This feels really unsettling

[CroydianSlip]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-56860846

I can't quite unpick my feelings on this but I read the mitigation speech and agree with a lot of it.

I don’t think anyone has mentioned racism yet but it seems likely to be relevant imo.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

I don’t think anyone has mentioned racism yet but it seems likely to be relevant imo.

I agree - we are making an assumption about hot tub mother but I bet we're right. Race and class definitely come into it.

@Kotatsu

Given that women can be and are being, prosecuted for not doing enough to stop their partner abusing their kids intentionally, how on earth are the fathers of these poor children escaping prosecution, when the mothers aren't, for accidents?

In these cases the fathers weren't at the house when it happened.

I do wonder however in cases where a child has died following sustained maternal abuse where parents have separated but the father chooses to have little or no contact why they aren't also charged. I remember for example that awful case where a little boy starved to death and other children had been kept permanently indoors, the father was weeping and wailing about it, despite never actually checking on children he knew were there.

So far as prosecutions for failing to stop abuse, sorry but that deserves it.

I think the sentence is definitely unduly harsh and she should not get a custodial sentence, this is not what prison is for.

What about where parents have overlaid their baby when under the influence? Or sat on a sofa when extremely tired and the baby has slipped into the cushions. Or where bumpers and mobiles are used in a cot, where grapes aren't halved. When a child scoots ahead at a road crossing or runs after a ball and their hand should have been held? So many horrible things result in the loss of a child and many could have been avoided if greater care had been taken but we usually recog use the very worst has happened to that parent and punishment is in no one's best interests.

There's either a while catalogue of previous safeguarding concerns, in which case there should be a SCR and the agencies and professionals who knew there was a risk of this should also be investigated, or there wasn't and this was a tragic mistake with horrific consequences.

Utterly pointless to send that mother to prison. What purpose will it serve? She will be suffering enough.

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s very easy to see where they went wrong, but I think it’s a rare parent that’s never done anything stupid or risky with their kids, and thankfully there’s usually no harm done.

Both mothers were negligent, but they were also unlucky, it wasn’t their intention to hurt their children.

I don't think a middle class white woman would have been jailed.

I saw this case and too was really surprised by the jail sentence.

Simply off the top of my head I can remember a UK news story about a dad who's twin daughters both drowned in the garden pond under his supposed watch.

I remember a story about a mum who left her two children alone in a shallow bath while she partied with her friends downstairs, the older child turned the tap on which drowned the baby.

I remember stories about parents leaving their babies in the car in the hot summer sun then their babies died from overheating.

In none of the above cases did the parent go to jail.

I think what happened here was that the mother lied and tried to cover up her actions rather than admit guilty straight away. I think she tried to cover her tracks and that's the main issue. But it's nonetheless an absolute tragedy.

GNQC where does it say that the mother lied?

It says that she called paramedics straight away and tried to resuscitate the baby. And that she said that the accident was 'her fault' as she's left the baby for four minutes thinking that he would be safe, though didn't mention the phone to the doctors.

I think what happened here is a manifestation of the structural racism and classism embedded in the CJS that sees young, mixed raced lone parent women as feckless and incompetent and in need of being taught a lesson. Because they're a bit thick as well.

While the mother of the toddler who drowned in a hot tub (because the lid wasn't on securely) is portrayed as one of the victims of a tragic accident, which is clearly is. Somehow, her love for her baby was accepted by the court as mitigating evidence, and is very prominent in the media coverage, an element strikingly missing from the first case.

Both tragic accidents which both women will have to live with for the rest of their lives. Neither deserve a custodial sentence.

It said it in the BBC article

Oh yes, that's the bit that the BBC has chosen to print from the whole court hearing.

As I said in my first post, very different representation of the Court case of that in which the baby drowned in a hot tub because the lid hadn't been fastened properly.