Mother left her 6 children at home alone and went to Australia

There is really no excuse for that sort of behaviour. Thankfully the young man was mature enough to call for help.

And thank goodness the children had grandparents! Although I can't help but wonder whether the mother knew they'd step in to look after them if she just left.

I am past the stage of being surprised at how some parents behave. Seen and know too much.

How bizarre.

Agree with soontobe not much surprises me either.

I suppose they have to give the mother some sort of jail sentence, as abandoning children is an awful offence.

The children are now living with the grandparents, thank goodness for GRANDPARENTS!!

Nothing surprises me anymore either.

I do though feel so sorry for the children in this case.

I would not have called the police if I had been the grandparents. That is unless I was already hostile to the mother for some reason.

I wonder if they were maternal or paternal.

She may have been having a breakdown for instance. We dont know enough about her or her family.

Perhaps the grandparents were worried about the mother - presumably she hadn't told anyone where she was going. She'd have been a missing person as far as they knew.

I'm afraid this is not an unusual scenario. This mother went further and for longer than most, but I have known quite a few such incidents and the mothers have rarely been given anything so serious as a suspended prison sentence.

I think the grandparents did not live locally so perhaps they phoned the police because they were worried about the children's safety and couldn't get there quickly. It's very sad but I'm glad the children are safe with grandparents.

I'm glad they're safe and with grandparents. And as usual it's the mother who gets all the bad press. Who knows what life was like for her? And where was the dad? She had 6 children to look after.

I gather the grandparents were her parents. She is pregnant with a seventh child.

How worried the grandparents must be. My hat goes off to them for taking on their six grandchildren.

The mother sounds like a troubled soul.

I do feel sorry for the mother and I agree that fathers in these situations are often invisible and seem to get off scot free, but I feel even more sorry for the children who must have felt very scared. Thank goodness nothing happened to them before they got help. I'm not judging the mother - perhaps she had asked for help and felt desperate - but I have to think about the children first and foremost.

Very often when tragedies happen to children social workers are criticised for identifying too closely with the parents and not keeping their focus on the children. This case could have easily become another such tragedy.

I wouldn't be happy being left to care for 6 DGC. I'm not sure I could cope

Poor lad is old enough to know mum abandoned them for what ever reason. It could have an affect him for a long time bless him.

It might be difficult to press a charge of abandonment as such, as the UK definitions used to be quite particular. I haven't got time to look them up right now though.

I just found this nellie from a report published by Action for Children in 2013.

www.actionforchildren.org.uk/media/5178586/criminal_law_and_child_neglect.pdf

From the report:

Abandonment is an out-dated term with no reported prosecution since 1957

Seems like this case has been very unusual in that respect!

She apparently told the older boy that she was going to the supermarket!! So he had no idea he was being left to care for the others. Sorry, she may have problems but her first priority should be her children, if she wanted to travel to Australia to see someone she had met online, then she should have made arrangements for her children first.

Even when contacted in Australia she refused to come back before the 6 weeks were up!!

Oh, how I longed to do that sometimes! But of course, I never did because I was a Responsible Parent.

Some people don't deserve to have children. Life is unfair sometimes.

Birmingham Mail reports that she was pregnant with No. 7.

^Judge Creed said the children had been brought up in "a satisfactory and supportive way throughout their lives so far".

"You've cared for them against a difficult background", he said.

"You didn't appreciate you'd done anything wrong and were not prepared to return."^

BBC News

How could she possibly afford the air fare to Australia?