Baby P's mum's pitiful letter of apology

[capncnut]

Don't know if anyone's been following this but an utterly disgusting case of child abuse has been making UK headlines for the last year or so. This has probably been discussed before but I'll refresh your memory anyway.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/11/14/article-1085786-027A1346000005DC-14_468x286.jpg

The seventeen-month-old child in the above photo is called Peter. He was severely neglected and tortured by his stepfather while the mother did nothing. He was abused, had cigarettes stubbed out on him and was often punched and kicked until unconscious. The final beating that ended his life is horrifying. The stepfather was 'playing hard' with Peter and he snapped his back over his knee, breaking it. The child was taken to a bungling doctor who failed to diagnose the problem. As to be expected the child was screaming in pain non-stop so the mother just put him to bed and shut the door, hoping he would stop crying. After an hour, the stepfather entered the room and delived a punch to Peter's face, so hard that it killed him.

The good news is that the stepfather was jailed for 'life' today. Not only did he beat Peter to death but he was also found guilty of raping a two-year-old girl - I hope the other prisoners f**k him up big time! The bad news is that the mother only received five years, with 644 days already served. So yeah, she could be strolling out a free woman in three years time.

Anyhow, the point of this thread is to show you the mother's letter to the judge. It is disgusting, full of self pity and bullshit just to win the judge over. Here it is in full.


Dear Judge

I am writing this letter as I am not sure of a better way to express my regret at failing my children. I except (sic) I failed my son Peter for which I have pleaded guilty.

By not being fully open with the social workers, I stopped them from being able to do a full job. As a direct result of this, my son got hurt and sadly lost his short life.

I'm never going to see my lovely son grow into the lovely sweet man I believe he would have been.

I have lost all I hold dear to me, now every day of my life is full of guilt and trying to come to terms with my failure as a mother.

I punish myself on a daily basis and there is not a day that goes by where I don't cry at some point.

I have let down my children, family, ex-husband, myself and, most importantly, my darling son.

Whilst I appreciate I'm going to be given a custodial sentence, I would like to say I am very sorry for the pain and suffering my failure has led to. I can only hope and pray my children and family (ex-husband included) can one day forgive me of my mistakes, however I know I can never forgive myself of my shortcomings.

I am truly sorry.

Yours sincerely (name witheld).

Lame. :rolleyes:

[bassman]

Ugh. I've noticed these kinds of stories hit me harder after becoming a father...

I hope that guy dies a very, very slow and painful death. And then he has hell to look forward to. The mom deserves the same. The letter doesn't work at all, imo.

[capncnut]

I mean, I really don't understand it. Under examination, Peter had over fifty injuries, including lacerations, burns, deep bruising, missing teeth, missing fingernails, eight fractured ribs and a broken back. Even the lodger who was living with the mother and stepfather was giving him slaps.

The following is a forensic image from the BBC. I put a spoiler on it because it still might offend even though it is computer generated.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45212000/jpg/_45212498_p11_300.jpg
As you can see the wounds are absolutely horrific. The bruising and swelling on the nose with the two black eyes suggests the punch that killed him was delivered there. What kind of animal does that to a child?

Peter's real father is apparently devastated. He broke up with the mother five months after the kid was born. The last time he saw the child was when he had him for a day and when the mother came to collect him, Peter was so scared that the mother had to physically pull Peter off him, as he cried "Daddy, daddy". The father is said to be so traumatised by what's happened that he has quit work and has turned to the bottle.

Here's (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8055340.stm) the latest news article.

[AcesandEights]

WTF?!?!?!?!


The boyfriend was given 12 years over Peter's death and life for raping a two-year-old girl. He must serve a minimum of 10 years.

:mad:

[capncnut]

Yeah, that's quite poxy. Twelve years for killing a child, life for raping another but he must serve a minimum of ten years. Life should mean life.

Although if I'm honest, the chances of this guy surviving the next ten years are very slim.

[Tricky]

That letter is a disgusting attempt to get a lighter sentence & was probably written because her lawyer will have told her to,how anyone could defend her in court is beyond me,shows lawyers have no morals...
Anyway i hope she & the other two get beaten to death in prison,its the very least they deserve!no doubt they will be well protected by the prison service though & once released from their paltry sentences be given new identities & lives at cost to the taxpayer :mad:
Peters real father is a disgrace as well though,he had the child the week before he died,surely at that stage he must have known something was clearly wrong when his son had facial injuries,a broken back & missing fingernails!although i imagine he's the kind of retarded council estate scumbag you see on the jeremy kyle show

[MinionZombie]

Peters real father is a disgrace as well though,he had the child the week before he died,surely at that stage he must have known something was clearly wrong when his son had facial injuries,a broken back & missing fingernails!

I was gonna say - what's up with that?! :eek:

[kortick]

you dont even have to kill ur kids.

some people should not breed.

either way this guy slipped thru...

JONESBORO, Ga. – A Georgia man is sentenced to 100 years in prison for poisoning his children to extort money from Campbell's Soup Co.

William Cunningham was sentenced Thursday after a jury found him guilty on seven counts of aggravated assault for forcing the children in 2006 to eat soup laced with prescription drugs and lighter fluid.

His 3-year-old son and 18-month-old daughter were hospitalized twice. A family member said the youngsters may suffer lifelong respiratory problems from lung damage caused by the lighter fluid.

Cunningham's wife has since divorced him.

Cunningham pleaded guilty in 2007 to a federal charge of making false claims against Campbell's Soup by threatening to sue them over the contaminated soup.

u feed ur baby lighter fluid????

[capncnut]

JONESBORO, Ga. – A Georgia man is sentenced to 100 years in prison for poisoning his children to extort money from Campbell's Soup Co.
How bizarre.


