And AGAIN, where the hell was the father?!

[PyongyangKipperbang]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8elyx27p56o

Not suggesting he is responsible for their deaths but.....

They lived in squalor, the toilet and bath were both unusable due to being filled with rubbish so they used pots and buckets instead. He knew that the mother left them to go to the local shop and appears to be fine with that, and describes her as a "good mother". WTF?!

Two sets of twins in under two years and where the hell was he? Even in a strong team working marriage that would be a struggle, but a single mother doing it.....

I am not making excuses for her. What she did both before their deaths and in what caused their deaths was inexcusable. But if you knew that your childs other parent was struggling to that extent then you should step up, and if you dont know then you are not involved enough in their lives to know that they are living in filth.

He isnt directly responsible for their deaths but he is surely guilty of neglect?! How the fucking hell has not been charged with that?!

The social worker (Georgia Singh?) mentioned bags of rubbish piled outside the front door. One of the social workers (same one perhaps?) said there was a bad smell.

I suspect it was probably easier for everyone to turn a blind eye than to support her properly.

There was a feeling during Covid that carers (mostly women) just had to get on with it, it didn't matter if you were being asked to do the impossible.

There were lots of threads about mothers struggling with working and caring for children and what a shitshow it was. Along the lines of "My toddler watched 8 hour of TV yesterday and I came off a call to find them hanging from the curtains. I can't cope anyone, what do I do?" And no one really cared.

There wasn't really any help for struggling parents. A lot of kids suffered from some degree of neglect, although functioning parents of course realised this and tried their best within the limits of what they could do.

Lots of us felt like everything was stacked against us and we were being set up to fail. It's not hard to see how the isolation and strain could have affected a mentally ill young women trapped mostly alone with responsibility for four young children, while everyone else put their hands up and said "Sorry, Covid!" It comes back to mums as default.

They knew there was rubbish piled outside the front door and they knew the house smelled. These are signs of problems that would affect the children.

Above all, they knew this woman had four babies in under a year, and had coped with pregnancy while dealing with twins, sleepless nights, thousands of nappy changes, feedings, toddlers being toddlers, potty training, etc, alone ever since the father had left when the second set of twins were born. I don't know why this alone wasn't cause to be extremely concerned for all involved.

According to the guardian article the enquiry cleared social services of poor practice.

They did do their job. There will always be people who kill their children or cause them to die by neglect. It's impossible to eradicate that from society. Expecting social workers to prevent every non accidental child death is irrational.

Piles of rubbish outside the house aren't unusual at all. It doesn't follow that inside is squalid to the degree of removing children, believe me. And a bad smell - of course. Rubbish smells.

None of that would be close to meeting threshold for escalation to applying to removing the children.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/03/the-missed-chances-that-led-to-four-small-boys-dying-in-a-sutton-house-fire

They knew there was rubbish piled outside the front door and they knew the house smelled. These are signs of problems that would affect the children.

Which is why they offered her help. Which she refused. She did not want their help and they cannot make her accept their help. SS were not there because of safeguarding reasons. They were there because they thought she could do with extra support.

What ? So he has more children ? The same time just after ? Omg

Social Workers aren't responsible for 14 years of systematic under funding.

You want to punish them for that?

Good luck finding the next cohort of young people who want to be social workers.

Pay them peanuts, understaffed, throw them to the wolves when the inevitable happens.

And again, as others have said, the children didn’t die because the house was messy, because social services didn’t intervene, because their dad had more kids or any of a hundred reasons.

They died because she left them alone for 90 MINUTES with a naked flame.

We need to look beyond the immediate circumstances, what made her do this and what can be done to prevent it ?

Fire alarms were not fitted in the property. The landlord told police this was because he believed he was under no obligation to have them installed.

Unbelievable!!!
Might not have saved them but could have raised the alarm to people nearby.

Such a sad sad case.

I’ve followed this case very closely, as I used that road regularly. Could you link the landlord thing, I’ve not seen it.

I meant to add it in bold as I copied and pasted it from this article.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/03/the-missed-chances-that-led-to-four-small-boys-dying-in-a-sutton-house-fire

Thank you, I hadn’t seen that.

This is such a tragically sad story

a young mother four very your children isolated and on the middle of covid

I am a single mum of one child and know how at times I have just desperately needed to get to the shop and the struggle at times with one child who didn’t want to go never mind four

what woman wouldn’t be desperate and depressed in her situation this isn’t about loving and caring for your children it’s about being in a desperate situation that is overwhelming

I don't think fire alarms would have saved them either tbh. The fire was downstairs, the children were upstairs, and the front door was locked. It was the smoke that killed them. Even if the neighbours had kicked the door in sooner, they still would have had to get past the fire and navigate the house in darkness to find the children.

This wouldn't have helped those tiny children either but it is very important for parents to teach their children what to do in case of a fire. And if you are going to leave your children at home, don't lock the bloody door so no one can get at them in an emergency. If you can't trust them with a key or not to leave the house, it means they are too young to be left alone.

Smoke alarms are a legal requirement, not a fire alarm.

Agree and in my experience the enabling is even worse in person. When DD1 was a newborn I went to a breastfeeding coffee morning. There was a mum there with 3 under 3. Clearly she was struggling and at one point she gave 2 year old such a slap, it was awful. He then fell over and she bellowed at him. Someone asked if she was alright and she then broke down in tears and said she was a bad mum, everyone was so sweet to her and reassuring. Then when she left they were all exclaiming and gossiping.
I never went back to that group again and didn't try out any others for about 6 months as all the gossiping and enabling had put me off.

Yup.

People who were starting from a "good" position, who already had their shit together saw everything slide into chaos. People who were already on the edges of coping, fell of altogether and every time people posted on here to ask what to do there was a chorus of "You CANT break lockdown, don't you know nurses are DYING, just cope".

I also wonder, and this will probably get me criticised, how you "know" certain methods of parenting are bad. I think its easy to compare to your own childhood - e.g. my mum wouldn't leave us alone to go to the shops at that age (but there weren't 4 of us), people around me would be shocked if I did it or suggested doing it. But if you don't have that to compare to (or you are in a different position to your parents) and the people around are like "meh, do whatever" how do you KNOW. I know common sense blah blah blah but not everyone has common sense. This is also why the austerity era decimating of services like sure start (pre-covid) and free support/education/activities for children/parents was so awful. That doesn't let parents of the hook for neglecting their children. But gah...

Its no good asking people to be responsible, they won't.... they lead chaotic lives and don't have the capacity to think things through.

of course they have the capacity, they know what having children involves and how it will affect their lives.
In the case where a woman has a baby every year and they are all taken away and she knows that will happen she should be forcibly sterilised.

The dad was too busy with his new family. He had a baby one year after his last set of twins were born, then ANOTHER a year later. People move on, but his priority SHOULD have been his two set of twins, who were living with a mother with extreme mental health problems. I bet he made no attempts to have them living with the him. As a mother with autism, adhd, depression and bpd, I can only imagine what deveca was going through and currently going through.

Where is the racism in this post? The father should be ashamed! He had another baby one year after his last set of twins were born. I bet he made no attempt to have the kids live with him. Too busy with his new family