commentary by Patrick H. Moore
Even children with loving and responsible parents sometimes get a little fed up with mom and dad and their demands. Imagine what it would be like if both your parents had a history of psychosis and serious mental illness and were liable to “goes off their rockers” at any moment. Now, to make it all the worse, imagine you are only six weeks old, a helpless infant named Faith, and your mother experiences a complete psychotic breakdown. You wouldn’t have any way to protect yourself.
Sadly, this is what happened to a tiny six-week old English girl named Faith in the English town of Milton, near the ancient city of Cambridge, in June of 2009. While caring for Faith, her mother, 41-year-old Julia Lovemore — who had a history of psychotic episodes dating back to 1995 — veered into a state which she described as “getting bipolar”. She doesn’t know why she did it but the next thing she knew she was ripping pages out of her Bible and stuffing them into tiny Faith’s mouth. Julia admits to blocking the child’s airways:
“I sat in my bedroom and I was ripping pages out of my Bible. I put some small bits of paper in Faith’s mouth and she spat them out. For some reason, I sat on her, I was crying. I was bouncing on the bed. I don’t know why I was sitting on her. I got bi-polar.”
Even the fact that Julia sat on Faith might not have seriously harmed her but bouncing on her was more than the infant’s tiny system could endure. Later that day, Mr. Lovemore turned up at his general practitioner’s office carrying the child’s lifeless body. He was accompanied by Faith’s older sister who had been doused in white spirit (a form of mentholated turpentine) but was otherwise unharmed.
What makes this situation all the sadder is the fact that while this was going on, or immediately thereafter, Julia and her husband, David Lovemore, were paid a visit by a community psychiatric nurse, Rebecca Hughes, and a second health care practitioner.
When they arrived at the Lovemore residence, they found David, 39, stamping his feet and saying: “Take the devil out of Julia.” Their older child was sitting alone on the stairs.
At a court hearing, Rebecca Hughes stated:
“I have never ever seen him like that before. It was as if he was in a trance. I felt the situation was unstable. I was very worried about David, I feared he may be becoming psychotic. I felt very unsettled, I would almost go as far as to say I was scared.”
Ms. Hughes and the other health care worker were so concerned by David Lovemore’s behavior that instead of checking on Julia and little Faith, who were upstairs, they left to seek help.
The Cambridge Crown Court prosecutor John Farmer stated logically enough:
“Unfortunately, neither of them sought to see the defendant and the best interpretation of events is that by then Faith was dead or dying because there would be no other reason why the husband of the defendant was so intensely engaged in prayer.”
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Julia Lovemore has been detained indefinitely under the English Mental Health Act after admitting to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
In a commentary on Faith’s death, a blogger named Amelia McDonnell-Parry seems to blame the child’s death on the fact that the Lovemores were fanatical Christians combined with what she describes as a failure of the British mental health care system. Ms. McDonnell-Parry writes:
“Religious fanaticism is just scary. Julia Lovemore and her husband are both Christian fundamentalists with mental health issues.”
She then goes on to blame the health care workers:
What’s even more disturbing is that mental health professionals knew the Lovemores’ children were living in danger. When Mrs. Lovemore was pregnant, a psychologist concluded that there was a “high risk” of a bi-polar relapse and suggested it was necessary to monitor her. Their older daughter was also put on the “at risk register” in 2006, after her mom hit her with a hairbrush. Even the day of this incident, a psychiatric nurse visited the house and heard Mr. Lovemore shouting, “Take the devil out of Julia.” She bailed to “consult with experts,” while Faith was dead or dying somewhere in the house. It’s not fair to blame the social workers, but where were child services? What’s the point of acknowledging that someone is at risk if there are no intentions to do anything about it?
Both these claims on Ms. McDonnell-Parry’s part seem rather unfair to me. The fact that the Lovemore’s were fanatical Christians is not what caused Faith’s death. Her death came as a direct result of her mother’s serious mental illness. And the fanatical Christianity could very well be a symptom of the fact both the Lovemores were mentally ill. Furthermore, it’s all to easy to blame “child services.” It appears that the social workers were monitoring the Lovemores, albeit unsuccessfully.
No, the problem, in my opinion, is the fact that these two psychotic individuals had children in the first place. But society is not willing to step in and deny individuals the right to reproduce and for a very good reason. Who is to decide which groups can and cannot re-produce? In that direction lies a kind of social totalitarianism which few, if any, right-minded individuals desire.
What I think could help, though, would be for free societies to institute as part of the standard high school curriculum a class in parental responsibility, which would be required for graduation. In this class, one of units could address the issue that not everyone is cut out for parenthood, and that citizens should think long and hard before bringing children into the world as opposed to just blithely procreating.