Teenager guilty of murder.

[placemats]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/23/teenager-guilty-baby-herefordshire-hide-pregnancy-paris-mayo

Apart from the fact that she was raped, if consent to sex is to be a legal term, I find the prosecutions allegations appalling.

'But the prosecution alleged Mayo must have known she was pregnant but chose to deliberately conceal it because she was always planning to kill the baby.'

Perhaps Mayo didn't get early abortion help she needed. I know of one woman, who had 3 previous children, who didn't realise she was pregnant, thought it was early menopause until 4 weeks before her due date. However to allege she was always planning to kill the baby is a step too far. It intimates that those in authority know this child's mind.

How strange. I read all sorts of articles on all sorts of things. Sometimes my views are changed, sometimes they’re more firmly entrenched by what I read but my knowledge has usually increased. Total incuriosity like yours isn’t something I’d want in an employee or student, partner or friend, parent or child.

It was all incorrect. The post you responded to was regarding pregnancy denial and whether the jury understood what that is. The evidence states Mayo suffered from pregnancy denial.

You then respond to that by claiming that the jury isn’t required to speculate on disorders for which there is no evidence. That’s not an answer. That’s stating that there was no evidence that Mayo had pregnancy denial, which is incorrect.

I’m not sure what views you think I ought to be changing. The argument I am putting forward here is that the conclusion of a jury which has heard all the evidence is likely to be more reliable than the conclusions of people who haven’t but are displeased by the verdict. That’s a view based on professional experience but also a firm belief in justice and fair trials. If those beliefs seem offensive or perverse to you then I am not sure your opinion of me is one I need to care about.

The point about the jury not speculating on disorders for which there is no evidence is in response to the complaint that the jury were ignorant of the disorder. It doesn’t matter if they were. They have to decide the case on the evidence before them.
I know you struggle with these sorts of points, but you can grasp that, surely?

AgathaSpencerGregson · Today 22:43
They are not permitted to speculate about disorders which there is no evidence about even if they are aware of them

This ^is* a condition recognised in medical research.

I take it you have not read the article posted by Faybian either.

When the jury was told by the judge that they could consider a verdict of Infanticide, they were not being told neonaticide is only speculation.

But the jury needed to know all about what is involved in neonaticide and under what conditions it occurs before they could know if the evidence they had been shown corresponded with that.

If the judge told the jury they could choose Infanticide, he was de facto effectively telling them there is a disorder which can be experienced through pregnancy and giving birth, which can tragically end in neonaticide.

I personally doubt though that this jury were really told the details of what this looks like.

An uninformed jury, who have to base their verdict solely on their perceptions of the evidence with only their own limited knowledge of what lies behind the evidence to go on, plus one or two words , are not able to give a just verdict imo.

If I knew this jury had had all the facts about Pregnancy Denial being a real phenomenon, and what that is like in practice, and that it can lead to neonaticide, and that neonaticide is the often violent killing of a baby - and this jury still gave a verdict of murder - then that would be more reassuring than what seems imo to have happened.

This is a terribly confused and confusing post, but it seems to come down to this; you are worried that the jury didn’t hear evidence that you (with a very shallow knowledge of the case) think is relevant. Quite why you have that worry, given we don’t know exactly what evidence was called, I don’t know.
I’ve got to be honest here; my working assumption is that competent solicitors and an experienced KC probably had a somewhat better idea of how to run the case than you. I suspect your worry is superfluous.

But even a layman can read reports on how reliable our justice system is. In the U.K., between June 2019 and March 2020, there were 1,336 successful appeals against both decisions of Magistrates’ courts and the Court of Appeal Criminal Division- 916 were criminal convictions.

Thats 3 people per day winning their appeal against a wrongful criminal conviction.

If miscarriages of justice bother you, I have to say that I don’t see how departing from the principle that cases are better decided by the people who have heard the evidence than people who haven’t is going to help?

It does matter whether or not the jury understands the evidence. Pregnancy denial was part of the evidence. Not understanding it would affect the fairness of Mayo’s trial.

Why do you think they didn’t understand it?

No one is advocating abolishing juries. Look, you’ve made your point at least a dozen times that you think juries know best and their decisions should not be questioned. You’ve stated you have no interest in reviewing the evidence thus far published. You’ve refused to give an opinion on whether you think the jury was right or wrong.

Why are you still here then? We’d like to discuss the case and our opinions on it and it would be awfully nice to be able to do so without your tedious slagging off on everything we say combined with lectures on humility and how we should just accept the murder conviction because juries always know better than we ever could.

