Southport killer enabled by father

The father is quoted as saying: ‘I knew, of course, if I tell the police [ie about the weapons & violence] they would take him [AR] away’.

I simply can’t see how liability cannot arise from this statement.

This is a million miles away from all of the dedicated parents on this thread who have desperately tried to get help for children and failed. There is simply no comparison.

He knew the risk. Moreover he knew (or believed) it could be prevented by taking his son to a place where he would be controlled.

He chose to stand in the way of preventing it.

This could happen again. Punishment may deter others from similarly failing society & basic human decency.

What do you think the professionals view would be if the parents had actually told them he had weapons, terrorist training manuals and ricin in his bedroom, that he’d ordered in fake names using fake IDs, which his family had signed for?

The parents knew this, The professionals who would have had a record of his history of being expelled from school, mental health issues, violence, viewing violent content, prevent referrals and having a knife on a bus and saying he wanted to stab somebody, did not.

Maybe he wouldn’t have been discharged from CAMHS or maybe the police would have come to his house, confiscated the weapons and arrested him for the ricin and the manuals, or sectioned him once they’d seen the full contents of his room and tech which they would have checked due to the ricin and manuals.

you can't expect families to view their child like professional can

many are just doing their best to keep all the family safe

parents will defend their children, they will carry the guilt of what have they done wrong and many really struggle to accept how their child is

that for professionals to do and make decisions

Shouldn't let it get that far.
He obviously had no discipline as a child and it escalated.

Really horrible and insensitive thread.

He asked for help several times and didn't get it, so he knew there was a problem. If you have ever dealt with SEND services you will know that blaming parents or saying 'didn't engage' is an easy way to keep your caseload down. Not blaming the professionals, because there is only so much they can do and they are not resourced enough for demand. It just shows that there wasn't a clear and proactive escalation pathway, and if the professionals didn't know it, how did you expect his father to?

You really should only comment on what you understand. You only see a snippets the situation from a news report.

You need to read the transcript. That man blamed everybody but his son, he even complained about childline contacting the police when the vile specimen told the helpline he had a knife and was going to use it.
When parents fail the authorities need to take over, by sectioning people.

I don't think he should be charged.

It almost sounds like an abusive relationship where he was scared of his son and thought only he would get hurt.

I feel sorry for him.

Have you ever tried to get services involved? I have. My teen had severe mental health challenges, also autistic, dropped out of education. GP referral led to an 18 month wait list for 'therapeutic support'. By the time that came round, they had taken an overdose and referred to CAMHS. 6 months waiting for an assessment, by which time they were self harming. 6 months on from that and still no CAMHS intervention.

Meanwhile, we had referrals to Early Help from me, school and GP. LA said they couldn't help. It took a mental health nurse to get involved and say there was violence towards me from my child and I was at risk of carer exhaustion before additional services were involved. 6 months from that and me begging for help, emailing all services in a shared email saying I couldn't cope and I was genuinely scared for my child's safety, my safety and that of others before a social work assessment was done.

Even now, the "involvement" is a visit every 3 weeks from the social worker and a phone number for CAMHS duty (Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm, leave a message and you might get a call back after a week).

At one point, my child had intrusive thoughts about harming others. I relayed this to CAMHS who relayed it to another agency involved in preventing violence. After two weeks, it came back as "low risk" but I should always accompany my 17yo when they left the house (ignoring the fact i had a job outside the home), hide the household knives and anything else sharp (i locked them in the car boot overnight but not exactly practical during the day) and call the police if my child threatened or hit me.

I was ACTIVELY trying to get help, from all services, on multiple occasions. It is not easy. There isn't someone on hand 24/7 to give advice. You feel incredibly isolated, like no-one is really listening to you or trying to help.

I can totally understand how his parents were acting to protect themselves and their other son, believing the risk to be within the family and that they were attempting to manage autistic behaviour that challenges with limited support (here, attend this parenting course FFS).

