Baby P's mother to be released

OakDryad

^It was reported at the time that the then Attorney General considered referring the sentence to the Court of Appeal for being unduly lenient – but it seems no such referral was ever made, no doubt because the sentence was appropriate for the offence for which Connolly was actually convicted [which was ]“causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable person” – not murder or manslaughter.

I urge people to read this ...

davidallengreen.com/2022/05/the-lord-chancellors-extraordinary-tweet-about-the-tracey-connelly-case/

... and then consider what Raab's motives are for being disingenous.

Thanks for the link OakDryad. It shows:
Tracy Connolly was subject to indefinite imprisonment for public protection after being convicted of causing or allowing the death of a vulnerable person. Minimum term 5 years.
Her release depends on whether further detention Is necessary to protect the public from serious harm. The people entrusted with assessing and recommending decided public safety wouldn’t be risked by her release
She remains on licence and can be recalled.
She will be carefully monitored. It’s not unknown for women in her position to agree to sterilisation or long term contraception because they’re aware if they become pregnant it’s extremely unlikely they will be allowed to bring the child up.

Nannee49

Of course the most important thing is to prevent it happening again Doodledog but I disagree that the perpetrators are unaware or do not care about "the price"/consequences of their actions.

In my opinion they know exactly what they're doing and what they can expect if they're caught but they're willing to take the chance because the consequences aren't severe enough to make them stop.

I think that if we are talking about crimes with a 'gain' (eg theft/robbery or fraud - things that benefit the criminal financially) then they might weigh up the cost of getting caught against the potential gain of getting away with it. Even most murders have a 'gain' - in detective stories it is an inheritance or a love affair, and in the news it is more usually about status in a gang, or motivated by anger, or committed under the influence of drink or drugs. The perceived benefit of killing someone seems, at the time, to be worth the risk of getting caught.

Child cruelty doesn't (to me) have an obvious gain at all. What would the perpetrator(s) be weighing up? If a tired, inadequate parent snaps and hits or shakes a child, it is one thing. Nobody would excuse it, but we might understand why it happened. This is different.

I'm not saying I understand cases like Baby P - I really don't - and I don't have the answers, but I do think that this sort of crime is particular. It's not like other ones at all, and needs particular consideration, I think.

Good post OakDryad

Of course the most important thing is to prevent it happening again Doodledog but I disagree that the perpetrators are unaware or do not care about "the price"/consequences of their actions.

In my opinion they know exactly what they're doing and what they can expect if they're caught but they're willing to take the chance because the consequences aren't severe enough to make them stop.

Dickens You have quoted from the Andrew Anthony piece I linked to back on page 4 of this thread. The generational history of this family and Connolly's life have been horrific. Nobody can condone what she did and allowed to happen to her child but it's easy to see the trajectory. It's not an isolated case.

I get very angry when the very politicians who have been responsible for undermining social services and health care start making a noise about cases like this for personal political gain.

In 2019 Raab saw the majority in his once safe Surrey seat slashed to only 2243 ahead of a strong Lib Dem candidate. His majority in 2015 was 28616, in 2017 23298. Precarious indeed for the Deputy Prime Minister. In Thurday’s local elections, the Tories lost six seats on Elmbridge Borough Council which is largely covered by Dominic Raab's parliamentary seat of Esher and Walton to the Lib Dems.

Raab needs a popular campaign if there is to be a leadership challenge or a general election which could see him put of power. Seeking to undermine the legal system by being disingenous about this case is low indeed. I urge people to read Andrew Sperling’s thoughts on this case including:

Presumably the Conservative party and their advisers hope that attacking lawyers and judicial decisions will help them defeat Starmer's Labour Party and lay the groundwork for leaving the European Convention on Human rights.

He concludes with:

Building lots of prisons and blaming courts, Parole Boards and lawyers will not solve serious and complex social problems. But perhaps it might win some votes.

Like everyone else I detest what this woman has done to her child. However like Galaxy & Doodledog I would be very concerned about enforced sterilisation. We have seen the results of eugenics theories and in my lifetime I have seen the sterilisation of women with learning disabilities. It's another slippery slope we don't want to go down. There are long term contraceptive injections available, why could this not be one of the conditions of her parole.

I don't think that wondering about 'paying the price' is the right way to approach this. The important thing, surely, is stopping it from happening again.

