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Another woman and her daughter failed by the State and community?

I am much exercised about the case of Verphy Kudi, a Brighton teenage Mum just sentenced to 9 years for the manslaughter of her 20-moth-old daughter by neglect. Verphi went off to celebrate her 18th birthday and left the child alone for nearly 6 days in a “supported” flat in Brighton. Social services had the child on the at risk register, the mother was known to be vulnerable and long-estranged from her birth family, but no social worker had been assigned to the case. They claim that they did not know that she had left the child behind.

I find myself responding at three levels. As a human, I feel the sadness of the lonely death of that little girl; and anger that she had to die that way. But I also can imagine how desperate Verphi might have felt. She had moved into their flat relatively recently, and it is not clear how much she knew her neighbours – though it was they who alerted the police when they heard that the child was dead.

As a mother, I can sympathise with Verphy, to some extent. Anyone who has tried living alone with a toddler will understand why you might want to walk away from the situation, especially now that all the support groups are closed or only just starting up again! Living under Lockdown with a toddler and no nursery or playgroup or mother-and-baby socialising was a nightmare, as I found out at my daughter’s last year, even though her circumstances were much easier than Verphi’s. I feel strongly that no-one should be left alone in charge of toddlers for more than a few hours!

Motherhood and childcare, bringing up the next generation of citizens in a patriarchal culture (such as ours still is, alas) is the most sociable of human activities.Those who do it need the support of others – not just a partner, and family, but also a community, a neighbourhood, a society. In normal

times it is difficult enough. As Vivienne Wellburn wrote in the 1970s, “The working conditions of motherhood are such as to threaten the mental wellbeing of many women who undertake it”. When such supports as do exist, inadequate though they may be, are cut off – as in Lockdown, under pandemic restrictions – the situation can rapidly become desperate. Childcare is a highly-skilled but undervalued role.

As another mother I used to know once said, “The amazing thing is not that some children get battered, but that all children don’t!” From this point of view, it is amazing that most of us don’t walk out on or batter our small children. But at a price to our own wellbeing. And woe betide you if you let on how hard it is.

As a feminist, I wonder: what is the back story? Was Verphy being punished for being a Bad Mother, deviant, as well as being black, poor, young and a single mother? How come she was alienated from her family of origin? Their reported comments suggest to me a difficult history of some kind, for the family as a whole not just for Verphy. Similarly, how come she had not been assigned a social worker, had been signed off from the “Mother and baby” care she had had earlier? Indeed, what exactly had been going on between her and Brighton and Hove social services, underfunded and pressurised as they are? So many questions; it is difficult to find answers.

What I have picked up is a tendency to turn the distress we all feel about the daughter’s death, into blame for the mother. it is implied in all the comments I have read, from police, her family, her neighbours. Where is the compassion she surely deserves? She is going to have to live with the knowledge of what happened as a result of her marking her coming of age for the rest of her life.

Vehi’s case has provided a field day for the media, riffing on the theme of the Bad Mother, the deviant who prefers to go dancing rather than stay at home and look after her toddler. It reminds me of that of “Baby Dean”, way back in 1987: in that case there was a baby who died and a toddler who survived, just. The mother had been seen in the pub and had fed the family dog, but not her baby – doubly deviant. She too was poor and in effect alone – her partner was drinking what money they had. She too admitted manslaughter and was sentenced to only 3 years, I think – but she was white.

There was a similar feeding frenzy by the media then, on the theme of the Bad Mother, though she was known to have been the victim of domestic violence, poverty and I think had a history of childhood sexual abuse. That was bad enough as a sentence ( her partner got 18 months and was released, because of the time he had spent in prison on remand); but 9 years for Verphi seems excessive.

I live in Brighton, but have just moved here and don’t know of any women’s organisations or individuals locally who are doing something to support Verphi or to develop an analysis of the case. I don’t even know where she will be serving her sentence, or how to find out.

All I can do as a Quaker, is to “ hold her in the Light” as we say, and ask my fellow-Quakers to do the same. And reach out to anyone else who is moved by this story to be in touch with me?

Written by Penny Cloutte

I am 74, living in Brighton since Feb 2018 after 50+ years in London. Was part of the “second wave” of feminism, was active in various campaigns until about the mid-80s, when living as a single mother rather took up my energy! I ran workshops at the Women’s Therapy Centre until about 1990, and worked as a counsellor until I retired 3 years ago. I also ran classes in Personal Development etc. at the Mary Ward Centre, and co-led a Diploma course to train counsellors from 2001 to 2018. I am a mother of one wonderful daughter, who is now the mother of a son and a daughter and pretty busy with that so I am acutely aware of the problems of arranging childcare to allow a mother to do anything other than motherhood.

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