Celebration instead of care: A young British woman hangs out at parties for days and leaves her little daughter unattended. The child dies, now the mother is sentenced to prison.
Lewes / Brighton – 5 days, 21 hours and 58 minutes: Behind these numbers lies a terrifying case in England. During this time, a young mother left her 20-month-old daughter alone in the apartment in order to celebrate her 18th birthday in peace for days.
A court in the southern English city of Lewes sentenced the now 19-year-old to nine years in prison for manslaughter. The death of little Asiah, who starved and thirsted on her own, also highlights social problems in Great Britain.
Asiah and her young mother, Verphy K., lived in the port city of Brighton in an apartment assigned to them by the social welfare office. There was a special mother-and-child program – but at the time of Asiah’s death, neither of them had a dedicated social worker. Even though Verphy was a minor and there had been previous reports of neglect. Verphy K. is said to have left her daughter alone for two and a half days to celebrate a friend’s birthday in London. The authority announced that it would examine the circumstances.
Recorded by surveillance camera
Celebration instead of care: A surveillance camera recorded Verphy K. leaving her apartment on the evening of December 5, 2019. She drove to London, 85 kilometers away, and celebrated at a party, the DJ announced her congratulations on coming of age. After that she did not go home, but on to Coventry and attended a birthday party there. She lied to her friends that her mother was taking care of the little one. Details about the child’s father are not known. Instead, Asiah was alone. It was only after another stop in London that Verphy K. returned to her apartment on December 11th – and found the toddler lifeless.
It is harrowing circumstances that an expert reports in the process. The little girl probably did not scream at first – because she had learned that no help would be given to requests anyway. “When her suffering became too great, she no longer had the strength to scream.” Defense attorney Peter Wilcock spoke of a “tragic and devastating case”. His client is young and vulnerable herself. Judge Christine Laing emphasized that Verphy K., who had admitted manslaughter, did not want her daughter’s death.
Heavily burdened emotionally
The case sounds awesome. But it happens again and again that mothers – especially when they are young or emotionally stressed – neglect their children. In Chemnitz in 2009, for example, a 25-year-old was sentenced to long imprisonment for manslaughter because she had left her ailing two-year-old at home alone for almost three days to visit an Internet acquaintance. This child also starved to death and died of thirst. Other cases ended happily. One mother, for example, left her four children, aged two to twelve, in the apartment to start a new life. After a week, the grandmother found the children alive.
That’s why there is a safety net for mothers like Verphy K. But this network failed – or the young woman slipped through, as the newspaper “The Sun” wrote. Many people are likely to feel the same way as you. In a report published on Thursday, the opposition Labor Party writes of hundreds of thousands of “forgotten families” in the country that the rate of chronic truancy is high. Many seek salvation in drugs or alcohol. Almost every week there are reports of young people killed, the perpetrators are mostly teenagers themselves, and gang crime is high. Labor complains that the government has turned off the tap on social institutions.
Social workers also have an office in the apartment block where she lived with Asiah. But they do not enter the apartments and do not carry out any controls. Verphy K. was known to the authorities. His daughter had been missing repeatedly since she was 14, father Muba K. told the British media at the end of May. “My heart is broken.” Dpa
