Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash
TLDR version: In 2019, the body of a two-year-old toddler was discovered in a pot under the kitchen stove of a flat.
She had been dead for five years since 2014, and would have been 7 years old had she still been alive.
Her parents were slapped with a number of charges for murder and other instances of child abuse and ill-treatment against five of their seven children.
In 2021, the mother received a discharge not amounting to acquittal on the murder charge but still faced 12 other charges. The father still faces the murder charge as well as 13 other charges.
More thoughts: This case first started receiving media attention in 2019 when the toddler’s remains were found.
Many questions were raised about the long lapse between the time of death and the discovery of the body, specifically why the authorities did not notice that the child had not been enrolled in primary school.
The linked article in the above headline provides an answer to some of these questions as well as a comprehensive list of charges against the couple.
What is a “discharge not amounting to acquittal” and why did the mother get it? This simply means that the evidence against her is currently either insufficient or incomplete but the prosecution reserves the right to revive the murder charge later on if the situation warrants it.