. Maybe they wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt rather than send her home?

If Louise was capable of moving across the world on her own, she was capable of deciding looking after two young children was too much for her and she was an adult with free will. I don’t get why people are castigating the parents for employing her . It was hardly like she was an illegal immigrant with no choice but to work for them.

The fact Matthew had older injuries shows a pattern that made her look more guilty IMO. I don’t think they were proven to have occurred before she started working for them but I’m happy to be corrected?

His parents set up a foundation after Matthew’s death to raise awareness of shaking babies. The website is still running now.

Louise qualified as a lawyer so the Law Society as it then was obviously took the view that she was innocent - of murder at least, if not of negligence. I thought she was innocent at the time but didn't see this programme.

There were a lot of these cases - there were all the ones about women harming their own children too - Sally Clarke, Tripti Patel to name but two.

So called experts destroyed womens' lives (notice how it was always women, too?)

Awful awful thread. This was a real baby who died and a real mother and father whose baby died

Yes the baby died. But that doesn't mean that Louise killed him, either negligently or deliberately and that is what the thread is about.

I don't know much about the trial but on the jury point - trials are incredibly expensive to run. If you ran a trial for weeks or months and then one of the jury died you'd have to start again! So they often have alternate jurors who are ready to step in if there is an issue, so that they don't have to restart the trial.

Yes the baby died. But that doesn't mean that Louise killed him, either negligently or deliberately and that is what the thread is about.

Actually the thread seems to be equally about how negligent the parents were to hire an au pair as it is about whether she killed the baby.

I remember the trial from the time and watched the documentary. However Matthew's mother always gave me the chills. I could never put my finger on it.

I also looked into going to au pair in America. I remember we had a woman come from the British agency who would arrange for you to go over. I queried about being left all day with young children at just turned 18 as an au pair is more a baby sitter than a nanny.

I ended up refusing to go any further with it.

@Pallisers

Yes the baby died. But that doesn't mean that Louise killed him, either negligently or deliberately and that is what the thread is about.

Actually the thread seems to be equally about how negligent the parents were to hire an au pair as it is about whether she killed the baby.

Yes it is but I'm now a mother ,I remember how hard it was to have sole responsibility of a baby and a toddler I was 36 when my youngest was born I was far more responsible as a 36 year old than an 18 year old but it was still bloody hard She was a young naive 18 year old girl in country thousands of miles away from home and clearly the parents had some concerns about her ability to care for their very young children ,but they carried on none of us know what really happened but maybe Matthew wouldn't have died had a qualified nanny being looking after him and his brother

@EnjoyingTheSilence

She was an au pair, not a nanny and should never have had sole charge of children that young.

Can’t stand the way she was on trial in the media and obviously still is.

I agree with this.

The programme explained that there were 4 additional jurors in case any of the other jurors got ill or dismissed for whatever reason. The ones not included were chosen at random and unfortunately for Louise (according to her lawyer) were the ones who had scientific backgrounds and most likely to find her not guilty.

They also explained that the au pair agency's insurance was paying Louise's legal fees, hence the expensive lawyers. Not sure if that would have covered an appeal, but I expect that once she got home she never wanted to go back to America again!

I remember the trial at the time and my mum watched it avidly whilst I was at school. She was adamant the family were in the wrong as there was evidence of how uncaring they were and the fact that the house was so cold during the day that Louise had to wear her dressing gown over her clothes as she wasn't allowed to turn the heating on when the parents were out at work. Having lived in MA, it gets very cold and I don't know anyone who wouldn't have their heating on when it got that cold!

FWIW I thought the evidence pointed to it being natural causes as there's since been lots of cases of shaken baby that have proved to not be the case.

Whatever the truth, I hope that everyone involved managed to find some peace.

Is this this the same program as the one currently on Channel 4?

No this was on itv

I have to say I thought she got off very lightly

Whether guilty or innocent, I suspect that she thinks of Matthew every single day, as will the baby's family, and will do so for the rest of her life. What happened, and we can only speculate, has cast a very dark shadow over all of them.

If it was an historic injury,were the parents ever questioned?

More recent discussion here following Channel 4 programme

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/telly_addicts/4449355-Louise-Woodward-The-Killer-Nanny-did-she-do-it