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

Children are hugely resilient as many adoptive and foster parents will attest to

Foster children who have often troubled childhoods, I would not like to say that they are resilient. They may get through, but if they have little contact with birth parents, they can suffer hugely, even with adequate foster parents until late teens.

But as you and others say, this case is different as they are still all together, and with family.
Those children that get lots of family help, do fair better on the whole than those that dont.

Nellie

Of course what I meant to say was this must have been the first prosecution for abandonment since 1957 (not neglect - lots of those). My old grey matter was definitely soft when I posted last night

Nightowl I am pleased I did not totally imagine that, the old grey matter is not completely soft yet.

My husband is one of 6 children and his mother would often leave the older ones in charge of the little ones and go out for the day, from quite a young age. I was quite shocked to discover he'd be left in charge at say age 14, of his much younger sisters. To him it was normal.

Children are hugely resilient as many adoptive and foster parents will attest to. I don't know the details of this particular case, but when I was five my mother also went to the supermarket (although it was to the grocer's in my day) and came home two years later. My siblings and I survived and, eventually, thrived. The children will find a way to deal with what's happened, but may find the unwanted publicity harder to live with than their mother's actions.

The prison sentence was suspended so that couldn't have been the reason why the children are now with their grandparents. It seems likely that the mother is mentally ill or unstable; otherwise the children would be back with her. Why would a person in her right mind tell her children she was going shopping and then fly off to Australia?

It's very sad for the children but they are to some degree fortunate that they are together and with their grandparents. I wonder if it is a long term solution though - it must be very difficult for older people to cope with the needs of 6 children. Just imagine all the cooking, washing, ironing and cleaning!

I had the same understanding of the legal niceties as you nellie, and when parents 'abandoned' their children it was common that either no charges would be brought or, if anything, the parents would be charged with neglect. The reporting in this case states that the mother pleaded guilty to six charges of wilful abandonment which, based on the report I quoted, means this is the first prosecution for neglect since 1957!

She may not have legally abandoned them, but she damn well did morally.

Nightowl

I am digressing a bit lot here by nit picking about legal niceties. When perhaps child abandonment was a separate crime. I think I heard somewhere that leaving a child in a social services office or police station or such, where it would be obviously found, was not technically abandonment. If a mum walked out of a maternity unit leaving the baby there it was not technically abandoning the child as she was not abandoning the child, as the child was not being left in danger. (Apart from the vicissitudes of Children's homes.)

If the child was left in a bag in lay-by it was an abandonment.
There were two foundlings in our area within the space of a few years, both were given surnames relating to the rural area in which they were found and the forename of the police, or the ambulance person who was first on the scene.
Given how near to each other these two abandonments were I was surprised that the SSD did nothing to try an establish if these two children were actually related.

Should I stay here in foggy November looking after DH, DGDs or should I go snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef Decisions, decisions.

Crossed posts rosequartz

I think the man she was going to meet (the one she met online) sent her the airfare Ana.

As far as I can tell, her online 'boyfriend' wired her the money for her fare. Reading between the lines, she has come back pregnant. Now what - she probably won't be able to emigrate there to be with him and he probably can't come over here! Another mouth for the beleaguered taxpayer to feed I suppose.

I know two families where the mothers have abandoned their children. Both times the grandparents have taken over the responsibility. One a single grandmother has had her three grandchildren since they were babies.

Both these women chose their boyfriends over their children. One gave up a very good job of ten years, left her fourteen year old son with nowhere to live. Her eighteen year old son had just previously gone to live with a friend. Now her current boyfriend has recently left her and she is pregnant, so she is now talking to her family. She is actually on my Facebook, there had not been a post since she abandoned her son. Recently she announced on FB she is pregnant and her son who is also on my FB wrote "mum I haven't heard from you for three and a half years and now you are having a baby."

Nothing surprises me anymore, some people only have their own needs in mind. I really can not feel sorry for these women, they shouldn't be having babies.

How could she possibly afford the air fare to Australia?

^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

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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 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.

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 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.