UPDATED: Sally Dent and Shaun Binfield guilty of manslaughter of Riley Pettipierre, 2

“Plenty of methadone in Foston Hall, she will be fine!”

“by Goldie22
"@Snow_Man - Methadone in a sippy cup......not reckless?"


You're expecting the same levels of common sense from an addict as from a "normal" person. You wont get it. That is why the social sewrvices have serious questions to answer.
Adicts, be it drugs or drink, simply don't always behave in a rational manner, and leaving a child in their care is clearly a risk. Why did social services not intervene?”

“Drug addicts and alcoholics are not even capable of looking after themselves never mind a child, so why are they allowed to keep their children! Only when they have been off all drugs/methadone for a year or more should they be allowed to have their children back.”

“@Snow_Man - Methadone in a sippy cup......not reckless? That would be like me keeping my pain killers in a child's cup......you just don't do it!!!!
I also know one of the parents.....I'm glad it's evident from their Facebook pages that they are remorseful as they didn't look remotely remorseful when they were out happily shopping in Belper.
It's always the same though isn't it?? It's always the poor innocent's who pay the price.”

“But this wasn't the first time was it "A hair sample taken from Riley after he died showed that he had ingested class A drugs in the months prior to his death." more than once is not an accident in my opinion. If a child had drank bleach say 4 times over a 6 month period I would have exactly the same opinion. And to place methadone in a childs cup is beyond stupid, no matter if they thought it was out of reach or not.”

“@ SJBROWNDERBY, I know the definition of manslaughter, and I fail to see any suggestion of recklessness. According to the report they put the substance where they believed it to be out of reach of the child. That is not reckless, it's merely a misjudgement.
Had this child ingested prescription medicines, or household bleach, it would have been treated as a tragic accident. It appears that they are being punished because of what he ingested rather than whether or not they were reckless.
Seems to me that the jury and indeed the prosecution were wrongly influenced by the fact it was a drug substitute.
I still think that social services have questions to answer as to why any child is left in the care of addicted parents where this sort of thing is a predictable risk.”

“The Hidden Harm report stated that there are between 200,000 and 300,000
children in England and Wales where one or both parents
have serious drug problems. For those of you asking why the child was in their care, the answer is simple, there is no where else for them to go. This tragic case illustrates the importance of the services drug charities offer, especially around harm reduction (distributing methadone storage boxes with locks being just one part of this). The problem is that in times of recession peoples empathy with problematic drug users becomes a lot lower, services get cut, and in the case of this goverments drug stratergy everything becomes about recovery and abstinence and the harm reduction part gets left out. This is a tragic accident, not a Murder.. those of you saying that, have very little understanding around what the difference between the two means. The manslaughter charge is justified.”

“Snow_Man....................if there was evidence of intent then the charge would be murder. Recklessness as to the consequences of their action/inaction is enough to prove manslaughter.”

“I dont see any evidence of intent. This sounds like a tragic accident caused by not keeping the methadone secure.
Perhaps we need to look at why social services left a child in the care of drug addicts?”

“Poor child. :(”