I completely agree with this. There is no help for parents of abusive children. They don't even help or think about removing the abusive child when it impacts upon siblings. The child they talk about taking away is the non-violent one.
I feel sorry for the parents and family here. It is agony living in fear of your child. They take over the whole house, control what is said/watched on tv. You always worry that they might kick off, smash the house up or hurt you or one of their siblings. At the same time you are often blamed for everything and you want to protect them.

Exactly. Thats what makes this case a bit different from other cases of teens carrying out crimes where their parents may be neglectful in terms of not knowing what their DC are up to, who they are doing it with or where they are. These parents practically enabled their son to commit this attack.

They knew he had weapons in his bedroom, his state of mind and had taken a knife on a bus previously.

They were concerned enough the week before to prevent their son getting into a taxi to his old school.

The father said he immediately feared his son was involved when he heard about the murders therefore he must have been aware that there was a specific risk of him carrying out an attack like that because most parents would NOT immediately fear their child was involved in something like that.

The mother apparently tried to prevent the father sharing information with a family support worker and now in giving evidence seems to have amnesia about the events leading up to the attack,

They knew he had said he wanted to stab somebody.

Both parents saw him go out that morning but did nothing to try to see where he was going after apparently not going out for over a year. Any parent knowing their child posed that kind of risk. Knowing he had weapons, seeing him go out when they’d stopped him the week before, would have at least gone after them. They would have seen him get into a taxi and immediately tried to stop it or called the police to stop it, they could have checked to see if his weapons were still in his bedroom while on the phone to the police. Amazon said someone who looked over 25 accepted the delivery of knives used in the attack so it wasn’t him.

There were 15 minutes to stop the taxi or get a police car to follow it to stop him when he got to the community centre. The parents said they didn’t see him get into a taxi from the house so he must have got in it away from the house which may have given further time to stop it while he waiting for it/walking to it.

Too right the parents are culpable. He was a ticking time bomb and it looks like they let him go off, horrifically murdering little kids and leaving the other kids and adults looking after them with wounds and after effects for life. They may not have envisaged him attacking little girls but they knew someone was at risk, even themselves with those weapons in his bedroom.

They knew better than anyone else what was going on in their home. They found the weapons, knew he wanted to kill. At the very least all weapons should have been handed in at the police station immediately, knives, scissors, etc, should have been locked away. Once they knew he was buying weapons online, he shouldn’t have had access to any money at all.

I think the police may have taken action if they were alerted to the weapons in his bedroom. Especially as he’d previously taken a knife on a bus, they’d picked him up and he’d said he wanted to stab somebody while in the police car! They may have searched his room and found the ricin. He would have been arrested for having the ricin and the horror he created may have been averted.

This is a not a case of the parents not being aware.

FFS weapons in his bedroom that they knew about!

I’ve read the last few days testimonies with utter horror and just cannot comprehend it all. Not so much as bothering to police internet access because “my boys would never look up anything bad online”, finding a bow and arrow in his room and leaving it there in case he got mad, finding ricin seeds and thinking he must have taken up gardening, among some of the most bizarre claims. It’s pitiful and contemptible both at once. The father seemed resigned that if AR was going to kill anyone it would just be him anyway, so there wasn’t much to be done about it. It’s some of the strangest, saddest stuff I’ve ever read. My heart aches for the girls’ parents having to sit there and process it.

Legally people aren't responsible NOW for their relatives' crimes, but PP said they should be forced to prove they aren't Not responsible. I wondered why stop that "principle" at parent-child relationship.

Would be very logical for people to stop having kids, to avoid the you-are-guilty-until-proven-innocent if your-relative-committed-a-crime penalties. I guess then all the people could work until they actually dropped .... or society could import people age 16-64 to be the working age population.

I have to agree that the evidence he is providing is damning. I have to wonder if he had told the police about the knives that the Southport killing spree wouldn't have happened. I do suspect though that it may have just delayed him.