Sometimes I find it hard to take sides or make a decision because usually I can see the other person's point of view. I make excuses for people driving badly, for example, (for all I swear at them!) or forgetting to include someone in a group invitation, partly because I can understand all too easily how such things might happen.
But sometimes I cannot understand how someone can do something. The recent case of Daniel Pelka is one of those times. I haven't read all the stories in the news relating to it because it's just too sad and too distressing. The little I have seen projects Daniel's mother and her partner as being like the killers that I normally come across in TV shows like 'Criminal Minds', where it's all fiction and people like that don't really exist. Except apparently they do.
I can *almost* understand the stepfather's actions. I suppose it's the exercise of power by an extreme sadist. But what is so shocking to me is how the maternal instinct seems to have failed so completely in Daniel's mother. Clearly the boyfriend was a scary guy as Daniel's sibling tried to help but did so secretly, to protect both of them. So perhaps Daniel's mother was also scared of him. Perhaps. She didn't appear to show any remorse throughout the nine weeks of the trial, though. Ultimately, I can only agree with the judge who described their actions as 'incomprehensible'. Literally.
Thirty years doesn't seem much for what the two of them put a little boy through. But it will probably be thirty years in solitary for their own protection, because I'm pretty certain that their fellow jailbirds will find their actions incomprehensible too, and many of them will be parents.
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