For the usual reasons that you don’t care about.

I agree @ScrollingLeaves it’s not adding up.
Would like to read the transcript.

How odd. For someone so definite in their opinions, this is terribly vague 😆

Infanticide is the willfull killing of an infant under 12months of age by the mother who due to not being fully recovered from birth or lactation experiences a disturbance in the balance of their mind.

No one who is questioning the murder conviction thinks she is innocent of willfully killing her baby. The question is, why was she not convicted of infanticide?

AgathaSpencerGregsonToday 23:36
If miscarriages of justice bother you, I have to say that I don’t see how departing from the principle that cases are better decided by the people who have heard the evidence than people who haven’t is going to help?

Obviously, no one here thinks their concerns will change this case, or thinks that people here should cast a vote as it were to get a verdict.

People are discussing something they care about on principle. They have every right to criticise a trial using what information they can find, and informing themselves in the process about an important and little known horrific crisis that can come about in certain pregnancies.

There is so far no evidence in any of the reports we have been able to read about the trial that this jury had any idea about what Infanticide is and how it manifests itself, often starting with pregnancy denial.

"There is so far no evidence in any of the reports we have been able to read about the trial that this jury had any idea about what Infanticide is and how it manifests itself, often starting with pregnancy denial"

Apart from the fact that the verdict of infanticide was considered by the jury and rejected in favour of murder .....

"One must beware of assuming all women are innocent"

"Innocent until proven guilty"

Is the presumption of innocence only for men then? And the proof bit which we are trying to analyse here is only also for men?

She's responsible. We get it.
Now can we discuss the bits of proof based on the female body and mind which are usually dismissed by society as a whole because (repeat entire thread?)?

Oh ffs hormones don't excuse murder. I mean, look at men with all that testosterone.

A few people have mentioned what they jury might have been told about infanticide etc.

I don't know enough about the legal process - that would in part have been the job of the judge in summing up and directions to the jury, yes? But would it not in part have been the role of the defence to do this. But they're somewhat limited because Mayo had chosen to not plead guilty to infanticide, so they can't build their whole case around infanticide.

IF Mayo suffered extensive false memories to extent she is still in genuine complete denial about her role in the death of the baby, leading to her pleading not guilty, doesn't that put the defence team in a bit of bind.

The argument can't really be "she's not guilty of anything at all...but if she's guilty of something then it's infanticide".

Or do I just not understand how this works?

TW have mentioned details regarding the infants death that might be distressing

Oh yes, it would have been up to the judge to instruct the jury on the standard of proof for the verdict of infanticide.

Mayo was charged with one count of murder, and pled not guilty to murder. Usually in the time leading up to trial, women in Mayo’s situation will be advised to submit a plea of guilty to the lesser charge infanticide to CPS. If CPS accepts a guilty plea for infanticide, the trial doesn’t go forward, the woman is automatically convicted of infanticide and we go straight to sentencing.

However, not all women agree to submit a plea of guilty to the lesser charge of infanticide when awaiting trial for murder, so the trial goes forward.

The defence still can make a case for infanticide especially since there is no question as to who killed the baby. It’s established fact that Mayo killed the baby. Mayo’s defence did do this. So they weren’t in a bind, as for them they were trying to prove not guilty to murder, and using the partial defence of infanticide.

Mayo had acknowledged that logically she must have killed the baby, but insisted on her false memories being all that she remembered of what happened. I don’t know why she went forward with the murder trial, logically she should have known infanticide was the best outcome, so she should have done the guilty plea to Infanticide to avoid the murder trial.

Interestingly, the law commission has studied this irrational behaviour by women, and said that women with pregnancy denial which creates a very high risk of killing the newborn, for some reason tend to act irrationally and choose to go through with a murder trial. It’s one of their recommendations for law reform that women with pregnancy denial should be charged with infanticide not murder at the outset when the evidence and circumstances indicate infanticide is more probable than murder. Because it’s the women with the most disturbance in the balance of their minds that end up on trial for murder, whereas the women who are most balanced (or recovered) will happily agree to submit a guilty plea on the lesser charge of infanticide. So the infanticide law isn’t protecting the most vulnerable, least mentally balanced women, which is what it is supposed to do.

My musings as to why are that it appears that even during the legal process, their minds can’t really accept they intentionally killed their babies? So they have a trauma block from admitting infanticide. They may logically know they must have killed their baby, but they don’t know how or when as they believe their false memories and think it might have been all accidental…so they won’t plead guilty to infanticide because doing so means you admit you “willfully by action or omission” killed your baby- as in you killed with intent. They feel they cannot honestly admit to an intention they do not remember having.

