Louise Woodward The Killer Nanny. did she do it?

[HeckinMiffed]

This was such a huge case when I was younger. Anyone else watching?
I always thought she didnt deliberately kill the baby.

I don’t think you can go on the defendant’s demeanour. Too often, and I can only think of cases involving women, the media or general public decide a woman is guilty based on her behaviour or apparent lack of emotion. Shock, immaturity, just being a bit unusual to begin with, are all potential explanations.

I think Amanda Knox was one such case but on the male side I think Christopher Jefferies was another one, everyone seemed to think he was odd so he must be guilty. It is so dangerous to jump to conclusions but people do.

Back when it happened I wondered if the older brother had hurt the baby accidentally.

i watched the trial at the time i thought she was inniocent

I followed this case closely when it happened. I thought she was innocent then and I still do. I think it's disgusting that its all being raked up again.

@ILoveYou3000
Thanks watching the other 2 episodes now

@FlyingPandas

I remember this case so well and remember feeling so sad for poor baby Matthew and so sad for Louise Woodward.

Sad for his parents, too, but they exploited an inexperienced 19yo girl for cheap labour when they should have paid for a properly qualified nanny. I remember thinking way back then that they could surely never have genuinely felt that what they were doing was appropriate.

Would you honestly and truly leave your toddler and baby in the care of an inexperienced 19yo for hours on end for days at a time as a permanent arrangement? No, of course you wouldn't. You might employ them as an evening babysitter, perhaps, or an au pair - a proper au pair, who does a small amount of childcare/chores in return for bed and board. You don't employ them as a nanny.

The Eappens are to be desperately pitied for the death of their son, you wouldn't wish that on anyone. But they also deserve judgement for exploiting a teenager for cheap labour.

That’s what I thought at the time @FlyingPandas, she wasn’t qualified to look after a baby and toddler for hours on end, days at a time. I remember thinking if she did cause the fatal injuries, it likely wasn’t deliberately. As the parents were doctors, surely they’d have noticed if she tended to handle the baby too roughly? With hindsight, it seemed like a tragedy waiting to happen.☹️

@Thatsplentyjack

I just watched it. I was only 7 when this happened but I remember it. I just read some really interesting things on Wikipedia about it. After reading that I don't know what to believe. The child's injuries apparently weren't consistent with shaken baby, but then he had a fracture on the skull. Apparently with the advances in technology they have now they know that some infections and even a stroke in the womb can cause the internal injuries poor little Matthew had.

There were no bruises on the child anywhere which would have been the case had he been shaken.

Remembering watching the verdict live on Sky News (don’t think we’d ever had a live verdict on UK tv before). The gasps when the word “guilty” was uttered was unreal. The defence had taken out manslaughter as an option as they didn’t want to give the jury an ‘out’ (if in any doubt they tend to go for the middle ground). So it was either murder, or innocent. A few jury members have come out since and said they weren’t satisfied with the verdict. They knew she wasn’t guilty of murder, but they didn’t think she was totally innocent either. The judge knew the verdict was obscene hence gave her a sentence of time served. On a side note only a year later I could have sworn I saw LW in Liverpool.

It was another extremely high profile, emotive event on live TV only about 8 weeks after Diana’s funeral was broadcast (the week before the funeral remember staying up awaiting news of the extent of her injury in the car crash). People were already emotional after Diana so this case just ramped it up further. The next major event in terms of spike in viewership would be 9/11.

I think its appalling to compare Matthews parents to the mccans.

@wanttomarryamillionaire

I followed this case closely when it happened. I thought she was innocent then and I still do. I think it's disgusting that its all being raked up again.

I completely agree with this.

What sort of person employs an unqualified teenager to look after their baby for extraordinarily long hours?
Those parents were wealthy professionals and could well afford a qualified nanny.

That's not how it works in the US (or the UK for that matter) apart from perhaps uber rich families who may hire a nanny from some place like Norland..

American and British nannies alike are not necessarily trained in any aspect of childcare apart from perhaps a first aid certificate.

I was an aupair aged 19...to a six week old.
Fortunately, I had had a lot of experience from looking after my baby sister.
The baby's mum, however, at the end of my 2 month stint, dropped the 14 week old in the paddling pool by mistake and also placed him on a hammock, where he rolled off onto concrete.
The whole extended family were witnesses to both and basically said, how is he going to make it into childhood without Nicki?
The Dad was furious about the hammock and really tore a strip off his wife (in fluent French) along the lines of a 19 year old having more sense than her.
So my sympathies went to Louise to a degree, having been there, done that - it is a huge responsibility for little pay. I was there to be part of the family, so had two wards between 8 and 12 and 1 and 5.
Still, eight hours a day for board, lodging and about 25 pounds a week spending money was nonetheless exploitative.
The older sibling in my case was very jealous and always trying to hurt the newborn so I really had to be vigilant.
I often think of what might have been, had the hammock incident had repercussions and no witnesses. I was present but not on duty as I had the weekends free, and was there for family lunch with the sibling on my knee. I think you are very vulnerable in that set-up though and wouldn't want my own daughter to be in that position now.

Louise is married with a seven year old.
It must be horrendous for her to have this come up again and again and the paps taking her photo for the Fail.
She was served with a civil suit iirc so cannot even put her story or her experience retrospectively into print.
There are worse cases with convicted criminals - Maxine Carr springs to mind, who have more protection and are allowed to live anonymously. Louise should be afforded the same.

