Should the father of the 4 Hoath boys also be charged with manslaughter?

I'm not saying you are wrong but how do you know this? I can't find any news sources that state what the wider family knew or how often they saw the children.

It's clear that this woman was left to do the vast majority of the parenting but that seems to be what most people on here think should happen- just take a look at all the threads criticising parents who go for a 50:50 care arrangement.

The mother is clearly mentally ill, she needed help in this awful case
Or just maybe immature, selfish and irresponsible.

We don't know!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ye7p34235o

The BBC report shows there was a significant breakdown in the family’s living conditions likely to be related to the mums understandable and entirely predictable need for support. She told her GP she wasn’t coping. No help came.

and the neighbours did help. Don’t know about with regular childcare but when the fire happened they tried to help to save the boys.

Its sad to see the dad’s side of the family apparently condemning her but not him.

She didn’t go shopping with a friend. She claimed she’d left the friend in the house looking after the children. Whilst fire crews were trying to revive the boys on the pavement, another crew were re- committed into the house (which was still on fire) to search for the friend, who, it turned out did not exist. Those firefighters could also have been killed.

Better all round if they had all been removed and placed with a loving family who deserved them.
RIP beautiful boys

Of course not. Because the mother is never to blame and MN will always find a way to blame the man.
On this occasion, posters have to concede the woman actually left the children so would bear SOME responsibility, but it always comes back to the man being at fault.

If you leave your child with a nanny or child minder and their neglect leads to a child dying, are you in any way responsible

There is a contractual relationship there as well as legal duties on childcare professionals.

No parent should be able to dump a child on the other parent without good reason.

If you don't want kids, contraception is available. Or just don't have sex.

If you left a nanny in sole charge of 4 kids under 4 by herself for days and weeks on end, yes, you would absolutely get the book thrown at you, and rightly so

I also agree. It's always the mother who got dumped with the kids who gets prosecuted for neglect. Why do the fathers get away with it every time? They can't all be lovely dads who were pushed out by the feckless mothers.

If you are a parent (or anyone else) in charge of children, they are your responsibility. It is as simple as that. There is a lot of help available if you can’t cope and, ultimately, anyone can legally give up care of their children.

Yes, more fathers should take responsibility for their children, I agree with that. But that is completely different from being in any way legally or morally culpable for their death.

If you leave your child with a nanny or child minder and their neglect leads to a child dying, are you in any way responsible?

Agree with this.
The relatives: 'the hole that has been left by our children's deaths cannot be filled'
Really? They didn't care enough to put themselves out & intervene did they they? Didn't want the hassle of helping with 4 small children, but now they refer to them as 'our children'.
Yes the mother as the primary carer is to blame but what about all those who knew things were bad but looked the other way?

I agree totally OP, so many posts calling this woman a monster. She might well be, I don’t know her personally.

But it should be noted she wasn’t abusing her kids, neglecting them maybe but possibly not through choice but just a total inability to cope.

She was clearly struggling, she reached out for help and didn’t get any. 4 young children to look after alone is bloody hard work. She shouldn’t have left them, of course she couldn’t. Maybe the sheer desperation for a break caused her to make that decision, I don’t think she would have done it if she thought they were going to die of course.

But I can only imagine their dad lived life as if he had no children, no responsibility for them or their welfare and just left it all to the over stretched mum.

The boys are the ultimate victims and it is desperately sad, so many what ifs. But maybe controversial, I don’t think their mother was a monster I think she was desperate and it’s cost her more than she could have ever imagined.

The judge was satisfied that her MH didn't affect her judgement that day.

She regularly left them (for 5 mins) to pop down to the local shop 7 doors down.

On this occasion, she obviously went further afield and unfortunately left candles burning where 4 boisterous boys were running around.

It's really not that deep. She made a decision that will haunt her for the rest of her days.

Why are we so sure the father was absent and why are we so sure that he knew about the state of the house? It's pretty common for women to not want their ex in the home following a split. Are people suggesting than an ex partners should have mandatory access to the house where their children are living?

Exactly! These same women on here now would be complaining about someone's ex trying to access their house!

According to the paternal GM, she wouldn't let them in the house. I understand the father and his family saw the boys regularly.

So even if you are persistent it can be very difficult either

1. To get Child protection action taken or
2. To go to court and change arrangements - that of course is if you have money, a lot of money

Believe you me I know!

I agree with this.

It's going to be very hard for her in prison. She is blind now.

Frankly I'm sick of people using mental health as a get out of jail free card. She CHOSE to have children and CHOSE to neglect them. She could at any point have contacted SS and said she was handing them over, and CHOSE not to.

She deserves jail and everything that happens to her inside it. As for the father and family, they're all culpable too but in a different way.

The mother is clearly mentally ill, she needed help in this awful case.

I think some posters are confused. She wasn't so affected by her MH that she went and knifed her kids. She left 4 vulnerable children to enjoy a shopping trip.

If she was so traumatised, why didn't she live to go and seek help.

I will deduct that no-one here knows any fact about the father? We don't know what he knew or didn't, how much contact he had, whether they had a decent coparenting relationship or a highly conflicted one.

I think this is one of the worse thread I've read recently. Trying to shift blame from a mother who was well enough to go and shop without a care for the safety of her children, to a father we know absolutely nothing about.

That's MN at its absolute worse!

Yes @lifeonmars100 . I am turning into my mother who used to say she “didn’t watch the news as it’s all bad”. That was 50 odd years ago so multiply that by x amount to get to the type of horrific stuff that’s happening on a daily basis.

I don't think that any parent should be able to walk away from their financial responsibilities to their children - if we can fine and remove driving licenses from benefit fraudsters then we can sure as shit do the same for men who piss off and abandon their children (passports too).

I don't think that you can/should make a parent play an active role in their children's lives though. Anyone who can just walk away from their kids is not a fit person to look after them. Doesn't say much for them as a person though.

The adult in charge of a child at any given time bears ultimate responsibility for their safety though. You cant pass the buck on that.

It was during Covid and she clearly wasn’t coping or ill. But we don’t know how involved the father was. Children’s services should not have closed the case. I’m wondering if these cases went up in lockdown due to lack of face to face interaction. It’s those little boys that I feel sorry for.