The 13-year-old was already dead when her mother returned home, but she still ignored her and went for another drink.
Editor's note: This article was originally published on August 24, 2020. It has since been updated.
They say that being a mother is one of the most selfless things in the world. A mother sets aside everything when it comes to her child. But maybe that's not true for everyone.
A mother in Scotland let her daughter suffer and die while she enjoyed her time at the pub. The mother, Sharon Goldie, found her 13-year-old daughter Robyn Goldie slumped on the sofa when she got back from the pub.
According to The Daily Mail, Robyn had been begging her mother to get her checked as she was "hurting all over" but she thought that her daughter was "faking it." It was only after she was dead that the ambulance was called.
The disturbing details of the teenager's suffering were revealed in front of a judge on August 20 at the High Court in Glasgow. The 45-year-old had been neglecting her daughter for the past year. Her condition was so bad that Robyn even asked someone for £1 to eat.
Robyn had been suffering from a burst stomach ulcer which is why she had been enduring so much pain, which according to the doctors could have been cured if attended on time. But oblivious to the fact, instead of taking her daughter to the hospital, Sharon went to the pub.
She ignored her daughter even after she saw Robyn slumped on the sofa, took another drink from her fridge, and went outside the house with a friend. When her friend came and checked the teenager, she was unresponsive. She still believed that Robyn was faking because she told the paramedics "she's at it." Finally when Robyn's death was confirmed, a "wailing" Sharon cried, "No, she cannot be."
She pleaded guilty to a charge under the Children and Young Persons Act of wilfully ill-treating and neglecting her daughter, who died after suffering a burst stomach ulcer. The prosecutors accepted her not guilty plea for the murder of Robyn. Her fate will be decided next month.
Robyn had been under child protection register after Sharon was found to be having a drinking problem. She was then sent to stay with her grandmother until 2017 where she has a "stable life." When the teenager started secondary school, she returned to stay with Sharon in Wishaw, Lanarkshire under the monitoring eyes of the social workers.
Prosecutor Ashley Edwards QC informed that Sharon was offered multiple "opportunities" to attend parenting classes which she "declined." Instead, she asked Robyn to be "removed from the care." According to the social workers, the house stank of cat urine, and the mother and daughter were usually found to arguing, reported The Sun.
Miss Edwards also revealed that Sharon was a regular at Melody Bar in Wishaw. She said, "Robyn was often seen attending there looking for Goldie and asking for money to buy food. She also often approached a neighbor asking for £1 to get food."
Robyn, described as "thin, dirty, and unkempt", often filmed her mother slapping, biting, and screaming at her. "On an occasion (at the pub), Goldie was heard to say: 'I am f*****g sick of her. I wish she would go back and stay with her gran,'" Miss Edward said. The child never got the affection from her mother that she deserved, Sharon made it clear to her every time she said she didn't want her in her house.
Robyn was prescribed painkillers after she complained about sore stomach and legs a week before her death. On July 21 Sharon was heard in the pub saying she had "locked" Robyn in the house "so she could not get out".
Even though the girl texted her gran she felt better, a friend of Sharon's described the teenager looking "drained" and "not well." The night of the incident Robyn had asked her mother to call an ambulance since she wasn't feeling well but Sharon "refused to contact an ambulance." When her friend tried to offer them help, she claimed that Robyn was "attention-seeking."
The next day Robyn tried getting the neighbor's help complaining that she couldn't breathe but Sharon yelled at her to "get in." On July 26, she passed away, which Sharon thought was due to a bug. The teenage girl died due to peritonitis which was a result of a perforated ulcer. According to a senior medic, she would have been "expected to survive," if she had been treated on time.
As heard in the court, Sharon had suffered from a brain injury as a child after a car accident. She was an in-patient for mental health issues in 2003, but she had stopped taking medications and there had been no further treatments.
Continuing her bail time, Lord Beckett told Sharon, "It is a serious case, but I want more information before deciding what to do."
References:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/scottish-news/12458647/robyn-goldie-death-mum-guilty-neglect/
