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.

You've never heard of post partum psychosis?

Oh so no one thinks it's more likely this was premeditated? Hmm.

It is possible it is the absence of certain hormones rather than the presence that leads to infanticide. Traumatic births are known to disrupt maternal-infant bonding in large part because the fear/pain of trauma cuts off the production of oxytocin.

We can be 100% sure that Mayo- a 15yr old girl who birthed alone, unassisted in a hostile home experienced a traumatic birth.

Oh is it common for women to brutally beat their babies to death when experiencing postpartum psychosis?

Men can get away with killing women in the UK, if they claim it was ‘rough sex’ that went wrong. But a frightened child who was scared to call for help is convicted of murder. Sorry I haven’t rtft. I’m sure others have noticed this

This is 'whataboutery'. It's totally wrong that men get away with rough sex as an excuse for murder but this is a separate issue to what is being discussed here. No one should be getting away with murder. This girl didn't just dump her newborn in a blind panic, she repeatedly assaulted him over a couple of hours, went to get some cotton wool and shoved it down his throat to make sure he was dead. That's murder, not any form of manslaughter, her age and hormonal state do not excuse it.

Me too. I hope there will be an appeal. It should have been infanticide.

Yes, if no timely intervention is done it is very common for the mother to kill her baby by a variety of methods. That is why there is such an awareness campaign to spot the signs so these women and girls can be helped.

It is possible both to condemn and feel sorry for someone. This was a child who was sexualised too early and couldn’t deal with an unwanted pregnancy. She also brutally murdered a defenceless newborn, who lost the entirety of their potential life.

You can’t just look at either side of this equation, you have to look at both (and hopefully the judge will). There is no way that you cannot give a substantial custodial sentence for this. Equally, it would be a tragedy were she just brutalised in a rough jail and not given an opportunity for rehabilitation and to be released early enough to lead a productive life in society, provided she understands and stones for what she has done.

We are too much about punishment in the Uk (IMO) but killing is as bad as it gets, particularly someone defenceless, and cannot be totally excused.

I’ll have a hunt, but I read a study that said two thirds of mothers who kill their babies in the first days of life suffered from post partum psychosis.

Hormones are not an excuse for this. As people said above, maternal hormones cause bonding, not murderous rage. As for post-partum psychosis, there is zero evidence for this and I don’t think she even tried to use it as a defence.

Young men experience jealous rages due to a combination of testosterone and cortisol. However, not many would try and defend them for violence against their partner using this excuse. It has actually been proven that violent offenders have higher testosterone levels than non violent offenders. However, they belong in jail, not excused as it was their hormones.

This is a difficult case and I hope the judge can get a proper psychiatric report which can guide his sentencing.

Another way to look at Mayo’s four years of insisting the baby did not cry and did not move and died shortly after birth is that she is deluded due to being dissociated from reality during and after the birth- as in in a psychotic break. So she’s totally unaware of reality, her actions and her surroundings until the baby has died. When they asked her about the cotton wool, she responds that ‘I must have used it to….’ Because she genuinely has no memory of it.

And when you have no memory of killing a baby, you’re not going to be showing appropriate emotions to a jury of remorse and horror because none of it feels real. You think you’re innocent.

Just a possible scenario. No idea why no psychiatrist saw her right after it happened? But being only 15 that would have been her mum’s decision and why didn’t mum care enough to ensure it? What was mum afraid Mayo might say to a psychiatrist about her home life?

As for post-partum psychosis, there is zero evidence for this…

And why is that? Because her mum prevented her from seeing a psychiatrist right after it happened. The absence of evidence, doesn’t mean she didn’t have post partum psychosis and frankly, it’s 2:1 odds that she had it rather than not.

Always grasping at bloody straws to defend women who do evil things here.

I can see the link too. I think it’s about the way we deal with the crimes of children in the U.K. which is notably barbaric.

@Offwegotosleep ,

Do you feel the same about Jamie Bulger’s killers who were far younger and, arguably, more let down by society?

Oh no, not the same because 'hormones.'

we are all speculating about mental state; I suspect the judge’s sentencing remarks will shed more light.

A very unpopular opinion, but yes even in extreme cases I think children who commit crime should be treated therapeutically not punitively.

Newbutoldfather · Today 17:46
Offwegotosleep ,

Do you feel the same about Jamie Bulger’s killers who were far younger and, arguably, more let down by society?

Your last sentence.
Yes, probably.
What those little boys did was inconceivably heinous, but I never understood how so many people saw them as independent spawn of the very Devil himself, pure evil incarnate, rather than children produced by a family and for whom something must have gone horrendously wrong, not least the leaving of them to mill around alone in a vacuum.

We never hear of what really made them as they were, or what if anything was done to try to heal whatever it was wrong with them.

Though people could say bad things happen to lots of children and they didn’t kill a toddler, either they will have gone another route and killed themselves or become addicts to harm themselves, or there will have been somebody or something somewhere in their lives that helped redeemed them enough to make their lives better.

Forgive me if you disagree, but I have this point of view from reading books by the psychologist Alice Miller who no doubt has not got everything perfectly right but who has profound insight into the lives of children.

@ScrollingLeaves ,

I think the problem is that virtually every criminal was a victim at some point in their lives, but people are very selective which they sympathise with. Is it age, sex (people are a lot more sympathetic to women and girls) or other factors? Few on here would be sympathetic with men who brutally beat up their partners, regardless of the fact that they may have suffered horrendous abuse as children themselves (and have raging testosterone and cortisol).

I do think that, at some point, people have to take responsibility for their actions and, if they are bad enough, need to be locked up, both as punishment and deterrence.

Where I do agree is that I think our prison system is far too much about punishment and far too little about rehabilitation.

People do need the chance to redeem themselves, not be further brutalised in prison, and renter society having paid for their crimes. I am a supporter of the Swedish model in that respect.

It is. And 10 years old is a shocking age for criminality in my opinion.

Mary Bell - no longer her name - still remains the youngest female to be tried. She was 11 years old and suffered horrendous abuse. Her mother probably didn't want her after she was born, by all accounts. I won't link as Mary's introduction into this world was horrendous.

Sorry what are you on about. It is not common in any sense of the word. Only 4 percent of women with postpartum psychosis go on to murder their child. Even them there is an issue with determining intent from illness.

After the birth of my third child, I was in a private room. I locked the door to the bathroom and it was opened by a midwife who said locked rooms could indicate danger to the child. I was shocked. I would never have harmed him. I just wanted some privacy when cleaning myself.

Newbutoldfather · Today 18:36

ScrollingLeaves ,

I think the problem is that virtually every criminal was a victim at some point in their lives, but people are very selective which they sympathise with. Is it age, sex (people are a lot more sympathetic to women and girls) or other factors? Few on here would be sympathetic with men who brutally beat up their partners, regardless of the fact that they may have suffered horrendous abuse as children themselves (and have raging testosterone and cortisol).

Agreed, but we were talking about children in this case, including the Bulger murderers, when there might still be time to find out what went wrong and help.

No it isn't whataboutery. The point is that women are raped and killed every week in the UK and their rapists (and less often, it's true) their murderers get away with it. A woman (girl, in this case) does something wrong and gets the book thrown at her.