Manzanero was arrested on Thursday after her 39-year-old daughter recognised her picture in media reports and called police. Mr Rose used CCTV footage to try to catch the culprit. Ellen Warner, prosecuting, said: ''Mr Rose's family noticed flowers had gone missing from the graves over 18 months and had CCTV put in place. When viewed, they showed a white woman bend down and pick up a quantity of flowers and plants, put them into her bag and carry them off.
''Still images were released by police to local media and this week Mrs Manzanero's daughter telephoned police, stating it was her mother in this footage. She told police her mother had admitted it was her in the photo.'' The court heard that Manzanero suffered depression after her 40-year-old son, who worked in the financial sector, killed himself. After her son's death, Manzanero's husband and mother also died and it was their graves she visited at Rippleside Cemetery. Manzanero was fined £300, plus £30 costs and compensation, having admitted one count of theft.
Sentencing, magistrate Glen Pierre told her: ''We have taken into account the high sentimental value and the effect on the family concerned.'' Kaushik Ramdhary, for the defence, said the theft had been an "impulsive" act brought on by Manzanero's love of flowers. He said: "On that day she went to visit relatives and on her way back she saw some beautiful flowers and put them in her bag. She is fond of flowers and on that particular day these flowers caught her eye. It was impulsive."
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10 comments:
It's not impulsive if it's an enduring habit.
I find it kind of offensive that the thief's depression is hinted as some sort of explanation for her actions. Feeling shitty about yourself does not make you want to steal stuff and not care about hurting other people. A person who has buried so many loved ones as this Manzanero woman should know better.
It's still sad that her daughter would report her to the police instead of trying to get her to turn herself in.
I don't think you should feel too sad, Sandy. The article mentions the mother confessed to her daughter after she apparently confronted her. It's reasonable to assume that in that situation, the daughter has offered her mother the opportunity turn herself in before she would go to the police. Clearly the mother refused to do the right thing, maybe thinking her own flesh and blood would not rat her out, despite threatening to do so. Her daughter appears to be more law abiding than her mother thinks.
Another "Barking mad" person...
Depression is not "feeling shitty about yourself" it is a medical condition usually caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. Depression can be caused by emotional trauma and many other things. The one thing that can be guaranteed is that depression causes people not to function normally. Only a clinical expert on depression could decide whether or not this woman's depression was responsible for her actions, and from your post Insolitus I think we can be pretty sure that you are no clinical expert.
Gareth. I may not be a clinical expert, but I have myself suffered through a long and debilitating depression, so I am not just talking out of my ass here. I know from my personal experience, and I know many other people like me who agree, that among other things depression is feeling shitty about yourself, and not in any everyday, normal kind of way. Of course mental problems are all very individual, but I have never know a depressed person whose depression would have caused them to steal or to knowingly go out of their way to hurt other people. It's usually quite the opposite.
To clarify, what I meant was offensive was suggesting that there could be some causal link between depression and stealing flowers from a child's grave. That being depressed made you more likely to act despicably.
The main effect of clinical depression is to cause people to cease to function normally. In most cases this exhibits as an inability to function at all, but in some (admittedly rare) cases it can cause all sorts of irrational behaviour. I'm not saying that it is likely that the depression caused the theft, but that it is not beyond the bounds of possibility.
The problem with your attitude is that you have decided that this *is* impossible based on only limited experience.
I once dealt with a child who was usually quiet and withdrawn, but would occasionally display outbursts of temper which were often physically violent. The child was diagnosed as suffering from depression and several people pooh poohed the diagnosis on the grounds that this was not the way depressives behaved. Treatment for depression proved effective so it seems the diagnosis was correct. Not all depressives behave in the same way.
"The problem with your attitude is that you have decided that this *is* impossible based on only limited experience."
So that's what I've decided?
IOW you are closed minded and not open to any possibilities in life that can not be encompassed by your understanding. Why do you bother reading? There's nothing you could possibly learn.
Thanks for the diagnosis, Gareth. What would we do without your wisdom?
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