And now there's an update on Madeline McCann (another child abduction/abuse case in the UK).


A pedophile undergoing cancer treatment in Germany is considered a "person of interest" in the disappearance of Madeline McCann, according to British media.

The three-year-old was snatched from her family's hotel room during a vacation in Portugal in May 2007.

Raymond Hewlett was living an hour away from the resort at the time and has a record of sex attacks on young girls, which dates back decades. He is wanted by police in Britain and Ireland.

Why wasn't this guy quizzed sooner? :confused:

[MinionZombie]

Why wasn't this guy quizzed sooner? :confused:

Because the cops there were useless.

But also, nobody really mentions that the parents are fucking morons for leaving their kids - ALONE - in an UNLOCKED apartment, while they swanned off with their mates to have dinner.

At least that's still what appears to have happened, right? I try to avoid the story as much as possible, the sheer volume of media coverage last year was a joke - Sky News staring at a closed door of a building where NOTHING is happening, with some numpty news reader mumbling over the top with spaced-out-words desperately trying to fill the cavernous gap where OTHER NEWS could be getting shown.

By all means report on it, but the sheer blitz and obsession with the case last year was disgusting.

[Chic Freak]

That letter does indeed sound like someone trying to get a lighter sentence rather than someone who is truly sorry as the overall tone is "poor me" somehow "there is not a day that goes by where I don't cry at some point" part in particular sticks in my craw.

[capncnut]

Janet Street-Porter wrote a fantastic article in The Independent this morning. It's well worth a read.


Jail is pointless for Baby P's callous mother.

"Dear Judge," she snivelled, "by not being fully open with the social workers, I stopped them from being able to do a full job. As a direct result of this my son got hurt and sadly lost his short life. I am truly sorry."

What Baby Peter's mother wrote and what she meant are totally different. An uneducated 27-year-old doesn't use phrases like "direct result". Like everything else in this pathetic letter, it doesn't ring true. Her lawyers probably thought that a heartfelt note might get her sentence reduced. But it didn't impress the judge, who called her "manipulative and self-centred... with a calculating side and a temper". The only thing you can say in favour of this note is that at least she uses the S word, although in this context it means nothing because she also implies Peter died because social workers didn't intervene. That is factually correct. They didn't act until he was dying.

But she clearly didn't intervene on the dozens of occasions when more than 50 injuries were inflicted on her baby. How can a child suffer a broken back, eight broken ribs, a torn ear lobe and lose the tip of his finger in a small flat without making a sound? What sort of mum watches television or plays computer games while her child is being harmed?

In her defence, lawyers described her childhood as "traumatic", claiming she hid the existence of her boyfriend because she did not want to lose her benefits. They claimed she was a careless but doting mother who would never harm her children. I beg to differ. She wasn't careless at all, but highly devious – concealing the existence of her boyfriend and creating a complicated series of lies to cover up her child's injuries, deceiving everyone who visited on dozens of occasions. If standing by while your son lies bleeding to death doesn't constitute harm, what does?

She was also a coward (like her boyfriend) who denied she had injured Peter, and, because she would admit no responsibility, was convicted on the new criminal offence of causing or allowing a death. Her lawyer said she was "an inadequate mother who had allowed herself to fall in love with the wrong man".

What planet are they on? Not inadequate – callous, self-centred, delusional. Her letter demonstrates she doesn't take responsibility for what happened. The first person in her life was herself, and then her repulsive boyfriend. Peter came low down in her priorities. The second review into the case published its findings on Friday. The report castigates professionals who believed her stories about how Peter got hurt, and says everyone involved should have challenged her version of events. Instead, they stood by and did nothing, believing her lies.

Contrast her sentence of "at least five years" with that of another failure of a mother, Karen Matthews, serving eight years for kidnapping her daughter Shannon. There's an outcry because Peter's mother could be released within a couple of years, as she's already spent almost 650 days in custody. In reality, she has a life sentence, and her release will depend on her rehabilitation.

But what is achieved by locking up failing mums? Contrition? Social skills? The education to morph into a useful member of society holding down a job? Don't make me laugh. Karen is 33, Peter's mum 27. Neither are teenagers, and yet that's what they behave like, falling for a series of unsuitable boyfriends and neglecting their kids.

Karen Matthews, who fed her kids crisps and pop and couldn't even clothe them properly, told an interviewer all she missed in jail was sex, shopping and coffee with her neighbours – still refusing to take responsibility for her child's drugging, kidnapping and imprisonment. She is reported to have said: "If you do courses, I was told you get on day release eventually." The mindset is shocking.

There have always been failing mothers and there always will be. We have to have the courage to report them and act on our instincts when we see children who need help. Locking up these mums costs a fortune and won't necessarily give them better parenting skills or a moral compass. Better to place their kids with foster parents, make the mums go back to school and then give them work in old people's homes so that they can contribute to society in a way that doesn't involve breeding.

[Tricky]

Even though they say the judge didnt fall for the letter,it doesnt get round the fact they all got pathetically light sentences for what they did,and due to the current cushy prison conditions & the fact that the public will never be able to find out who these people are because the legal system will protect them from "vigilantes", they have effectively got away with it :mad:

* edit: here is a picture of the people responsible,lets hope they get what they deserve http://www.dailysquib.co.uk/?c=117&a=1551

[capncnut]

The legal system might attempt to protect them but I seriously doubt it will be effective. Just look at James Bulger's killers; they are constantly having to be moved because the public have discovered their whereabouts. In fact, one of them is apparently 'utterly terrfied' and has tried to take his own life a couple of times.

Can you honestly tell me that every single screw in whatever prison they are kept in will keep quiet on this? Actually, I can confidently say that Peter's stepfather's days are numbered and it wont be long until someone sticks a chiv in him.

And websites that post images of them will help a lot.