Viewpoint: 'Amanda Hutton Is Not Like Us'

Bradford Law Courts

When Amanda Hutton, mother of little Hamzah Khan, was sentenced to fifteen years in prison on charges of manslaughter and neglect, there was uproar in some quarters of the press and internet. Digitalnun writes today on the ibenedictines blog. The general consensus seemed to be that hanging would be too good for her. Here was a woman, a mother, who had allowed her own child to starve to death in the most appallingly squalid conditions while she drank herself to oblivion. If you followed the trial reports, other details emerged that were almost equally troubling. She was the mother of eight (how feckless) and had claimed child benefit after Hamzah’s death (a benefits cheat). True, there was the fact that the child’s father had beaten her up and actually been prosecuted for doing so, but what is that in the general scale of things? He had pleaded with the authorities to look after his child and they had failed to do so. The fact remains that Amanda Hutton was a selfish and cruel woman, an unnatural mother, who deserves to die for what she did. Or so the mob would say.

I must admit I am uneasy about the reaction to Amanda Hutton. It strikes me as being rather like the reaction to the Mick Philpot case or those convicted of paedophilia. It seems as though we all need to be able to say, ‘Bad as I am, I am not as bad as he/she is.’ We may want to say it, but I wonder whether it is true.

To read on see: www.ibenedictines.org/2013/10/05/amanda-hutton-is-not-like-us/