They also try and reconcile the evidence with their memories. And Mayo exhibits some of this as she recalls using cotton wool to wipe blood that was coming out of her baby’s mouth and then when it was clear to her the baby was still born, she left some cotton wool in the mouth to soak up the blood. This is one of her false memories. There was no blood coming out the infants mouth at all per the coroner- so did she hallucinate the blood? So to Mayo the cotton wool got there as she was panicking and trying to do the right thing and she can’t reconcile her actions as she remembers them with the coroners evidence saying that the cotton wool was intentionally used to suffocate and kill.

I think on it, and think would I be happy to plead guilty to intentionally killing my baby (infanticide) if my memories tell me I had no intention to kill? If I don’t remember ever feeling homicidal towards anyone much less a baby, and such feelings are wholly out of character for me. If all I remembered was panic and trying to help the baby…even if I accepted yes I must have killed my baby, yes the psychiatrist says my memories are false and that what I remember doing is not what I did…would I also be able to agree that my memory of my feelings is also wrong, and that I intended to kill, even if I have no memory of ever feeling intent to kill?

And then could I unpack all this as a 15yr old child?

There is so far no evidence in any of the reports we have been able to read about the trial that this jury had any idea about what Infanticide is and how it manifests itself, often starting with pregnancy denial

How ridiculous! Mayo was offered the chance to plead guilty to infanticide. Do you not think her defence would have mentioned it? That the judge wouldn’t have explained it? People are clutching at ridiculous straws here.

They also try and reconcile the evidence with their memories. And Mayo exhibits some of this as she recalls using cotton wool to wipe blood that was coming out of her baby’s mouth and then when it was clear to her the baby was still born, she left some cotton wool in the mouth to soak up the blood. This is one of her false memories. There was no blood coming out the infants mouth at all per the coroner- so did she hallucinate the blood?

Is she recalling it though or is she recalling a story she constructed to explain away what happened? I know I’ve asked similar of you before, but, to me, both of those things are possibilities, and both were rightfully considered. It seems the jury weren’t convinced that she had absolutely no knowledge/memory of what she’d done.

Moreover, you mention pregnancy denial but how could Mayo tell the alleged father of the baby about the pregnancy if she had pregnancy denial? The judge said she had some pregnancy denial.

I completely accept what you’ve written above about some of the most traumatised women being disadvantaged because they won’t accept a charge of infanticide. I have every sympathy with them. But is this a category Mayo was in? It seems that the jury thought not. So why did she refuse the charge of infanticide? It would have been fully explained to her. My opinion is that she’s built a mental wall around what happened but built this and strengthened it after the death of Stanley. She’s had ample time to do that and perhaps she’s done that to allow her to function and move forward a bit. But that wasn’t the question. The question was about her frame of mind at the time of the incident. What I’m trying to say is that perhaps things weren’t clear-cut? That there was some pregnancy denial but not fully, that she has blocked out some memories but is aware of what happened although not fully accepting it?

Walkden · Today 03:34
"There is so far no evidence in any of the reports we have been able to read about the trial that this jury had any idea about what Infanticide is and how it manifests itself, often starting with pregnancy denial"

Apart from the fact that the verdict of infanticide was considered by the jury and rejected in favour of murder .....

We only know that she was charged for murder by the CPS, but before the jury retired to consider the verdict, the judge said they could consider Infanticide.

The point I was suggesting is that we have not read anything in the reports so far that would lead us to feel reassured that before retiring to consider the verdict, the jury understood the nature of Infanticide, how it comes about, how it can manifest itself, and what it has looked like in other cases.

In order to consider a verdict of Infanticide with any depth of understanding they first would need to know more about what it really is.

I am suggesting ordinary people would not know about this in the sense of understanding it. Ordinary people chosen randomly for the jury would need to be given instruction in order to understand it.

From what we have been able to read so far it is difficult to see the jury was given this.

This whole question of juries, and judges even, lacking relevant knowledge for certain types of cases, has come up in rape cases recently. I am suggesting similar here.

Unfortunately, to a few posters on this thread, any attempt to examine infanticide* is the same as excusing Mayo of her crime.

*Why infanticide rather than neonaticide, by the way? Does anyone know? Neonaticide is the killing of a baby within the first 24 hours of life, while infanticide is killing a baby up to the age of 12 months. I wondered if it was a US term but it appears we also use it here in the UK.