Fifteen year old girl who killed her newborn baby

I'm not in favour of copying the Americans but they do have one policy which we would do well to copy. Any unwanted infants can be left at a fire station or police station. The child will be cared for and no questions asked. There really is no excuse for either dumping babies or killing them.

Agreed.

I’d argue that any child who commits such an act undoubtedly has mental health issues. It is easy to just blame her because what she did was really horrific but, come on, it is not normal and no normal child would do that. She needs help and a lot of it, not prison. The Danish people seem to have the right idea about children and crime.

You will see from the judgement that she did not have serious mental health issues.

My response didn't reflect my feelings for the poor little baby , who never had a chance in life .
But surely this girl has serious mental health issues .

I can't begin to imagine how I would have reacted to having a baby at 15 .

The very idea of sex was terrifying as my mother was so strict .
Everytime , I left the house I had a lecture on the dangers of boys touching me and an interrogation when I returned .
0n one occasion , my mother told me , get pregnant and we won't be able to get rid if it as you're so soft and over fond of babies and children .

My heart goes out to this girl and to her baby .

Here is what purports to be a transcript of the judgement, albeit not an official one.

www.itv.com/news/central/2023-06-26/judges-remarks-as-teenage-mum-jailed-for-killing-newborn

The judge seems to me to have dealt with sentencing sensitively and fairly.

nanna8

I don’t know. I meant it should be challenged and a re-trial - they shouldn’t get away with what they have decided

What do you mean “they shouldn’t get away with what they decided”?

They would have sat through all the evidence and deliberated for several hours or days before arriving at their decision. You can’t just say juries shouldn’t get away with it because you don’t agree with their verdict.

I sas the pictures of this girl posing and pouting for SM as they all do these days. I also saw her smirking one day as she walked into court. I read about this case from day one and she wasn’t from an abused and neglected background. The judge remarked on the lies she had told in order to excuse herself. Her mother stood by her and the father’s death shortly after this coming to light was attributed to shock at what had happened.

What she did to that poor baby is inexcusable. She doesn’t have learning difficulties, wasn’t living in terror of her parents finding out. The sentence may seem harsh but what she did was horrific.

There is a mandatory life sentence for murder. The judge will decide how long the convicted person must serve before being eligible for parole based on all the evidence - aggravating factors and mitigating factors. The judge will have heard far more about her background than we know.

I am not questioning the verdict - I am sure that the jury had proper legal directions and were party to all the available evidence that led to their conclusion.

My question is about the sentence. We need to ask why a child might behave in this way and what steps could have been in place to help her with her difficult life. A child who has sex from the age of 13 to get people to like her is a vulnerable child.

12 years is a huge chunk of her life at a very young age and it is important that we ask what purpose this serves. Are the public vulnerable to danger from her? Will it advance her rehabilitation in any way?

Murder is a horrific crime and cannot be treated lightly; but in a society where children can finish up in this sort of desperate state there is more at stake here. We need to ask how such vulnerable children might be picked up and helped. We need to ask what might best serve the interests of society and this now adult who was a vulnerable child at the time of the crime.

I would also say that those who are taking sides (baby or child mother) miss the point: feeling shocked and sad that a baby has died does not mean we cannot also be concerned for the child culprit and wish to see changes in place that protect vulnerable children like her.

She did have excellent representation foxie. King’s Counsel. Putting together a case like this and obtaining all the necessary expert opinions takes time.

She killed a baby. There are lots of excuses being made for why she killed her baby, but none are acceptable, in my opinion.

She killed a baby.

The girl is 15, so she was vulnerable, 15 year olds don’t think clearly etc.

The boys age 10, who killed James Bulger were - evil,

I think what worries me about this case is that whilst she concealed her pregnancy from everyone around her she made no attempt to conceal the body of the child. This does seem very odd to me. I also wonder why the case took so long to come to court, perhaps the chronic shortage of criminal defence lawyers? This is a very poorly paid area of the law as most of it is legal aid work so unfortunately it is possible that she didn't get the most effective representation. Just an observation and she may have had excellent representation but once the jury had decided it was murder, the judge's hand were effectively tied.

Germanshepherdsmum

Why nanna8? Do you know something about the evidence before the court that we don’t?

In the UK being seen to means beaten up - or worse.

Ohh- I didn’t know that and I apologise. I certainly would never, ever advocate violence ! Thanks for the info GSM

On reading a few posts, like many, my immediate reaction was sympathy for the girl. I had not read any newspaper reports until that time. As I gleaned information from GN posts regarding the details I began to revise my opinion.

I strongly agree with those who have pointed out that as none of us sat through the trial each day we are not in a position to make a balanced judgement.

As a generalisation, but not specifically in relation to this case, by the time the reports (on court cases in particular), hit the pages, they are often either sanitised or sensationalised, so often we only read the version that is biased towards selling more newspapers.

I am left feeling sad that so many factors contributed to this tragedy which resulted in the horrific death of an innocent child.

No mention of the baby's father.

Why nanna8? Do you know something about the evidence before the court that we don’t?

In the UK being seen to means beaten up - or worse.

None of us know the actual facts we can be horrified about what we have heard and hope she is given the help and support that she clearly needs.
If she was living with a father who was on home dialysis there would be health workers going in and out of the house daily, why did she not ask for help? Was she so scared and not mentally stable? Lots to think about until the clear facts are known.

I don’t know. I meant it should be challenged and a re-trial - they shouldn’t get away with what they have decided. What does it mean in the uk,then ? I’d guess something horrible from the outraged comments. Or are you just disagreeing that it was a bad decision?

I find it astonishing that so many people are able to criticise the judge and jury for reaching the verdict they did. They weren't there. They didn't have to sit for 6 weeks and listen to the harrowing evidence given by police, pathologists, psychologists, doctors and other witnesses. And yet they're apparently in the position of knowing that this was some kind of miscarriage of justice and the sentence given was just plain wrong.
Quite impressive really.

nanna8
that jury needs to be seen to
Does that comment mean the same as it does here in the uk?

Germanshepherdsmum

You don’t have the information which the court had Glorianny. How can you possibly express a valid opinion about the conviction and sentence without that information?
I respect the verdict of the court and the judge’s sentence because I know no more than has been reported in the press. Nor does anyone else unless they attended the trial each day.

Having sat through more court cases than I care to remember, I agree with that, GSM. With the best will in the world, the media cannot report every single thing said during a court case, so unless you've been there for the duration, you will not know absolutely everything which was said.
There was a very high profile murder case here in Scotland a number of years ago and the man responsible is still claiming he is innocent and has some very vocal supporters arguing his case for him. However, they only latched onto the case after the trial - it was a long trial and none of them sat through the whole thing, so when I see them on social media making various claims, I always think "how can you make those claims when you weren't there? You didn't hear all the evidence presented."

Iam64

Sorry, I should make clear how offensive I found that comment about the jury nanna8

The jury was correct, it was murder, the judge handed the sentence down, it may be appealed.

The girls mental state must have been terrible and prolonged supervision was thought appropriate, a mental institution was not thought suitable so it had to be prison. How long will depend on how her mental state takes to “normalize”, there will be an appeal if the sentence is thought to be excessive.

Iam64

Sorry, I should make clear how offensive I found that comment about the jury nanna8

Agreed.