Bronson Battersby is on my mind tonight.

[ThirtyFlirtynThriving]

Utterly utterly heartbreaking story. I have a 2 year old and I just can’t fathom.

I have terrible general anxiety’s no health anxiety and one of my worst fears is to die at home while in sole car of my children, they’re so young they wouldn’t know what to do, or what was happening.. they wouldn’t be able to get out of the house alone and the thought of them scared, unable to wake me, crying alone makes me feel sick and awful. Reading about poor Bronson Battersby has really made me think.

The rest of the family must be devastated and given the circumstances and just the small details known from the media that’s something you can never-not think about. How does one get over that kind of grief?!

I hope Bronson is at rest now 🩵

I just read the story, utterly heartbreaking
I just can't imagine how scared that little boy must have been. So so heartbreaking

Bless him, such a sad situation x

It has broken my heart tonight.

It is heart-breaking. The reason it is news as well as a tragedy is because it's incredibly unlikely and rare. It won't happen to you. It just won't.

Very sad, I’m sure he will be on a lot of peoples minds tonight.

I agree, its the fear and confusion he would have experienced, not understanding why dad was on the floor and not responding, no food, no water, no warmth probably.

Horrific

That scenario has made my blood run cold since Paula Yates died whilst in charge of her youngest daughter. At least she was old enough to answer the phone though. It's a heartbreaking story and I can't help but be angry that these now apparently devastated relatives were nowhere to be seen in the two weeks that it took the kid to starve to death.

I read about him too. He looks so sweet in the pictures.

I was wondering where his mum was in all this? The news I read made it sound like he was always with his dad. Did he not stay with his mum ever?

SS were involved, so maybe contact was limited.

It doesn’t mean that he didn’t have loving relatives somewhere though.

Again, if SS are involved then it’s possible that contact with other relatives was limited… but it doesn’t mean they didn’t care.

Poor lad. How awful. I also wondered about the mum and other family members - where were they?

The BBC article also quoted a neighbour: "I know he'd come and started staying with Kenny recently and he was just probably the light of his dad's eye", suggesting he used to live with someone else.

I'm not sure you can blame SS for this. How were they to know what had happened? And they returned several times to the house. Very sad.

I’m not blaming SS at all. Just explaining a possible reason why other relatives didn’t realise the situation

It’s heartbreaking, poor child. I cannot fathom how nobody knew, or suspected that poor child was alone. I can’t imagine his suffering, cold and hungry, snuggled up to his dead father. It must have felt like eternity.

Nothing will change, it’ll happen again.

RIP little man 💙 sleep tight angel

Poor baby. Everyone failed him.

oh! not blaming at all and agree that there were plenty of caring rellies, just noticing that his mum (described as mum of 3) seemed not to have primary custody and feeling raw for them all.

I dont know why, on this and other threads, people assume that because SS were involved that contact would have been limited with othe relatives.

Court orders limit contact, not social services. Its possible that children on a child protection plan (dont know if he was) may have a safety plan that sets out that the child shouldnt be unsupervised with this or that person but its not an assumption to make that just because a child has a social worker their relatives dont have contact.

His mother is ranting about how SS are to blame now. Apparently she left her husband and child after an argument- didn't follow up how her 2 year old was or how her 70 year old husband was coping with him. SS reported 2 missed visiting attempts to the police who didn't seem to follow up. On the 3rd visit the SS person contacted the LL and a key was produced. The SS person found the bodies.
Bit rich of mother blaming SS in my opinion.
😚

The bloke had a heart attack and was a single parent.

It could happen to any single parent, its just a tragedy

What do you mean 'nothing will change'?

Really surprised the mother is blaming SS. This is a very sad situation and I feel for her but the police were phoned by the social worker multiple times for a welfare check. Why do the police or other agencies never get blamed in these tragic situations.

She is now being described as a “mum of 10” in the Daily Mail. A complex story I think.

Poor little mite. So very very sad 😔

The Dad wasn’t a single parent. The mother moved out before Christmas after a row. Seems not to have had any contact since then. There are apparently two older children aged seven and five. Where they are is not clear. I can’t imagine wa.king out on my two year old and not contacting the father for three weeks to see how the child was doing. I have no sympathy for her and her bleating about social services who seem to have done everything they could.

She's quoted as saying she should have been able to rely on social services to keep her child safe. My view would be thats the job of the parents first and foremost. Bronson was classed as vulnerable and SS followed up. It's not their job to break down doors, that's a call for the police to make. Which they didn't. It's unclear what more the social worker could do. I think they went above and beyond getting a key tbh. That's a lot more than the poor kids family bothered to do.
I don't like being judgy but sometimes it's warranted. This is one of those times.

The rest of the family must be devastated

Not a single member of the family called or visited for over two weeks, at Christmas. They may be devastated now he’s dead but they certainly didn’t seem to give much of a shit when he was alive.

I feel sorry for the social workers involved who are going to end up taking the brunt of public wrath, when they seem to have been the only people in the kid’s life who did try to make contact.