They were right to prosecute

A bereft mother who pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of the toddler she left forgotten in a hot car has been discharged without conviction. It’s a sentence that will draw far more approval than not, but we should be clear that this was not a matter in which the court told the Whanganui health professional that she had done nothing wrong.

She had. And she acknowledged as much by a guilty plea that should not, for one moment, be interpreted as so much a technicality that it doesn’t really mean what it says.

That hearts go out to her doesn’t change the fact that this was fault. This was guilt.

It’s true that in her job as a health professional the Whanganui mother was fatigued after working long hours leading up to the day of her 16-month-old child’s death. Much as she fully intended to drop him off at daycare first, the wretched truth is that the wee boy in the back simply hadn’t taken the imperative position in her busy and demanding list of daily priorities. When it really mattered, she had other things on her mind.

The duty of care that the law places on parents and caregivers is weighty and daunting. And justified. Children’s deaths cannot be written off as a deeply regrettable occasional consequence of the fact that we all have places to go and things to do and everyone’s fallible. If a patient had died in her professional care because she just plain forgot part of a procedure, would that have meant she wasn’t guilty? If through just a moment’s inattention on that drive to work she had run someone over, should she have been legally off the hook?

The natural consequence of this lapse was unspeakably cruel for child, mother and family. That’s because the stakes are so high. We must not lower them. The need to plan, to prepare, to react and, if necessary, to accept that sometimes you cannot do it all needs to be proclaimed.

The question is now being asked, what purpose did it serve, having this mother admit in court that she was guilty of manslaughter, when there was no real appetite for society to extract further penalty? It’s because compassion for the mother is a secondary consideration to the rights of the child, and others like him.

This little boy was entitled to better. That truth needs to be upheld loud and clear throughout the land everywhere that it matters.

Including in our courts.