Fifteen year old girl who killed her newborn baby

Luckygirl - I understand your anger and frustration. However, prison officers, like police officers, reflect the society they serve. Basic grade officers are often drawn from a similar cohort as the prisoners. It’s grim work in often dreadful conditions. Believe me I’m not dismissing your concerns. Maybe it’s ‘another ‘ thread

Callistemon, reading your link turned my stomach. I understand the comparison you’re making

I’m sitting on my fingers to stop myself introducing the dangerous peadophiles I was in contact with. Many of whom got NG findings because of the absence of ‘independent evidence’ to support the word of a traumatised 7 year old. Another nother thread?

I agree Iam - prison is a grim place to work and the working conditions are awful, so therefore recruitment will be a problem. Truly dedicated, intelligent, sensitive, secure and well-educated people do not jump at the opportunity. They realise they will have crap dangerous conditions and run for the hills. So what are we left with?

Judges follow the rules and place people in prison, while at the same time prisons are in the control of the drug barons, lacking any rehabilitative element, and failing their inmates. The service is of course underfunded.

We have met some decent prison officers who are equally appalled by the situation and are doing their best; but have met more who frankly do not care a jot.

I could not work in a prison, surrounded by the mentally ill, poorly parented, poorly educated, drug-addicted population who are there. I hope I might resist the temptation to accept bribes to turn a blind eye to the drug trade - but who knows to what lengths one might go if presented with threats?

Iam64

Callistemon, reading your link turned my stomach. I understand the comparison you’re making

I’m sitting on my fingers to stop myself introducing the dangerous peadophiles I was in contact with. Many of whom got NG findings because of the absence of ‘independent evidence’ to support the word of a traumatised 7 year old. Another nother thread?

I was asked not to make comparisons.

But this was on the local news and I was so shocked and struck by the similarity in sentencing that it struck me immediately.

I've heard some shocking cases over the years, some can never be forgotten. This was just dreadful.

Sorry if I upset anyone.

No not upset, nauseated and angry that sex offenders walk amongst us

Lucky - I have two close friends who were governors, in well known prisons. Both dedicated to improving the prison experience for prisoners and staff. I’m back to complaining about a government that sees building more prisons as the answer.
One of my friends was governor of a prison holding male offenders. The went out to work every day. It was vanishingly rare for one not to return

I absolutely do know that there are dedicated prison officers and governors - sadly we have seen few of them. The low point for me was when the prisoner's parents were told by staff to pay the drug debts .... where does it end? As long as the dealers know the bill will be paid, then they will go on doing it. And they know where the parents live, so they are under threat too. It is all a mess. It is a terrifying underworld.

My relative should not be in this situation in the first place - if proper care, support and education had been available during her childhood things could have been so different - but the help was not there for her special needs (autism and brain damage in utero).

Prison is no place for someone who is vulnerable and damaged - there needs to be some other custodial facilities with a rehab focus. Prisons are so underfunded and poorly staffed that they do not have a chance of taking on this role. They are just fire fighting every minute of the day.

My question is what PM will gain from prison - she will be exposed to threats and violence, to drug pushers and mentally disturbed residents. This will not help her to lead a better life, and indirectly will not help any of us.

Perhaps the answer - if building new prisons- is to build supportive treatment and rehab included facilities suitable for different needs so that the vulnerable, learning disabled, or young do not have to mix with violent, hardened, drug peddling criminals.

Margiknot

Perhaps the answer - if building new prisons- is to build supportive treatment and rehab included facilities suitable for different needs so that the vulnerable, learning disabled, or young do not have to mix with violent, hardened, drug peddling criminals.

I think we started down that route years ago but that all seems to have backtracked over the last few years.

We need:
- prisons that have proper rehab facilities and programmes.
- preventive measures to stop people finishing up there in the first place.
- decent working conditions for prison officers.
- good services for young people and children with vulnerabilities.
- family services that support good parenting.
- to tackle the drugs problem. So many people who finish up in prison have a drug problem.
- to live in a political system that does not encourage short term thinking and recognises the need for preventive services.

All of this requires the will and the right funding choices. and I doubt we will see that any time soon.

A people trafficker has just been sentenced to 12 years for the deaths of 39 people in a lorry in Essex.

