Karen Harrington jailed for life for the murder of Santina Cawley

Unless you've somehow discovered a way to predict a person will commit murder that is horseshit of the highest order and you know it. Yes he shouldn't have left the child with her that night but he surely didn't expect his daughter to be murdered by the bitch, regardless of what rows or other circumstances occured.

There's an awful reek of deflection and blaming going on here about the father, at the end of the day his only mistake was leaving the child in her care. I don't recall any recent case like this where someone who wasn't even at the scene of the murder is being blamed for a part in it, it's disgusting to be honest.

It's not disgusting for people to question how a parent (supposed to care for) can leave a child in the care of someone who was clearly erratic and drunk and angry and volatile.....

What this woman did was utter depravity.

Had he left the child alone with a large dog and something terrible happened, he would be rightly condemned. This woman did to that child what an animal wouldn't even do....

Point is: the poor child was failed by people. Harington was just the evil monster who physically ended her life.

I disagree completely on that one, as does the law (in my admittedly limited knowledge of it).

The crime here is the killing of the child. Only one person did it.

Were there other crimes? Probably. Were there things that could have been done to protect the child? Definitely. Did the parents fail to protect her adequately? In my opinion, definitely. None of this changes the above. Only one person murdered this child.

I am with you here

I am simply saying that it is not off, wrong or disgusting to place blame on the child's parents here.

I used the dog analogy: who is to blame if a dog mauls a child to death (child intentionally left alone in company of dog)? It's not the dog.....

Yes, Harrigton killed her, and deserves the life sentence. I get that.

The father left this defenseless child alone with a woman who was clearly a volatile character, who had a history of drink and drugs issues. Left her alone on a night that where there was clear chaos.

You can blame them all you want for things like neglect, bad parenting, being drunks, drug users, scumbags, anything at all that you wish, you won't get any argument from me.

If you blame them for the child's murder, as posted above, you will get argument from me, because you'd be wrong.

I think we all get this...issue is how it is being portrayed

Harrington responsible for physically ending the poor child's life. Parents responsible for allowing their child to be alone in the company of this thing on that deadly night. Alone full well knowing the chaos and volatility and anger that the child was surrounded by.

Yep, I'd agree with you here.

Addicts often have very little control over their actions. That's why they are so dangerous, and why people often object to injections centers or addict support services in their local area. The details of that case are horrific, the reports of the neighbours downstairs hearing the sliding door slam over and over again sent a chill down my spine. Of course the poor child was screaming and crying, with no sleep and being injured. Which only enraged the out of control woman further.

It's an awful. Addiction isn't an easy problem to solve in society, once it gets established, which it sadly has in Cork at the moment.

That's not an absolution of responsibility, she was absolutely guilty of that murder. But in addition to jailing her, perhaps we could consider measures to prevent others repeating this, such as focused action on addiction and drug supply.

We have teams and teams of great people working tirelessly with drug addicts and the like.

Working many many years now. It is not something that can ever be fully solved. People and societies are very complex.

And, forgetting drugs and alcohol etc, sometimes people are downright bad and nasty.

I don’t think a case of pure badness can be discounted.

The woman seemed to meticulously torture the child to death.

This does not seem like a moment of madness due to rage/hallucinations /drugs/alcohol that resulted in death. She was heard taunting the child.

Was it pure badness/spite toward the father, due to their mad relationship?

Mad and bad is what this monster is!

Re-offending? What about pure punishment she deserves? 20 years of loss of freedom for beating a toddler to death? Sounds not near enough for me.

There is no rehabilitation here, addiction issues or not she was well aware of what she was doing.

They didn't murder the child but they sure as hell were complicit in it. Absolute dregs of society the lot of them. The country is full of that type at the moment with kids being given no hope in life at all. Disgusts me that we the taxpayer pay for their scumbag behaveour.

Not much here I'd disagree with but earlier you said you would 'hold him more responsible for the child's death'

That's where we disagree as I don't.

Do all your screen shots from this article. It has the facts and lays them all out plain to be seen: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/the-complete-story-of-karen-harrington-s-trial-for-murder-of-santina-cawley-2-1.4880066