UK: Judge Releases Mother Who Went Clubbing With Infant Who Died While She Was Partying
A mother who took her four-month-old son clubbing, while she got very inebriated, accidentally killed her son by rolling on top of him while she was asleep.
Apparently, it took over an hour to awaken the mother who had passed out on top of her baby after a heavy drinking session.
Marina Tilby, 26, from Aberaeron, Ceredigion, Wales, had been seen out nightclubbing with her baby boy before returning to a caravan with two men she had met on that night.
During the night, CCTV and witnesses confirmed that Tilby had been dancing with her baby and throwing him up in the air.
Her son, Darrian, had blood coming out of his nose as he lay unresponsive next to his mother.
Tilby was jailed for two years and four months by Swansea Crown Court.
Tilby had admitted child cruelty through willful neglect.
Judges later released Tilby at a London court of appeals after reducing the sentence to 16 months suspended.
According to The Daily Mail, the judge who had initially sentenced Tilby told her:
she had ‘completely ignored’ her duty to protect her son and said it would never be known if doctors would have been able to save him if she had raised the alarm sooner.
He also expressed his ‘unease’ that it could not be proved what caused the baby’s death.
The judge said: ‘It is a mother’s responsibility, a mother’s duty, and her natural instinct to put the care and safety of her four-week old child above all else.
Advertisement - story continues below‘You completely ignored that duty so you could get extremely drunk on a night-out.
‘So drunk were you that you fell into a deep sleep and slept on top of your baby. There came a time when he was not moving. He had blood in his mouth, but you didn’t realise because you were so drunk.
‘You showed deliberate disregard for the welfare of your son.’
Metro reports the court of appeals judge’s verdict:
Medical evidence was unable to rule out the possibility Darrian’s death was caused by sudden infant death syndrome before Tilby had rolled onto him.
Police ‘failed to properly investigate death of boy, 3, that was actually murder’ Mr Justice Fraser said a victim impact statement from the baby’s father, who was not in a relationship with Tilby at the time of his death but wanted to play a part in his upbringing, made it clear he would have looked after his son on the night in question if he had been asked.
The judge said psychological reports made it clear that Darrian’s death had a ‘significant impact’ on Tilby’s mental health and she had suffered a ‘deep depression’.
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