Mother Strangles Austistic Son

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What sort of mental health care is she supposed to get exactly?....I really think in her case she needs to be kept away from others for a while at least.......she would probably be better off that way to with the abusive husband and all that so yeah.

He could have been left in government care. That is a terrible solution, but it is better than death. And it's the terrible solution some parents have come up with to force help. There was a case many years ago of a couple who could not care for their severely disabled son (something other than autism). So one day they drove him to the hospital where he had been seen many times before and just slipped away while the staff was busy examining him. They were charged with neglect, their parental rights were terminated, and he went into government care in a nursing home. Those nursing homes for severly disabled people look pretty bleak and the care is likely sub-optimal, but it is better than death. It forces the governments' hand in exchange for neglect charges, which in any case are better than murder charges.

They aren't the only ones who have done that. It was just a very famous case because the government decided that they wouldn't care for him rather than couldn't. It brought up all sorts of issues about how much help society (in the form of the government) should be required to give.

It's a tragic solution, but it's not as tragic as the one she actually came up with.

How sure are you that it would have been better then death, and even if it would have been....one still has to consider what the mother herself thought. I am kind of getting the feeling she was not thinking rationally and felt there was no other way to handle it(maybe due to finally snapping) I am not trying to justify it but it is relevent. Though from your despcription of these 'nursing homes' maybe death is better.

Two issues, one small and one large:

small issue: yes, it takes a strong degree of rational thought to make the plan to force the government to care for your disabled child by taking him to a hospital emergency ward and then sneaking away. It doesn't sound like she was in the frame of mind to make that kind of plan. I'm just saying that I would recommend that plan (bad as it is) to any parent who is heading towards the edge of despair. Do it while it's still possible to rationally implement it. Which brings me to the larger issue....

large issue: is a government run nursing home actually a fate worse than death? I think I would rather err on the side of life and say it isn't. I've never been severly disabled and living in one. I've also never been dead. So I can't experientially compare the two. But even if it's sub-optimal care, as long as a person is alive, there is always the hope that things can get better. It's not like sending somebody to a Saudi prison. It's just not as good as being cared for in a really nice enviroment.

I agree with Sweetleaf. We can speculate on what should be done with rational minds and arrive at solutions that may have been better, but she wasn't rational at the time she made this decision. She didn't make it with good intentions with a loving partner. She made it out of deep despair of someone who had been horrifically abused for many years. Her mental state was not one that was trusting of others to help. The police had been called to the home on domestic disputes where her husband had beaten her yet again, found them to be living in filth and yet no one removed the child. The family doctor said the situation was one that was not sustainable for Mrs. Freaney, yet no one intervened. I am not condoning what this woman did. I am not excusing it, but coming from a standpoint of being a mother with Asperger's with limited support/resources and two autistic children (one severely so) I can appreciate how much this would've worn on her to the point where she made the awful decision she did. In the pictures of her being arrested she looks like a feral cat. The look of terror and pain on her face is so vivid to me that I do feel compassion to what she had to endure, even if I don't condone what she did. This was different IMO to the mother who kills their special needs kid so they just don't have to deal with the burden anymore.

I attempted suicide due to feelings of deep despair and all that, its not a good choice......but yeah I can understand what its like to make a not so good choice due to not being in a rational mindset. So I cannot judge too harshly.

I don't think residential care for Glen would have been the first option. Far better to keep him with his mother and install a care package including a visiting carer to assist his mother and access to short term respite care. We don't know what degree of involvement she had with social services though.

Isn't it? For a (severely) disabled person with no family there's no hope to ever get out of the system once they're in. And for kids the trauma will be permanent any way - they might not be physically dead but they are often dead inside. I used to work with such children and I've seen it too many times.

To each their own but I would take no life over a live of suffering, neglect/abuse (as that also happens a lot in that kind of places) and no right to dignity. Maybe my choice is due to having seen with my own eyes what "life" is for these people.



Yes, that was also my first thought

Well she was with an abusive husband, do you think he was going to let her go get help from social services?

There are people on here who live in care homes. Not all of them are Saudi prisons or Winterbourne View.

Glen was mobile - he could run and cycle, intelligent and able to communicate, albeit with an assistive device. He had severe self care deficits, but we don't know what mighty have been achieved if he'd been able to work with other carers and therapists.

There must have been some social services involvement with the family because

But we don't know how much involvement there was or what barriers there were to her engaging with it. I bet we'll hear something along the lines of 'help was offered' from the Head of Children's Services, but not whether help was offered in a way she could engage with. She might have been fearing them taking her son from her.

Of course the husband had to go, but that's easier said than done.

^
I hope it didn't sound like I was saying that he's better off dead as I don't think so. In such cases I'm always deeply affected by the way society as a whole fails and even helps making victims, hence my rant. While one could understand (not excuse or justify) how this woman ended up losing her mind and committing such a horrid act I can't understand what the hell were all those supposed to help both of them doing - the rest of the family and the authorities included.

Definitely not new. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle refers to the ancient greek practice of throwing "malformed" babies onto the rocks, an early form of eugenics through infanticide.

Definitely not. But something parents of severely disabled children will always be thinking is 'who's going to care for them when I'm gone'. And recent events haven't helped.

Some people can be difficult to help. A social worker has finite time and might tend to spend more of it with those who engage more easily. She might have distrusted social services, fearing that they were going to take her children. We are going to hear the weasel words 'lessons will be learned' a few times from the appropriate Head of Children's Services, but the truth is that some people do not engage easily.

I apologise for what I said earlier in the thread. I just got upset and didn't think about the implications of what happened here.
I think this whole thing is pretty damn sad. That woman is now going to be tortured by what she did for the rest of her life. I felt pretty angry after first reading it but after some thought I think I should be more angry at the police, and social services and other organizations who did nothing to stop/help this woman and her child. And, then David Cameron wants to spend less on public services. What a heartless toff!

It's okay. This is one of the few times where I haven't been angry (just sad) at the parent for such a thing . Usually, I am cynical of the mother's motives. Maybe, I lack empathy and over-identify with the victim too much. I don't know.