An illness, not a crime
by Ken Norman.
Would anyone like to consider baby-snatching from the viewpoint of the abductor?
Initially, Mr and Mrs Humphries were at the top of the list, after their daughter Abbie was abducted in Nottingham. Then they had the joy of her return, and finding that she had been well cared for, plus a huge cash reward which hopefully will brighten the rest of their lives. The victims, now, are those who, in the footsteps of the abductor, Julie Kelley, were driven as she was towards a child snatch, by a legal system and national Press hell-bent on creating such breakdowns.
Consider the events from their viewpoint. You have suffered a catastrophic personal loss (a regretted abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth, cot death, or you are devastated by infertility or having a child snatched away into care because you have suffered depression or other illness. Or you’ve expected a baby, your family and friends are delighted, and then you’re coldly told that it was phantom pregnancy. On that day you’re too shattered to tell your family, so you leave it for a while (each day finding that it gets still more difficult). You start hallucinating and fantasising that perhaps the doctors are wrong; you will have a baby. You’re so convinced of this that you start padding to convince others who are beginning to doubt.
Then you read about Julie (or the latest woman to be arrested for a baby-snatch). It’s you reading in the papers that the police understand and empathise with you and know you won’t harm Abbie (or the latest abducted child); it’s you being arrested in a t.v. spectacular; you who realise that the understanding and empathy have gone, for the police are putting you in a cell; it’s you flanked by male and female police in the dock and then led away to jail in handcuffs; then a fortnight later again, you are found fit for bail at a secret place, and its you awaiting the agony of trial and likely imprisonment.
All this time, it’s you being ripped apart by the tabloids to increase sales among the prurient. And what effect does this have? You are brought to a state of terror, not daring to confide in a doctor or relatives that you’re just like Julie.
You’re in the state where you look at babies in prams and in their mothers’ arms, thinking “If only that was mine, and I was cuddling.” After weeks or months, a little more fancifully, it may become “If only that was my baby and I’m letting a friend cuddle it.” And then, finally: “He/she’s mine, miraculously brought to life, with someone else laying claim. I’ve got to get him/her away and home.”
This progressive delusion can be broken with someone’s sympathetic help . . . but you’ve cut off from friends and doctors. The legal system has created a situation in which you may baby-snatch, for an illness and delusion cannot be deterred; fear makes it worse. Nottingham police were receiving advice from a psychiatrist while Abbie Humphries was missing, and he, presumably, was responsible for the “caring, understanding . . . we know you won’t harm Abbie” information. It served a treble purpose: reassuring the parents that their child was in caring hands; allowing Julie Kelley and any of her friends who might suspect that she was the abductor to contact the police; and ensuring that Julie would not panic, feel driven to suicide and perhaps take the baby with her.
The message to future abductors is: don’t trust police; they want you behind bars.
The consequence was that several “copy-cat” snatches occurred in the next few months
(and if these are the spontaneous type, babies’ lives could be at risk, for the abductor
may be schizophrenic or psychopathic. It would be far wiser if empathy and counselling
were proffered before, during and after an abduction. If the child has not been harmed,
and there is evidence of care, an arrested woman should immediately be offered a
period of psychiatric care. If she accepts, she should never be named or shamed.
It should be recognised that baby-snatchers are ill, not criminal.
Catherine Cookson
It is no betrayal to say that Catherine Cookson was a potential
baby-snatcher, and this gave her the will to write. In her autobiography, “Our Kate,”
she described the heart-break in her middle years from losing four children. Doctors
said “No more babies.” The Catholic Church to which she belonged, said “No contraception.”
She had a breakdown leading to therapy and electric shock treatment. She wrote: “My
first baby, who would have been called David, was born after nine days in labour.Tom
helped deliver him. He was an exact and minute replica of himself and I felt I was
about to die.
“After losing my last baby, I tortured myself with the temptation of
stealing another woman’s child. It’s like a secret sin, having these terrible feelings
towards other women. But I felt I needed the child so much that I could feel nothing
but envy for other women’s babies. If only my babies had lived there would have
been no books,” she wrote.
Fortunately she had the ability to sublimate her agony
by writing novels on the pain, misery and joys of others, becoming Britain’s well-loved,
best-selling author. Remembering her own sufferings she had understanding for other
potential abductors, and in 1991 made a donation to the Portia Trust. Her husband
Tom wrote: “Yes, Catherine is still unwell. She has a blood trouble (telangiectasia)
which has worsened with age; and if this were not enough she is fast losing her sight.
I tell you this solely to excuse her from answering your letter directly. She thanks
you for it and asks me to send the enclosed cheque.”
www.slimeylimeyjustice.org