Another child killed due to mother's abusive partner

[JoanThursday1972]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12037929/Boy-nine-died-beaten-belts-held-cold-bathwater-court-hears.html

Not another one. Will we ever see the end of this type of story? I doubt it. Don't let the press DARE label this thug Alfie's "stepfather".

😰

It also perpetuates the cycle. It’s much much harder to go against how you were brought up then to just slip into it. It’s harder to get out of it and have a better life yourself and to have the knowledge of how to provide one to your child

Feels like there are cases like this every other day now (and just the ones we hear about). I read about them and think of those children all the time.

Makes you feel helpless. Rest in peace Alfie. You deserved so much better

Women need to wake up to the fact you can have a happy way of life without a man in it. And you can have a relationship without inflicting it on your kids, just keep it seperate.

Let's not blame anyone except the murderer and the accomplice.
Remember Ellie Butler. Her Grandparents begged the courts to remove her, they knew, no one listened.

It was reported by neighbours.
The reality is most people simply wouldn't approach a violent abusive man themselves. They have their own children to consider, so they report it to social services and the police and hope action comes from that.

Well done OP. A great example of parenting.

i agree with you. But these are generally damaged women, who have probably lived that life from a young age themselves. There’s a reason the freedom program exists. That’s why the circle needs breaking and early intervention.

and realistically doing things “properly” is the best course of action.
dh intervened on a night out (years ago) when a woman was being beaten up by her boyfriend. The woman then turned on dh.
doing things properly is what’s advised, it’s just our services are under funded and under resourced to act. It’s what I would do, it’s what I would do to make a proper difference to this boys life. Me getting involved could make things worse for the boy, as well as being a very short term resolution. the services are meant to protect him and protect him long term. those poor neighbours having to live with the guilt.
The violence this poor boy suffered seemed to escalate quickly and the services just didn’t match that speed.

There seem to have been so many of these stories in the news involving a birth parent and step parent. It seems like every month there's a new one. Horrendous. Poor boy 😞

I saw a programme recently where they said that only 1 in 10 abused children report it because they think it must be their fault.

All of this. Had it for 15 years. "Don't you want a proper family set up?" "Don't sacrifice your own happiness." The idea of a woman being happy without a man seems abhorrent to some people. I cannot understand why.

This is horrific. Social services were already involved with the family. Her partner already had a history of cruelty to children. This tragedy was avoidable. Poor child. He must have lived in abject terror. May he rest in peace and may his mother and partner get the outcome they deserve.

And that why we need to bring back hanging or some other means of death for monsters who torture little children. That poor little boy. I wish he'd told his teacher he needed help.

I think sadly, we are hearing about all the lockdown deaths as they get to court. They didn’t make the headlines at the time (which in itself is heartbreaking) so they seem more shocking now each one hits court.

During lockdown I was very pro lockdown with the safety of the elderly/vulnerable.

After all these deaths were now hearing about I honestly would protest against lockdowns ever again.

I hope we learn from these poor kids as a society. I'm sure we won't, but I'll hope.

Most of them aren't step parents, just some random nutter the mother has moved into the house.

i can remember there being occasional talk on the tv about vulnerable children slipping through the net and I thought it would be horrific to be locked up with your abuser and unable to be able to have the respite school gives them as well as the abuser knowing bruises are questioned etc.
I definitely didn’t think I thought through the inability for social services to actually do their job, visit these kids. As well as the sheer number of kids who just fell off the radar.
it was just a perfect shit storm wasn’t it and years of underfunding did not help.

Sorry, should have proof read!
I didn’t think through the fact social services couldn’t do their jobs and visit these children

@VegetablesFightingToReclaimTheAubergieneEmoji The reality is though that services don't protect these children so other people may have to intervene.

There is no way I could just watch out of my window a child being locked outside in the middle of the night while having cold water thrown on him. It would go against every single instinct. In my experience, by the time the police arrived, it would all be over with no evidence and nothing would happen. I would make sure I videoed it for evidence while my husband went and got the child.

It's not just a case of services being underfunded, some of the staff are downright corrupt. It's demonstrated here, in other cases and in my own experience that they simply won't do anything.

The mother was just as much to blame here. Even if she was single, she would have still harmed the child in some form.

I don't know if it's getting more frequent but looking at the dates it happened during the pandemic, when a lot of face to face contact with social services was greatly reduced and on top of that children weren't going to school so the abuse was effectively hidden.
I expect more cases like this to come to light unfortunately.

You can blame women wanting a relationship with a man as much as you like but it all of these cases the women have been as abusive and culpable as the men, and probably would be without the men there. It's nothing to do with having a stepparent, it's about being an absolute waste of space as a human being.

Exactly. Because a woman who protects her children would have had this man arrested and out of her house the first time he was abusive towards her son.

And then the police will come and get him off you and give him back to his mother and possibly charge you with kidnapping.

Unfortunately nothing will ever be improved untill we pump in a huge amount of resources into social care, the police, children centres and mental health care, which the government refuses to do. For them it's cheaper to just have a few people die each year than to actually do something about it properly.