In the United Kingdom, a mother was tried and interned after suffocating her disabled son in August 2020. According to justice and psychiatrists, she had reached mental saturation.
When confinement grows mad … In the United Kingdom, Bobbie Cheema-Grubb, a 40-year-old woman was sentenced to internment in a psychiatric hospital for an interminable period during her trial, Thursday 11 February in London , as Southwest reports. She is accused of strangling her severely disabled 10-year-old son, Dylan, last August. The Criminal Court itself recognized that the woman was completely "exhausted" and "exhausted". "I have absolutely no doubt that you were an extremely loving and devoted mother to this vulnerable child until you were overwhelmed by multiple pressures and your mind was taken over by a destructive disease"said Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb.
Read also: From January, disabled parents will receive assistance of nearly 900 euros per month
Olga Freeman had to care for her son continuously due to the restrictions in place in the United Kingdom. The child's father, celebrity photographer Dean Freeman, was in Spain at the time of the tragedy on August 15, so the woman was alone with him.
A descent into hell
Things would have started to go wrong during the first lockdown, in the spring and then in the summer. Olga Freeman was finding it increasingly difficult to care for her son and had developed, according to a psychiatrist, psychotic symptoms caused by "very severe stress." With the special school that little Dylan attended being closed and health restrictions forcing people to stay at home, the woman slowly sank into madness, until she committed the irreparable.
The filmed assault of a young disabled person outrages the web
After killing her son, suffering from severe physical and mental disabilities, she went to the police station on her own to denounce her crime. Arriving at his home, the police found the young boy in a bedroom in their Acton house, covered with a quilt and surrounded by toys. The autopsy determined that he died of an obstruction in his airways caused by pieces of sponge stuck in his mouth. In view of the circumstances, British justice considered that Dylan was an “indirect victim” of the confinement imposed on the United Kingdom against the coronavirus. "Dylan should be recognized as an indirect victim of the interruption of normal life caused by the Covid-19 pandemic", she stressed.
Disabled caregivers, largely forgotten by the government
It is important to note that this kind of drama is likely to occur due to a dire lack of support for caregivers of people with disabilities. In France, the situation is no better than in the UK. As early as April 2020 and after a fortnight of strict confinement, the government had authorized flexible hours for people with disabilities, but this was clearly not enough. For these people, daily life has been turned upside down for months and the close entourage, often on the front line, has fallen apart. On the national territory, they are 8 to 11 million to look after a sick, disabled or dependent loved one.
Céline Martinez, mother of three children with a son suffering from Prader-Willi syndrome, which notably causes intense temper tantrums, as well as a lack of satiety, causing him to want to eat continuously was at the end of the line. She expressed herself in a video available on France Culture, where she recounted her difficult daily life. “We, caregivers of a disabled person, we feel abandoned. This confinement has reduced to nothing everything that has been put in place for ten years, with specialized education. Today, my child is losing his bearings, he has no activities, I managed to conduct some for a month, to teach him a class, but today my strength is failing me. My child cannot stand the vacuum, if I am not rested, listening, he is not well; as soon as I make a phone call for example, the cries, even the blows will redouble ” she explained.
As for the measures taken by the government, she rebelled and cried insufficient. “I find it abnormal that the President of the Republic and the government do not talk about children with disabilities and parents who cry out their distress on social networks. " A cry for help that must be heard when certain specialized structures are closed, and caregivers, forced to stay at home with their disabled relatives.