I doubt that someone involved in such a terrible dynamic with a young child is thinking at all about the price to be paid if the worst happens and the baby dies. There has to be a lot more to it than that. I can no more imagine hurting any child, let alone my own, and would have done anything possible to stop anyone else from harming them either. What makes me (and most other parents) different from those who kill, or watch others hurt their children?

That's the question to ask, I think. What is is that gets in the way of a natural and overwhelming instinct to protect your child, and what can be done to stop whatever it is from taking hold? I suspect that at least some of it must be an inability to stand up to the partner who is usually involved. They seem to want the mother to show that she 'sides with' them, and can prove it by allowing them to hurt her child. If there could be a way to teach people self-esteem, and that their happiness/worth/whatever it is doesn't depend on someone else, that would probably prevent more child murders than concentrating on the penalties for doing so.

Doodledog

*Forced sterilisation is a slippery slope IMO - where do you draw the line; how are such decisions reached and by what criteria - and who do we select to make such decisions?*

I completely agree. Nobody would want to leave a baby in the 'care' of someone like Connolly; but sterilisation is irreversible and the right to do it could be so easily misused, and the criteria could so easily shift from broadly acceptable to politically debatable to 'if someone like Dominic Raab thinks the mother is evil'.

I honestly don't know what should be done with individuals like Connelly.

She led a grubby, hedonistic, drink-fuelled and chaotic lifestyle.

... from The Guardian...

the occupants of number 37 included an obese young woman, her four small children, a 6ft 4in muscular man, his brother and his brother's three children and 15-year-old girlfriend, three large dogs and a couple of snakes.

... and further

the two men, Steven Barker and his brother Jason Owen. Owen had been a member of the National Front; Barker was obsessed with Nazis.

Alarm bells should have been ringing and red flags waving to anyone remotely connected with them in the Care /Social Work sector, surely?

An earlier intervention might have prevented the suffering and ultimate death of this poor doomed child. What, ultimately, stopped the services from stepping in and taking the child out of that environment? That's what needs looking at.

I don't know what the answer is. Who does? I just can't think of anything worse than harming children.

Thanks Kate1949 perhaps this will open up discussion about exactly how, as a society, we determine what price is to be paid for this worst of all crimes.

Clearly, the current way isn't working. There's not the resources for prevention. Vile people are quietly running riot, taking the piss because if T. Connolly's anything to go by it's a few years inside then freedom to stroll down to the shops for a packet of fags in the sunshine, wind blowing their hair. And if the evil urges stir again what's to stop them?

Do rehabilitation programmes work? What percentage reoffend? How do we deal with it?

Forced sterilisation is a slippery slope IMO - where do you draw the line; how are such decisions reached and by what criteria - and who do we select to make such decisions?

I completely agree. Nobody would want to leave a baby in the 'care' of someone like Connolly; but sterilisation is irreversible and the right to do it could be so easily misused, and the criteria could so easily shift from broadly acceptable to politically debatable to 'if someone like Dominic Raab thinks the mother is evil'.

^It was reported at the time that the then Attorney General considered referring the sentence to the Court of Appeal for being unduly lenient – but it seems no such referral was ever made, no doubt because the sentence was appropriate for the offence for which Connolly was actually convicted [which was ]“causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable person” – not murder or manslaughter.

I urge people to read this ...

davidallengreen.com/2022/05/the-lord-chancellors-extraordinary-tweet-about-the-tracey-connelly-case/

... and then consider what Raab's motives are for being disingenous.

What I was doing, was to try and find out how these decisions are reached, who has the power to overrule them etc.

I am trying, without success, to copy and paste a statement dated 6th May relating to the Secretary of State:

" 97 : The Secretary of State submits "The Parole Board failed to take any, or any proper account of the views of the Secretary of State, instead inaccurately giving the impression in the decision that the Secretary of State supported the prisoner's release. That was clearly not the case as evidenced by the Secretary of State's written submission ........"

Well said Nannee49. I don't want her murdered or sterilised but I do think she should not have been released after four years. Whether she inflicted the injuries herself or stood by while her son's fingernails were pulled out and his spine fractured, to name but some of the injuries, deserves longer than four years in prison.

The people on this thread who think this woman has not paid sufficiently for what she did to her son are not a braying, howling lynch mob out for her blood but people who see total injustice in the leniency of her sentence.

That may be true.

