Fifteen year old girl who killed her newborn baby

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

the jury needs to be seen to

I expect the ordinary people who served on this jury will carry the details of this poor baby’s death with them for the rest of their lives. They heard the evidence, we have very little information yet people are reaching conclusions based on their emotional responses. The jury and judge reached their conclusions based on evidence. If the conviction or sentence is appealable, no doubt that will happen

Foxygloves

I always thought that infanticide was no longer treated as murder
The Infanticide Act is the name of two 20th-century acts in English law that started treating the killing of an infant child by its mother during the early months of life as a lesser crime than murder
The maximum penalty for infanticide is life imprisonment. However, in practice a non-custodial sentence is usually the outcome

The reports say that the jury were offered the option of infanticide but decided she was guilty of murder. It was not the judge being harsh.

That jury needs to be seen to.

What do you mean by that nanna8?

My emotional, knee-jerk response is that sentencing a 15 year-old to 12 years in prison seems harsh' even though this is such a horrific crime. However, having paused for thought, I realise that I'm actually in no position to decide one way or the other, as I didn't actually sit through the trial, and have not had the benefit of considering all the evidence which was available to the Judge and Jury. Either way, it's a tragedy for all concerned, and I mourn the loss of that poor, innocent child. Heartbreaking.

A 15 year old often just lives for the moment and doesn’t consider long term consequences of their actions. The baby was a nuisance, cramped her life so she killed it. Shocking, cruel and if an adult had done it you’d throw the book at them. But a 15 year old being sent to jail? Back in the dark ages, isn’t it? It makes you think you wouldn’t want to live in a country where a thing like that happened, it is disgusting. That jury needs to be seen to.

I strongly agree with Luckygirl3. This tragic death was preventable if the girl had had supportive family. Her school should have been aware of her difficult family background and social services should have been involved. Mental health support should have been offered to a teenager living with a dying father. We don’t know the mother’s problems which were alluded to in the newspaper reports.
I’m sure we can all imagine the trauma of a naive teenager giving birth alone, and panicking, bleeding and sore, faced with a blood covered baby.
It’s unlikely that this girl would be a danger to society. She needs help, not twelve years locked up.

An innocent new born baby does not deserve to be destroyed no amount of excuses make it right.

Bodach I don’t understand your post

Beetlejuice

No BlueBelle, she was been on bail until sentencing.

The offence for which she has just been convicted occurred three or four years ago.

" You've got to be mentally very unstable to actually kill any living thing, even an animal." Rather a sweeping statement, BlueBelle?

No BlueBelle, she was been on bail until sentencing.

Has she been incarcerated for the last four years ?

I wonder why you always consider that justice is done GSM

And I always wonder why you consider it hasn't Gloriany. We have to assume that the judge and jury were privy to evidence that we aren't aware of. The judge gave the jury the opportunity to give a verdict of not guilty, guilty of infanticide or guilty of murder. Based on the evidence that they had seen and heard, they delivered guilty of murder verdict. The judge then has to give his punishment based on the harm done to the victim and how much responsibility the offender has for the crime with any mitigating factors being taken into consideration. The judge must respect the minimum and maximum sentences set out in the law. The sentence must also be in proportion to the offender's degree of responsibility. In other words, the judge will order a heavier sentence if the offender played a key role in the crime.

Unless you were one of the jurors, you cannot possibly know why they rejected an infanticide verdict, which would have attracted a more lenient sentence, and decided that, in full occupation of the facts, they delivered the verdict they did. Or were you sat with the judge whilst he deliberated?

I agree Casdon. And the crush injury is particularly horrifying.

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.

This thread is going down exactly the same route as the one about the disabled lady and the elderly female cyclist.
We weren’t there, we didn’t have the evidence presented to us, including the psychiatric reports. We don’t know about the duration of her father’s illness, we don’t know that she was neglected, it’s all assumptions - but the report of her mother talking to her at the time she rang 999 is revealing. One thing I do know though Glorianny is what a crush injury is, if you can face it, look it up.

I’m with GSM. We only know the bare bones of this case and we weren’t in court to hear either argument, The CPS obviously thought a charge of murder more appropriate than manslaughter though.

Germanshepherdsmum

The court had expert reports before it and she was convicted on the basis of all the evidence, which we don’t have access to. Everyone’s opinions here are mere speculation, which in the context of the brutal killing of a new born baby and disposal of his body by his own mother is extremely distasteful.

I wonder why you always consider that justice is done GSM there are many cases where decisions are reversed on appeal and many cases where people are completely cleared of a crime years after conviction.
People are entitled to have opinions about the treatment of 15 year old girls.

She was 13 when she first started having sex because she wanted to be liked. Her father was dying, her mother was busy caring for him. She was 15 and allegedly deliberately concealed the pregnancy. Well she may have killed the baby but its death was also the result of a lack of care and concern on the part of the adults around her. The sentence may be legal but it certainly isn't just and it shows a distinct lack of mercy.
She was a child coping with circumstances many adults would find impossible to cope with. The death of the baby is tragic and medical evidence is never 100% certain. She claimed the baby's head was damaged as it fell. They claimed it was deliberately crushed. I know of an adult whose injuries after a fall were described as equivalent to being hit by a car. It seems possible that a baby could be similarly injured.

The court had expert reports before it and she was convicted on the basis of all the evidence, which we don’t have access to. Everyone’s opinions here are mere speculation, which in the context of the brutal killing of a new born baby and disposal of his body by his own mother is extremely distasteful.

I wonder why she deliberately concealed her pregnancy. I used to see girls who - quite literally - were in fear of their lives, and of their fathers in particular, if their pregnancies came to light. They were desperate children in need of help and support. And some of them committed unacceptable acts as a result of this.

I am not blaming social workers - I am blaming the state of the statutory services who should be helping and supporting these vulnerable children.

There are many reported cases where murder goes "unpunished" - e.g. where domestic abuse (both physical and emotional) is involved. The law needs to be administered in a realistic way - by all means place a death by dangerous driving culprit in prison for 12 years , or a murderer involved in an armed robbery - but a vulnerable child? Can we not offer something better than this?

OMG what sort of a world are we living in . I've even by passed posts that give any details as I can't bear to know how this little mite's life was ended.

Good post, Luckygirl

She deliberately concealed her pregnancy. You cannot blame social workers for that, nor do you - or any of us - know all the details of this case which led to conviction and sentence. Murder cannot go unpunished. The mandatory sentence is life imprisonment.