Fifteen year old girl who killed her newborn baby

This is a desperately sad case. The jury heard evidence, including from experts and reached the conclusion this was murder. There isn’t much information available but the details of the way this helpless baby died are horrific. I wonder what is in the psychiatric reports.
12 years does seem a long sentence. I take the points made by other posters about much more lenient sentences given to adult men who murder their partners.

Ilovecheese

A man strangles his wife because he is fed up of lockdown after a few days - sentenced to five years.
A man strangles his girlfriend during so called "rough sex" - sentenced to four years.
Something seriously scewed in our justice system.

This 👍

Perhaps it’s not that she’s had too long a sentence but the other reported cases way too short

Well, I think that ramming cotton wool so far down the baby's throat that it was only discovered during his autopsy, and allegedly putting her foot on his tiny head and pressing it down, resulting in a fractured skull and with similar injuries to a head on car crash, does show some planning. During police interviews she actually mentioned how much she disliked the sound of a baby's cries. She wanted that child dead and to be thrown out with the rubbish.

It's something no rational person would do, she was not in her right mind and I think she needs to be in a psychiatric unit for a specified time.
PTSD? Panic? And hormones all over the place?

I don’t want to be a party pooper, but she will have received a psychiatric assessment, and the outcome will have been part of the evidence. I don’t know anything about this case, but I’d bet a pound to a penny that if she was assessed as of unbalanced mind there would not have been a murder verdict.

People seem not to understand the difference between murder and manslaughter, nor to understand that we don’t have access to all the evidence which was before the judge and the jury.

Indeed Casdon. But people who have only read a newspaper report seemingly know better.

Beetlejuice

Well, I think that ramming cotton wool so far down the baby's throat that it was only discovered during his autopsy, and allegedly putting her foot on his tiny head and pressing it down, resulting in a fractured skull and with similar injuries to a head on car crash, does show some planning. During police interviews she actually mentioned how much she disliked the sound of a baby's cries. She wanted that child dead and to be thrown out with the rubbish.

Perhaps people might dwell on what happened to this poor child rather than rushing to make excuses for his ‘mother’.

Well, I've not just read about it on here.
I was going to start a thread previously but it was too distressing.

I'm out.

Germanshepherdsmum

People seem not to understand the difference between murder and manslaughter, nor to understand that we don’t have access to all the evidence which was before the judge and the jury.

Casdon, I read one psychiatrist reported she was not of unbalanced mind. GSM is right to remind us the judge and jury hears evidence from this young woman, as well as medical experts

agree with GSM.
it's the baby i feel sorry for.

More than one psychiatrist?

Wyllow3

More than one psychiatrist?

There would also be a detailed psychology assessment, and if others were involved reports from them too. it wouldn’t be just one consultant’s report. It’s a rare occurrence, and treated very seriously when a child is killed, whatever the circumstances.

Yes, both prosecution and defence will obtain reports from experts.

I worked in a maternity hospital as a social worker and dealt with several similar scenarios during my time there.

One 15 year old gave birth on her own in her bedroom, having been sent home from school with "tummy ache." The baby died by suffocation - I will not give details as it might outing even though this happened a long time ago. The CPS took the view that this was neither manslaughter nor infanticide as the coroner's verdict was: "Death by lack of attention at birth", even though there were actions that caused the death. I felt that, although the letter of the law might have been followed only loosely, the spirit was right, as this girl needed help and support for the future, which I hope we were able to give her.

I do not think the girl currently in custody nor society will be best served by this harsh sentence. I am sure we all feel for the baby and for her, but have to ask what purpose is served by this sentence. Given that she was a resident of Herefordshire, whose children's services have been in special measures for years and who are about to be descended on by officials from another authority to try and lick them into shape, she is in one way being punished for their shortcomings (and their underfunding). It does sound as though she was a vulnerable child and she is likely not to have been picked up and helped as she should have been.

In prison she will mix with drug addicts, be offered drugs, and likely get into debt for them - this is how British prisons operate (don't ask me how I know - trust me on this one - I do know). Rehabilitation and support is a joke in prison and she has just been condemned to a downhill slide. Any hope of her being able to lead a decent life has now gone.

Should she be punished for being a vulnerable and scared child? Is she a danger to the public and needs locking up?

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.

Good post, Luckygirl

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.