I agree @NickiMinajerie

@mathanxiety

What sort of person employs an unqualified teenager to look after their baby for extraordinarily long hours? Those parents were wealthy professionals and could well afford a qualified nanny.

That's not how it works in the US (or the UK for that matter) apart from perhaps uber rich families who may hire a nanny from some place like Norland..

American and British nannies alike are not necessarily trained in any aspect of childcare apart from perhaps a first aid certificate.

Yes, but that’s why you check references carefully and perhaps employ someone more experienced for such young children. Doctors earn ALOT here in the US and could definitely afford a more qualified caregiver or nursery fees.

If I was leaving my baby and toddler in the care of someone full time I would make sure they had more than a first aid certificate. If it is true that no qualifications are required in USA that is pretty shocking. I was under the impression that childminders and nannies in the uk do have to be trained and registered.

What sort of person employs an unqualified teenager to look after their baby for extraordinarily long hours?

Somebody with champagne tastes but a lemonade budget.

I am on a couple of Canadian physician mom FB groups, and a sizeable minority seem to have Filipino nanny-housekeepers, who are working for not much more than bed and board, and are expected to look after multiple kids, do all the housework, cook meals, and are then being moaned about on FB because they haven’t done anything enriching with the 8 month old.

It’s a really distasteful combination of stinginess and being a terrible nit-picky employer.

I was in a similar position to LW, although "just" SIDS, no signs of me or anyone else having done anything wrong. Oh, and I was a trained nanny, which made f all difference on the day.

I didn't cry, or anything at all. I now think I must've been in shock.

I was very calm speaking to the police, and everyone else, for months after.

Then someone else I knew (not very well) died about 4 months later, and it was as if a dam burst. I cried and cried and it felt as if I would never stop. The initial feelings were terrifying, and I think I couldn't even process it all.

I've no idea about her case, and no intention of watching the programme, but just wanted to say how angry it makes me when people make assumptions , as pps have said, about women who don't react enough, or too much.

After that initial 4 months this has affected every part of my life for decades. No all day, every day, but it undoubtedly changed the way I saw life, motherhood, and my own abilities as an adult. There are even some small every day moments that can make me physically sick because they happened that day too.

I've never said anything about it to anyone before, but some of the comments on here just proved some kind of last straw.

@chestnutSquash

What sort of person employs an unqualified teenager to look after their baby for extraordinarily long hours? Those parents were wealthy professionals and could well afford a qualified nanny. Au pairs are not supposed to work even full time hours. If those parents were not rich and upper class they would probably have been accused of neglect IMO.

Unfortunately very wealthy people often seem to be extremely miserly and exploitative of the poor. Been there done that. Reminds me of when I was looking for an aupair job and was offered one which involved looking after a 2 year old for 12 hours a day while the parents were at work, and then talking English to the (French) parents when they came home. For 20 pence an hour.

I was an Au Pair in the US around the same time. I had lots of babysitting experience. It couldn’t have prepared me for looking after an 18 month old and a 3 year old from 7.30am to 5/6pm alone every day. I had no car and couldn’t walk anywhere as there were no pavements, so I was stuck in the house the whole time too. All for 75 dollars a week. I became very depressed and left after several weeks. The family I was with looked down on people who used daycare. But were happy to leave their small children with a teenager they’d just met.

You would think a couple of doctors would have a little bit of common sense. A little bit of an idea of the responsibility of looking after a tiny baby and a toddler. It just seems really odd.

Just on the qualifications, and age of carers, I really don't know that it makes a difference in this kind of situation.

Either she did it - in which case maybe there's a small chance that she did something she didn't know was a bad idea - or she didn't, or it was an accident.

If she didn't do it, nothing she knew already would've helped on the day. If a baby is grizzly, it can be very difficult for anyone to decipher at what point you involve a trip to the doctor.

If someone else did something, again, she couldn't have helped.

If she truly thought it was OK to shake, or anything else, then that would be the one time you might be better off with someone with experience.

But I've known nannies who were extremely harsh/ distant from their charges. All while wearing a uniform.

Maybe a Nanny would've known more signs of the parents were being careless or abusive.

I need to stop now, probably shouldn't even have opened the thread.

So in the US just to give context, employing a ‘babysitter’ in what in the UK would be a full time nanny position is not uncommon. You don’t have quite the same checks. I remember being appalled that my friends would look for an emergency nanny on a FB group and leave their kids with them (East Coast US here). DH and I used daycares but a combination of almost no maternity leave and very little annual leave means that daycares take from a v young age. The rest of the profession is very unregulated. Certainly say nothing like OFSTED for childminders etc.

I do think a trained nanny would have picked up signs of head injury or previous injuries/ abuse, or would have known when to seek advice. I wouldn't expect an inexperienced teenager to have much clue. I certainly wouldn't at that age.

He had a mixture of new and old injuries both to his brain and his wrist. A Dr in the trial said it could have been weeks old in his brain and had started to bleed again. So why the nanny and not anyone else involved in his care? Is it simply because she's the one who called the ambulance and the parents say she was behaving irresponsibly (aka like a teen who is being exploited)?