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

Ok

So I DO know what it's like. I have been there in extreme situations. For years. It is horrific and traumatising and the gaslighting from services is also traumatic. There is no money. There are no resources. Society is all too happy to believe the Daily Mail whereby all you need to do is discipline your child. There is no protection.

Services cannot help you. What is reported on paper is one thing, the reality of the situation is very difficult. A lack of distrust forms between the majority of families and professionals develops.

You can't use self defence on your own child. It really is not allowed. Can you imagine the consequences of this?

You have no idea until you've been in this boat of what families face. Of course I don't condone what happened. Absolute not. But it's much more complex than you think.

Would probably have been beaten black and blue by his son. A black belt judo instructor?

He had experienced years of trauma and violence and dealing with agencies who slate everything you do and was probably completely broken by that point. The parents failed to act out of a misguided and irresponsible desire to avoid him being taken into care.

You have no idea what that is like. None of us do

It's much more complex than you think it is. Not too complex to urgently work out better systems of dealing with such hopelessly dysfunctional families.

BBC
There was stark criticism particularly for his father Alphonse Rudakubana, who Sir Adrian said had deliberately withheld information about his son amassing a stash of deadly weapons including the biological toxin ricin.

Sir Adrian said if the parents had reported their true level of knowledge to the authorities before the attack, the killer would "undoubtedly have been taken into care or held in custody".

"The love I had for him overrode [my] good judgement," he said.
Sir Adrian said the killer's parents had failed to act out of a "misguided and irresponsible" desire to avoid him being taken into care.

The dad loved and protected his murderous son. We all know what that led to.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr411lzn1qwo

Looks like they are pushing for some tangible change here and who can blame them.

"The families, quite frankly, are aghast."

I can't imagine. My heart broke all over again reading this.

Perhaps the law should also be that parents must also be protected from extreme violence from their children.

I don't know.about others but speaking personally I would be happy to face the reality of this.

We need a safer society, that much is clear.

Would probably have been beaten black and blue by his son for some of this. He had experienced years of trauma and violence and dealing with agencies who slate everything you do and was probably completely broken by that point. He thought he was going to be killed by his own child - you have no idea what that is like. Who knows? It's much more complex than you think it is.

By all accounts his brother was popular, clever and leading a normal life at university before this atrocity happened.

But he could have stopped giving AR money, taken away his phone and computer, refused to allow deliveries for AR, and not lied to the police or been obstructive when agencies raised AR's behaviour. I don't believe that a grown man could not provide any kind of discipline towards his own son. Pathetic cowardice and lack of any kind of moral fibre. He should be in jail too.

Hard agree. Parents must be held responsible for the behaviour of their children. The Law should enforce this.

This !! Sadly in seems that people in certain public facing roles are inept of taking responsibility. Is this down to lack of experience in their roles or the fact that 'shit rolls down", and they are not supported by their superiors when the proverbial hits the fan?. Im not making excuses here, but I've seen first hand where experienced and caring professionals are frightened of making decisions, because those above that are being paid a shit load of money will not back them up in the long term.
As a result ,we have lunatics like this walking the streets and our poor children are sitting ducks so to speak. God bless these girls. Yet I fear nothing will change if no one is held accountable and punished accordingly.

While I mentioned paying for it, thats not the whole of it and not what I mean when I say the public wont like the answers for this and dont want to face the reality of it

The reality is that we are too focused on rights and too focused on the indvidual, the answer to this anathema to much of society which is that we would need to move back to systems that we had in place years ago, far far more segretation for children with challenging behaviour no matter what the cause or diagnosis, less reluctance to use custody for children. A cultural shift is needed about what we expect from each other.

But, research seems to indicate that is not better for kids, but is it better for society?

Good point - that is all very true!

It's not just underfunding though, that's a cop out, it's mismanaged, corrupt services (grooming gangs etc). Everyone passing the buck of responsibility, which the system allows them to do. Lack of accountability. People playing the system. Tick boxes to avoid liability whilst doing nothing meaningful.

Services tied up in knots pissing money and time away on stuff that really doesn't matter and ignoring what does. It's NOT just underfunding. At all.

"Society is not set up for this and doesnt want to set up for it, the public dont want to pay for it and dont want to face the reality of it. No one would like the answers to this."

This is it in a nutshell. Not helped by the press who are more interested in what Katie Price is up to than the absolute shitshow caused by under funded services.

Oh I think what happened to get to that point absolutely is relevant. The state cannot constantly pick up the pieces for crap parenting and it’s unbelievable that so many parents seem to want to pass the buck. This is not about mental health or vulnerabilities or additional needs. It’s about tackling violent, male behaviour.

Because that is the problem: violent men.

I don’t see scores of women with mental health issues and/or additional needs stabbing children or ramming into crowds with their cars or shooting up schools or planting bombs outside places of worship. Only and always men.

This has nothing to do with mental health or additional needs and everything to do with male violence. And parents should be tackling that at ages 3, 4, 5, 10 or whatever - not making demands of the state for their 15/20 years of failures.

Ive made out there is no problem!! What on earth are you talking about

I do this job, on the ground, every day, trying to manage young people and young adults like this, there are no services, there is no magic fix, there is no easy category. Society is not set up for this and doesnt want to set up for it, the public dont want to pay for it and dont want to face the reality of it. No one would like the answers to this.

You have minimised and you have made out there's no problem.

I'm sorry but that's not ok. If you have had to deal with this first hand you might not be so polite about the complete shit show and might give the snotty lectures a rest. It doesn't help and it just rubs salt in the wounds. It self righteous.

They just need a functional service. There's not even that.

If you read the report, it’s actually very fair and recognises the difficult situation the parents were in. But there was still a failure of parenting. Given he only left the house when he was planning to harm others, and they had prevented him leaving the week
before, and on this day they knew he’d likely left with a knife, and did nothing to
stop him.

Yeah Im not sure swearing at me is necessary, I havent been rude or obscene to anyone. I dont disagree that there are limited to nil services for people with autism, I didnt refer to that, but it is magical thinking to think that change is always possible, particularly for someone with his presentation and that was what Im referring to.

I'm talking about 15, 16 year old boys living in family homes. What happened to get to that point is irrelevant - I'm talking about the services available to these families and it barely exists. And yes that's my anecdotal experience but you show me where families get good support and I will listen to you and hopefully the gov can roll that out.

So again why do you then let your son amass a holdall of knives, arrows and poison if he is that dangerous?

Having a service that understands that autistic people are more likely to have mental health concerns and thinking about accessibility would be a start. Many autistic people struggle with speaking on the phone. So having telephone only initial assessments is kinda restricting matters from the word go...

This isn't just about magical thinking. It's about the fucking basics.

I sort of agree but the more I learn the more sympathetic I am to MH services (cant believe Im saying that) because the public think everything is a 'MH concern' or 'MH condition', the public think this is fixable if only xyz is put in place, if only there was 'intervention' or 'support'.

What Ive learned and continue to learn in my career is that this is magical thinking quite a lot of the time. You cant fix this.

My experience with mental health services is if you don't tick their boxes exactly they couldn't give a shit. They don't follow up when they are supposed to and I'd be as bold as to say more people fall between the cracks than don't.

Who could have searched the house? The parents? They knew what was in their house

Or do you mean the police? The police very rarely search young peoples homes if they're found with a knife, its not usual, they need a warrant for a start.