Southport report lays bare the failures of authorities - and the attacker's parents

Absolutely. If everything is attributed to his ND then no CAHMS support, no PREVENT just advice to reduce demands on him. No ‘punishments’ because he won’t understand them.
When he was found on the bus with a knife he was just returned home it would seem.

Yes, this obviously did go above just ASD. Maybe if he'd been diagnosed early on and given intervention he might not have deteriorated. COVID didn't help either. It's multifactorial, that's a problem with this case. It's extremely complex across the board.

There also isn't anything for child to parent violence -adult social care say doesn't meet thresholds - and I suspect that because in this case it was towards Dad and not mum this led to extra feelings of embarrassment. Child to parent violence absolutely has to be addressed if we are going to look at the bigger picture too. It's very much hidden and because it's child to parent it can be viewed as 'poor discipline/boundary setting' etc. No one should be expected to have to tolerate any kind of violence towards them.

The parents absolutely should have alerted the police - that goes without saying. Without any doubt at all.

Wasn’t there a report at the trial covering this more, I can’t recall it entirely.

He had autism, it doesn’t mean it was due to dysregulation or that other dc with AS would tend to this extreme violence. It was a premeditated action to get in a taxi.

Wasnt this part of the issue though, lets say for sake of argument that his whole behaviour, every action and decision was led by his ND

So everyone working with him agrees that he is like that because of his ND

Ok, then what?

It seems to stop there for some reason.

They absolutely do really need to work together better. But this is a national issue, not just local. The whole system needs to change.

You’re attributing a lot to autism and dysregulation. You can’t know what underpins his extreme violence.

The Inquiry points out severe failings in the police, Prevent, Social Services, Mental Health Services and the merrygoround of services which failed people in Lancashire. The Vera Baird piece in the Guardian very much lays bare how multi agency approach is only as good as the people running it and thst they won’t accept responsibility. Even if you give them powers, they don’t do anything. Look at Prevent! Too narrow brief and AR didn’t fit so they passed the buck after 3 referrals! Instead of recognising potential danger, they wash their hands of it! They all did and it’s not acceptable.

I'm referring to the early days. Obviously not at that stage, absolutely not. There was a build up of things though which is what the inquiry addresses.

I'm not, believe me the first thing I would have done if I found out my child was ordering knives would have been a call to the police. And I absolutely would have begged for residential etc. I'm just saying that a lot happened that built up to it.

“Did everything’

Sure. Except stop him getting knives and weapons delivered and did bugger all when he left the house with a knife. They knew what the likelihood of what he was planning to do as he only ever left the house unaccompanied when he was planning violence. The week before dad stopped him, this time they did bugger all even though they knew he had a knife as empty packaging was found. So no, they did not do everything

I think you’re extrapolating too much on his case and not looking at the level of extreme violence he used.

@Thekidsarefightingagain Services are there to provide services! They have to prioritise work. Recognise what is most dangerous! If we have a police force who just wring their hands and do nothing, what use are they? They cost £billions! Ditto social services. They need to work together much more effectively and not pour out excuse after excuse. It’s not good enough.

The problem really is that it looks like AR MH really declined at school (not unusual with autistic children). Looking at the evidence parents did a lot to get support, even funded private therapy. Many many meetings. Begged for help rather a lot, really loved their child and did everything. Were clearly very distressed and it's natural to feel frustrated with services etc when you aren't getting the help you need.

Parents clearly very stressed, AR dysregulated clearly, they did anything they could to not face domestic violence at home. For some reason does seem to be somewhat glossed over. IMHO vast majority of parents would over accommodate in order to avoid not having violence in their house, calling police, child even more dysregulated afterwards. More safeguarding concerns reported, nothing changes. It's important to protect yourselves.

The situation just carried on deteriorating. AR had control over the house. It's pretty much reduce anxiety etc first, then reduce the control. Condoning any form of violence from anyone is unacceptable and that applies towards the family too.

I think perhaps this would have gone to child protection as everyone at risk, more coordination needed, resources etc but there were obviously reasons why it didn't.

