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A mother who starved her seven-year-old daughter to death has been cleared of murder, but has admitted manslaughter.

Prosecutors accepted Angela Gordon's defence of diminished responsibility over the death of Khyra Ishaq and agreed to the lesser charge.

Gordon's partner, Junaid Abuhamza, had a manslaughter plea accepted following an earlier report on his mental health.

Khyra weighed 2st 9lb (16.5kg) when she was found severely emaciated at a house in Handsworth, Birmingham, in 2008.

Paramedics took her to Birmingham Children's Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

'Squalid conditions'

Following the end of the trial, it was revealed a judge in the High Court had concluded that "in all probability" Khyra would be alive if there had been "an adequate initial assessment by educational welfare services".

In a ruling which could only be reported at the end of the criminal trial, Mrs Justice King said: "It is beyond belief that, in 2008, in a bustling, energetic and modern city like Birmingham, a child of seven was withdrawn from school and thereafter kept in squalid conditions for a period of five months before finally dying of starvation."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8519862.stm

Hi Whirley, I heard the verdict while I was up a ladder painting and swore at the radio... beggars belief...if i starved my child to death what could it be other than murder?! unless mental illness was proven which I didn't hear mention of?

no words, x

Whirls we had a similar case here in Oz with the child found in appalling conditions which aren't appropriate to post on here. The child's mother got a life sentence.

Sue xx

add, just reading it says she was suffering from severe depression at the time....

but not so severe she couldn't get plenty of food in, lock it away and make sure hardly any went to her kids.. ?!

Words fail me Rose...

Apparently MP Khalid Mahmood has called for a public inquiry into social services handling of the case.

Det Insp Sean Russell of West Midlands Police, who led the investigation, said he believed Khyra had been kept a virtual prisoner in an upstairs room.

"The defendants had created a situation in which the children, who were being educated at home, had been kept away from their extended family, friends and the outside world," he said.
The house was well-stocked with food, but this was kept locked away out of the reach of Khyra and five other children in the care of the defendants.


Det Insp Sean Russell said his officers were "reduced to tears"
The other children were also starved, two of them suffering from dangerous malnutrition by the time they were rescued.

JustGinnie Today at 20:13 Request review
Both the mother and her boyfriend have serious mental issues according to the reports on Central and ITV news programmes

Interesting that JG. I wonder if that summing up/ comment has been made by their Brief?? ie it seems these days that blaming the old "mental" issues...is a sure fire way of getting away with "all sorts"

Sue, we're too bloody soft over here I am sad to say...............



SueMaid Today at 20:11 Request review
Whirls we had a similar case here in Oz with the child found in appalling conditions which aren't appropriate to post on here. The child's mother got a life sentence.

Sue xx

I can see how it happens, when we fosterd we had meeting after meetings even meetings about meetings, the social workers would chat about there holidays the ones that turned up, i never once went to a meeting where it could have been sorted in 5 mins, some of those social care workers etc should have been visiting people like this, how do they fall of the register at school, if you so much take a child out of school you have a phone call within hours there is no excuse.
There is a case now where mum has learning difficulties and boyfriend has had 2 previous children removed the new girlfriend is expecting a baby social services are involved thank god, these people also live in a big city im just wondering how long it will take before they issue a ultimatium as to wether she choses her baby of bf.

from a previous report



"Something happened in the house that no-one could get to because there wasn't sufficient legislation to get in," said Mr Brownbill.

The trial heard how behind closed doors Gordon's partner had put a lock on the fridge door and punished Khyra, hitting her with a cane and putting her "in detention" in the garden.

The children were all forced to eat from one bowl or were force fed until they were sick if they had eaten too much. "

is that 'mentally ill' or just plain evil ?

You can't just 'fall off the register' of a school, LadyLol , anyone electing to home educate who already has their child placed in a school, has, at very least, to send a letter to the head couched in very specific terms. Most also send a letter to their LEA, though it is the headteachers responsibility to inform LEA.

It's plain evil Rose,,,,,,,,,,,

JG..........then SS's should have seen the bloody light long after that.........

Disgusting,that it goes on.

Thanks JG

Marion., yep it sure is. what lessons have SS's learned since Victoria Climbié............I'm sure we all hope things will get better, but will they? I dont think so,,,,,,,,,,,,a serious shake up is needed............another kid has died and it would be easy to defend SS's as some would, but sorry, I can't and won't.

"educated at home"

Right.

And there is the very biggest reason why "home schooling" simply should not be permitted.

Society has a responsibility to children -- to make sure they are safe and that they are being provided the necessities of life.

How is society supposed to fulfil that duty when parents are allowed to hide their children away from the prying eyes of teachers, school officials ... and neighbours and other children ... by taking them out of school?

Children are as entitled to a public life as anyone else is. A 7-yr-old child with those problems would not have escaped notice if anyone had been allowed to see her.

Home schooling, pah. Parents focusing their narcissism and too often their mental illness or plain criminal behaviour on their children.

Andrea Yates, remember her? Her kids were "home schooled" too. She had known major psychological problems, but was put in charge of them, and her father who had Alzheimer, by her controlling self-centred freak of a husband. She was the one who killed her children, but their deaths are on his head.

People with psychological problems, and people who are simply bad, will have children. School attendance, out in public, is the best way for the rest of us to identify the children who need help.

well lets hope any child being looked after by a parent deemed with "menatl issues" be closly monitored xxx

Janey, I won't start on a debate with you, because this is not the thread for it...

but saying
"Home schooling, pah. Parents focusing their narcissism and too often their mental illness or plain criminal behaviour on their children."

may apply to a tiny minority of home educators, just as the word 'paedophile' can be applied to a tiny minority of 'nursery school assistants' .

Home schooling has been going on since the year dot... I am neither mad, narcissistic, nor criminal and I suspect that goes for the majority rather than the minority :)

School attendance would certainly have saved this little one, but in the majority of child murders, it wouldn't.