The Norway prison system proves that money goes a long way to educating prisoners so they don’t return.
It helps that Norway is as rich as cracuss.
But it proves the point about putting money into prisons.
Off the top of my head I can only think of 2 ways that any government has been pro-active in any department.
No1. They way those of us born at the end of the war were given every supplement going to keep us healthy.
No 2. Tony Blair’s Sure Start.
I’m sure others will remember more.

Great post MerylStreep . The destruction of SureStart is something I will never forgive or forget

They were a great initiative. And I the right places in town. And busy, and used.

Iam64

Great post MerylStreep . The destruction of SureStart is something I will never forgive or forget

Indeed so - makes me furious. Our political system encourages dogma-driven short-term savings over long term planning and investment in people's lives.

I also come back to my point above - a people trafficker has also received a 12 year sentence for the deaths of 39 people.

An update to this thread as another case has been reported:

A woman who killed her newborn baby by throwing him from a balcony has been spared jail so she can get help.

This woman was 34 years old, not a panicked teenager, and she carried on going into work as normal after killing her baby.

She has received a three-year community order.
Handing Barron a three-year community order, the judge said "compassion, support and rehabilitation" is often needed rather than punishment.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-66201431

The similarities in the cases and the disparity in sentencing are remarkable.

Indeed so.

Different judge, obviously.

Callistemon21

Different judge, obviously.

She was charged with infanticide as a result of medical evidence.

Following the investigation, a file of evidence was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and in October 2022, they authorised the defendant be charged with one count of murder.

As a result of detailed medical evidence compiled in preparation for a trial, the CPS accepted a plea to a charge of infanticide. In UK law, an offence of infanticide is one where a woman, by a wilful act or omission, causes the death of her child (under the age of 12 months), while the balance of her mind is disturbed due to the effect of giving birth.

I feel that Paris Mayo, a frightened teenager, has been dealt with very harshly in comparison.

It seems clear that the difference between the two cases lies in the medical evidence. In the earlier case the balance of the teenager’s mind was found not to have been disturbed, hence the jury found her guilty of murder rather than infanticide.

So a woman of 34 is able to conceal a pregnancy, even though she is in a relationship, then kills her newborn and is treated with compassion
While a girl of 15 is considered to have deliberately hidden her pregnancy and planned a murder and must be punished.
The law is an ass

The differences in law are clear.

But this child was 15 when the incident happened - assessing her mental state 4 years later as an adult is not helpful or valid. How to get inside the mind of a frightened vulnerable child? You can be entirely sane, whilst also being frightened, lost and unsupported.

Glorianny

So a woman of 34 is able to conceal a pregnancy, even though she is in a relationship, then kills her newborn and is treated with compassion
While a girl of 15 is considered to have deliberately hidden her pregnancy and planned a murder and must be punished.
The law is an ass

I agree wholeheartedly, Glorianny.

If it was influenced by the opinion of the forensic psychiatrist then I would point out again that the two medical expert witnesses differed in their opinions.

Luckygirl3

The differences in law are clear.

But this child was 15 when the incident happened - assessing her mental state 4 years later as an adult is not helpful or valid. How to get inside the mind of a frightened vulnerable child? You can be entirely sane, whilst also being frightened, lost and unsupported.

The interviews used as evidence of her mental state would have been done immediately after the event Luckygirl, not four years later.

Germanshepherdsmum

It seems clear that the difference between the two cases lies in the medical evidence. In the earlier case the balance of the teenager’s mind was found not to have been disturbed, hence the jury found her guilty of murder rather than infanticide.

That is the opinion of one forensic psychiatrist.
The other one's opinion was different.

In the second case the woman was charged with infanticide despite living with her partner and being a mature woman.
Two consultant psychiatrists who assessed Barron found she was suffering from pervasive pregnancy denial, calling it a “classic case” of the disorder.
Noah was found to have died from blunt impact head injuries consistent with a fall from height and is said to have lived up to half an hour after the trauma was inflicted.
He lay in a neighbour's garden for a week before his body was discovered.

The teenage mother was charged with murder.
The judge also used his sentencing remarks to criticise a prosecution expert witness, describing forensic psychiatrist Dr Duncan Harding's "inflexibility of thinking" while giving evidence as "unhelpful".

"He had told the police that you ought to be prosecuted, a surprising opinion for an expert called to give evidence on a defendant's mental state to express," Mr justice Garnham said.