The most pertinent question Little Disasters raised was whether Jess could have hurt her 10-month-old daughter, Betsy. Jess had told her friend Liz, a doctor in the pediatrics department at Thames Bank Hospital, that Betsy had accidentally fallen and hurt herself. But when Liz discovered Betsy's skull was fractured, she realized Jess wasn't telling the whole truth. Liz reported the case to Social Services, and Jess felt deeply betrayed by her friend's actions.
Liz had known Jess for over a decade, but still, she didn't give her the benefit of the doubt. In addition to what happened with Betsy, Jess was going through a very difficult time in her life. She was suffering from some mental health issues that she hadn't told anyone about. So, let's find out what the authorities discovered about the case and whether Jess actually physically assaulted her daughter. Detectives Steve Rustin and Farron, who were in charge of the investigation, were completely certain that Jess had lost control and harmed her baby. Steve believed Jess and Ed weren't bad parents, but the situation became more complicated after the birth of their third child. Steve was right to assume this, as the third pregnancy had taken its toll on Jess.
Stars: Diane Kruger, Jo Joyner, Shelley Conn
In addition to the evidence the officers gathered against Jess, there was much else that suggested she had indeed assaulted her daughter. When Lucy Harding of Social Services and Steve Rustin questioned Jess about the events of Friday, the day Betsy suffered the skull fracture, she couldn't recall the exact details. Jess seemed confused and seemed to be deliberately hiding certain things. Another strange thing that happened was that Mel, a family friend who had volunteered to be an official supervisor for the Carrisford family, noticed that Jess had put all of her knives in a cupboard. She couldn't understand why her electric kettle or the knives weren't in the kitchen.
Furthermore, the moment Mel pulled out a knife, Jess and Ed's children, Frankie and Kit, ran out of the room, claiming their mother had told them to leave the room if anyone used a knife. Mel didn't know what to think, but she realized that Jess, for some unknown reason, wasn't feeling well mentally. The most devastating thing for a person is when their partner, someone they've imagined their entire life with, loses trust in them. Ed had no faith in Jess. He knew she was a good mother, but lately she'd been acting very impulsively. To top it all off, Jess tried to flee the hospital with Betsy, fearing the doctors wouldn't treat her properly. Jess's paranoia grew more evident every day, and people were right to perceive her as a threat to her baby.
Andrew, Charlotte's husband and a friend of the Carrisford family, joined the team to represent Jess as her legal counsel. Andrew was a good lawyer, but even he couldn't do anything when Steve and Officer Farron showed Jess the pharmacy footage from the same day Betsy was injured. According to Jess's testimony, she hadn't left the house that day, but the footage showed she had gone to buy medication at a local pharmacy. She left her children home alone for almost half an hour. The timeline of events was such that it was impossible to believe she wasn't the one who hurt her daughter. Betsy suffered injuries around the same time, and Jess was seen at a pharmacy afterward. Detectives quickly pieced together their own story. The officers charged Jess with kidnapping and child endangerment for running away from the hospital with Betsy. As for hurting her daughter, they couldn't substantiate their doubts with incriminating evidence, although they were fairly certain Jess was behind the incident.
I won't deny that there was a moment in Little Disasters when I thought Ed was physically abusing his wife and that he was the one who had hurt the baby. He came home drunk that night, and I thought maybe he'd done something he shouldn't have. But that wasn't the case. From the beginning, Ed and Jess's son, Frankie, behaved in a way that made it clear the boy wasn't mentally well. Something was troubling him, and he simply couldn't talk about it with his parents. At some point, Frankie felt like he was blaming himself for what had happened to his mother. He blamed himself for Jess being questioned and for the whole family falling apart.
He withdrew into himself and stopped interacting with anyone. Social Services still hadn't closed the case, so Jess was only allowed to see her children a couple of days a week. Betsy was discharged from the hospital, and it seemed that, little by little, everything was coming together, although Ed still wasn't sure of his wife's innocence. One day, Jess was with her children, and after a long time, the family was spending some quality time with friends. Charlotte, Liz, Andrew, and everyone else were enjoying a well-deserved break with the Carrisfords when Mel and her husband, Rob, suddenly walked in, and something strange happened next. Frankie freaked out when he saw Rob and ran off to hide in the bushes. Ed and Jess couldn't understand what had suddenly happened to him. The boy was shaking with fear when Jess finally found him. She tried to calm him down when something unheard of happened. Rob hugged Betsy, and as soon as Frankie saw him, he started yelling at him to leave his sister alone.
Frankie told his parents in a trembling voice that it was Rob who had hurt Betsy. When Jess went to buy medicine, Rob came home unannounced. Rob wanted Ed to invest in his business, but Ed wasn't willing. Rob had started his own record label, but it was on the verge of bankruptcy, having failed to sign any artists all year. In the end, he had to sell his house and move out of London to pay off his debts. Rob, as Mel said, was a vile, selfish bully who just wanted to get his way. I guess he came to talk to Ed, but Frankie asked him to help him change Betsy's diapers. Rob was changing Betsy's diapers when she accidentally fell off the table and hit her head on the floor. Instead of taking her to the hospital, like a coward, Rob threatened Frankie not to tell anyone what happened. Rob told Frankie that his mother would go to jail if he told anyone what happened. He brainwashed the boy into believing it was all his fault.
The boy was so scared that he didn't talk about it for days. Rob didn't know how to defend himself once Frankie told everyone what had happened. If it had been up to Ed, he would have taught him a lesson right then and there. But Andrew, Nick, and others stopped him. Liz immediately informed Social Services and the police, after which Rob was arrested. Poor Mel stood there, disgusted by her own decisions. She couldn't imagine how she had fallen for such a man. The man didn't care what she wanted; he looked down on her without even considering the impact it would have on her and blamed her for his own shortcomings. Rob didn't let Mel work at the beginning of their relationship, wanting her to stay home and raise the children. But when Mel argued with him about not leaving London, he was quick to tell her that without him, she was nothing. He told her that if she didn't do as he said, he would make sure she never saw her children.
Mel had always given in in the past, but that day, after learning what Rob had done to Betsy, she decided to stand up to him. A disgruntled Rob was in police custody, and I don't think the man, until the very end, felt any guilt about what he had done. In the Little Disasters finale, it became clear that Jess hadn't hurt her daughter, but that didn't mean she wasn't suffering from mental health issues. Jess had never wanted a third child, as the first two had likely taken a toll on her physically and mentally. She gave in because she knew how much Ed wanted it. Ed never realized what was going on, and although he was a good father and husband, that was a huge error in judgment on his part. Ed was busy with his life and left Jess alone. She was lonely, and there were times when she couldn't handle everything on her own. A little support from Ed would have made things much easier for both of them. Betsy was born, and Jess started having intrusive thoughts that she simply couldn't control. According to Liz's research, Jess suffered from postpartum anxiety.
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