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Pushed Over The Edge

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nailit | 18:28 Fri 05th Oct 2018 | News
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https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/charlene-sargeant-cheadle-murder-rocky-2079589

I knew both the girl and her mother. She used to play with my son when they were kids. Her mother had numerous mental health issues and I know that her daughter's upbringing was awful (Im in no way blaming her mother, she was ill) but when this story hit my local paper a while back both my son and myself said ''not surprised''.
Its a tragic case for all concerned, both daughter and mother, but why as a society does it ever get to this? Where are social services when needed?
I can fully understand this girl been pushed over the edge by a seriously mentally ill mother. I can also understand the struggles that her mother endured by her illnesses.
I cant understand why things like this esculate to the point that they have.
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‘Where are social services when needed?‘

Over stretched and over stressed. As per.
Oh dear that's terribly sad, I don;t even know where to start about how I feel about that except to say it's s massive burden for a child to grown up with a single parent with serious mental health issues. I feel so sorry for both of them.
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//Over stretched and over stressed. As per. //
Sounds about right Zacs, unfortunately.
Yep.
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kval, not my place to say on a public forum but I know some of the things that happened to the daughter as a youngster as a result of her mothers illnesses and it maddens me to see the headline
//This is the evil woman, 24, who stabbed her own mum to death//
She wasn't *evil*. She was let down by the system. The system that should have been there for both her and her mum.
It is indeed tragic from start to sad finish, sometimes even when services are involved something can blow up in the hours when no one's around.

Awful.
Terribly tragic, another failure of the system but I think it is possibly wrong for the press to label her evil, this was sad rather than bad
What could social services have done? Mental health difficulties sometimes fall in that gap where intervention cannot be justified. Even then people cannot be forced to accept help. And the rules on sectioning people are pretty strict too. It's tragic and sad but I can't see how it was necessarily preventable.
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From the comments section
//'Evil' is a bit over the top, lads. Let's get a grip. Evil is Peter Sutcliffe. This is tragedy.//
Couldn't agree more.

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BM, I always appreciate your comments/posts and help but I think in this instance I will have to take issue with you on a couple of points.
//And the rules on sectioning people are pretty strict too//
In the past Ive twice been sectioned when all I needed was a listening ear. In my experience sectioning people isn't that strict and is often the easy way out to deal with people with problems.
//but I can't see how it was necessarily preventable//
I think that it could have (possibly) been preventable with ongoing support from social services and mental health professionals.
What do you think social services/society should have done, nailit?
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//What do you think social services/society should have done, nailit?//
Well obviously they did nothing. But keeping in contact and (as Sqad would say) monitor the situation. But leaving someone who has serious mental health issues (and with a child) to their own devices is asking for trouble.
I understand what you are saying SR but from years ago when I knew them, the daughter suffered from neglect (and again, Im not blaming the mother who was ill)
Did you report the neglect to social services?
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//Did you report the neglect to social services?//
personally no, but I know others who did.
One can not expect perfection from any budgeted system (nor from any human for that matter). Similarly one can't expect a system to catch everything. It's a blessing society manages to achieve whatever it manages to offer. That accepted, those that fall between the cracks, as it were, are a tragic failing of the system. Maybe those in society that knew them could have stressed the situation to the authorities; but few do. It's human nature. It's an imperfect world, an imperfect society, and terrible things will and do occur.
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//It's an imperfect world, an imperfect society, and terrible things will and do occur///
Cant argue with tthat OG. Just hope the sentencing judge will take into consideration those facts.
i go with zacs, over stretched and often too young to deal with some of these awful cases.
Social services are damned when they do and when they don’t!
nailit - //This is the evil woman, 24, who stabbed her own mum to death//

Sadly, newspapers don't sell copies on stories with backgrounds of 'tragic and preventable complex social issues case results in potential manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility' - which appears to be the case here - but use of the word 'evil' is a tagline that gets people reading, and buying the paper.
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//but use of the word 'evil' is a tagline that gets people reading, and buying the paper//
Sad but true Andy :-(

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