But there are people who want her murdered.

There are people who want her forcibly given a medical procedure.

There are people who think she should be left to rot.

That, whatever your opinion, is a braying mob.

If we live in a civilised society we accept the construct that there is a price to pay for crimes committed. The discussion then turns to what price for which crime.

Child torture and murder is the worst of crimes. To inflict systemic, shrieking pain on a daily basis on to a defenceless child goes against every shred of human morality.

The people on this thread who think this woman has not paid sufficiently for what she did to her son are not a braying, howling lynch mob out for her blood but people who see total injustice in the leniency of her sentence.

tickingbird

I’m not being emotive or angry. I’m not talking about all abusers. There is no question of doubt in the case of Connolly. How you can be ok with babies being removed at birth but not with sterilisation isn’t rational.

How you can be ok with babies being removed at birth but not with sterilisation isn’t rational.

(a) My comment wasn't aimed at any particular poster.

(b) I didn't mention "babies being removed at birth".

As I said, I don't know what the answer is. I just have an opinion like everyone else, and I'm not an expert in any of these fields. Forced sterilisation is a slippery slope IMO - where do you draw the line; how are such decisions reached and by what criteria - and who do we select to make such decisions?

Sometimes, complex problems have easy answers in theory - but in practise they become more complex.

Baby P and little Jasmine Beckford are both examples used in my statutory NHS training, Safeguarding children, as to what can go wrong, how these wee ones got let down by the system.

I find it incredible they are letting her out, everyone is right- new name, life etc when her sons short life was so bad its is now part of a training program to hopefully stop this happening to others children.

Thinking that people should never be released, ever, is certainly a viewpoint that the law allows for. People get full life terms.

Maybe that would be appropriate in this case, I don't know. But I know that I don't know enough about criminal justice or child protection to have a view on this. I also suspect that many people want her to stay in prison just for punishment. That is one view, certainly, but its not one I adhere to. We have to have a concept of rehabilitation. That may not be popular or easy to consider for some people, but we have to allow for it.

But forced sterilisation is a step too far. While we probably all agree that she should never again be in charge of children, this thread has gone down a one way street of assumptions; she's evil; she'll find a man; she'll get pregnant; she'll abuse the child. Then she'll have another one. Therefore, we better sterilise her.

There are ways to prevent her ever having access to children that do not involve the simple knee jerk reaction of "sterilise the bitch". We're not savages, even though she may be.

I have read reams of stuff about this case since the announcement that this individual should be released.
It hasn't altered my thoughts that this person should never be released, ever.
Everyone has a different opinion on this, and I respect that people will think differently than I do.
Certainly this individual should never have another child. Heaven only knows what the children she has now think of her, how dreadful for them. I feel so sad when I think about them.
I was adopted (very lucky indeed to have the most wonderful adoptive parents) and there is a way of finding out about the adoption, even with legal "brick walls" in place, nothing is sacred I am afraid.
I agree with everything you have said tickingbird.

Like many others, I have started to type something for this thread many times, then just given up.

But honestly - Dominic Raab says she is pure evil? Dominic Raab? Really? Dominic Raab, who is climbing on the politically expedient bandwagon that demonises Parole Boards and Social Workers for his own political advancement?

If she was released and taken back into custody four years ago, that was nine years ago. I have no idea what has happened in the intervening nine years, but I expect that the Parole Boards etc. do. Whereas Dominic Raab is playing to the braying mob.

Maudi, parents can oppose care plans, including those for adoption. The Children Act puts the welfare of the child at its centre. The parents will be legally represented, the child legally represented through the Children’s Guardian. Detailed assessments inform the Court. Every party puts its position to the Family Court Judge. There may be a contested final hearing. The Judge makes the decision based on the wishes, feelings and needs of the child.
The process may not be perfect but it’s certainly child centred.

She was released after 4 years!! Can anyone remember the injuries that child suffered? I can. Even Dominic Raab says she is 'pure evil'. 4 YEARS!! It beggars belief. She was then taken back in for selling naked pictures of herself on line and other such vile things.

I think for me its partly because the risk of misuse of sterilisation is very high, and also I am against all forms of procedures which go against bodily autonomy so sterilisation, compulsory vaccines etc. I dont think the removal of babies at birth is a good outcome, its why I am opposed to surrogacy, but sometimes you have to take the best of two awful choices.