So lots of very complicating factors in this case as - not straightforward 'weak parenting' - the parents had tried a lot for a long period of time tbh and had engaged well. They will have experienced a lot of trauma, that goes without saying.

I'm sure that this applies for the services too - lots of mitigating factors and as people have said thresholds. It looks like CAMHS offered a reasonable amount, police will say but we obviously can't do x,y,z.

There was an article about this in The Guardian yesterday and the journalist mentions that one in five domestic murders of women involve their sons, not their partners. This is horrific - so many families living with these angry young men.

I think it's increasingly likely we will have a change in law though how it will be framed will be a matter of debate. In the US parents were jailed for giving a mentally unstable teenager a fun which he used in a school shooting and such criminal action does in extreme circumstances seem just.

The much more complex area is where long term sub standard parenting leads to a criminal child. I am sure most offenders have less than perfect child hoods with deficient parents who will never face sanction yet we need to accept the truth that shi t parenting leads to deviant offspring.

@womendeserveequalhumanrights We live in a society that respects the law. It’s very easy to call for heads to roll, but which ones? These tragedies are always the fault of professionals working in isolation from others. If they put their concerns and evidence together, they might have readily seen the danger approaching. However where people are passed from one service to another they fall between the cracks. Even if the parents had spoken up, one wonders who would have taken ARs liberty away and for what reason? Scaring your mum? Collecting knives?

My feeling is that some dc need to be followed closely in terms of attitude, mental health and behaviour. AR didn’t fit the criteria for radicalization so he wasn’t firmly on the radar. We need to tighten up criteria for checking up on people.

I think the issue is that professionals' decisions were individually defensible and it'll just mean that professionals might start making defensive decisions which could just make the system worse. Plus it'll increase pressure on an already fragile system and add a lot of extra stress to overworked people. Which will lead to more turnover of people.

People need to push for more resources to avoid burn out and increase retention of professionals already in the system rather than adding to workload and stress.

The parents have said they want accountability. If we don't see anyone losing their jobs (and more than one person, and managers) I would fully expect more riots.

These three children cannot have died and nothing happen except reports. What kind of society do we live in if that happens?

Sorry, that was to @mids2019

I don't know. The parents behaved extraordinarily recklessly, no doubt about that one, although that's very complex. Professionals acted in good faith. Can't blame services that are so under resourced that there's nothing to provide. The public won't fight for and fund this though even though everyone says they want change. Aren't they recommending some law change whereby parents will have to report? I'm guessing that's complicated too. It's complex.

You are absolutely bang on and I suspect have, like me, waited in vain for a non existent offer from a SCH across the secure estate for many young people like this.

"It is. Prevent ignored the non-terrorist bit of their remit three times"

But the attack wasn't terrorist related? It wasn't promoting a particular idealogy?

The kid was a psychopath obsessed with violence? Camhs had seen him less then a week before and decided he was not a danger....

So do we get another round of finger pointing or real change? It seems to me we have far to liberal in this case and groups were focusing on mental health and autism rather than a real threat to life. Before in the months ahead everyone gets to wash their hands and avoid blame is this an opportunity to look at how accountability can be delivered including for the parents of AR? Do the parents of the victims have to sit through months of tortuous evidence without not a single individual being held accountbale; is this what they wished?

This is really interesting as it gives you a real insight into everything. Am I right in thinking that the lead agency should have been children's social care (people always say it is) or is it not as straightforward as that in this case? Why wasn't he on a child protection plan - or was he?

‘It is not prevents remit to address risk of other violence.’

It is. Prevent ignored the non-terrorist bit of their remit three times. Their remit specifically covers one-off haters.

Enquiry shows that officers couldn’t decide whether AR fitted into Isis or the white supremacists (really) so they said he probably didn’t (you don’t say) and let him go.

Three times.

Prevent was set up to address all risks of all lone youth violence including misogyny, religion, racism, and the rest - including one-off ‘no ideology but hate’ cases.

Prevent failed. They failed bad.