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?!

Weird, I've just seen you defending Lucy Letby in another thread and now you're here supporting Deveca Rose. Are there any other female child killers you're a fan of OP?

@HollyKnight

As far as I'm aware social services were aware of her leaving the children alone because she was reported for doing that by the father's family.

We obviously have a different idea of 'mess'. For me messy is a few things scattered around or the washing up needing doing. Mess isn't buckets of feces, 20cm of rubbish and discarded mattresses. It was reported that the house smelled.

The boys had also missed three weeks of school. Social Services can remove a child in the case of neglect and this was neglect. Squalid and unsanitary conditions, lack of school and leaving them alone, is neglect.

A social worker who retired after seeing her, noted that a follow up appointment needed to be made and there wasn't one.

And to say no one could have predicted she'd go out and leave a candle burning, it's easy to predict four young children getting into trouble when left unattended.

Those boys were failed by their mother, their family and social services.

Imagine your children's mother cutting you off, clearly seeing a downward spiral in her mental health, reporting this all to social services, then finding out your kids have all died in her care, then having a random bunch of people who know absolutely nothing about you or your children, after the court case and investigation has taken place and found you guilty of nothing, blaming you for the death of all of your children.

Where is the empathy, where is the sense. It's shameful.

I just don't agree that this is on Social Services. She hadn't been reported for safeguarding concerns. The children were always seen as healthy, happy and had a good relationship with their mother. The mother was struggling and they tried to help her, but she didn't want help from them. The reason the case was closed was because the mother wouldn't engage but they saw that some improvement had happened although they weren't convinced it would be ongoing - this report was by the colleague who took over from the SW who retired and did the last visit.

The children missing school was an issue and would have required attention in time, but unfortunately the children died before that happened. I don't think I read anywhere if the school had reported their absences to authorities yet.

Can you link to the article saying he was cut off. According to the information I've read, he saw them regularly.

Her statement continued that the boys' father, Dalton Hoath, also had a good relationship with the boys and would see them regularly.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0r85p1wrwvo.amp

That's from a statement read out in court by his grandmother.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

By cut off, I'm thinking people mean how visits were reduced due to Covid. Otherwise I don't know where people are getting that information from. The father and grandmother did know she left them home alone at times but they claim it was only while she went to the shop 7 doors away. Who knows if that's true or just convenient.

I don't believe so. Earlier in the thread, someone claimed that he had been denied contact from the mother. I've been looking for evidence of that but can't find any. Parents were allowed to see their children during COVID.

Yeah I didn't see anything about her denying them contact. It sounds like the grandmother in particular did a lot for her. She probably had to stop visiting or having them during Covid though because as far as I remember exemptions were only for parents. Maybe visits happened outside rather than in the house and people are taking that to mean she stopped him from seeing them.

"Where is the empathy, where is the sense. It's shameful"

Well he's a man and this is mumsnet...

Of course none of us really know how much he tried to be a good father. There’s a chance he did I suppose but the facts are.

They were living in shit and neglected.
He did leave them and have another child quickly.
He just generally wasn’t there supporting them.

Unsurprisingly most people will conclude he made minimal effort. Sadly for these children their mum wasn’t enough to look after them. That job belonged to her and him and not social services.

I just watched a video with the dad where he start to say ‘I am sorry that…’ and was expecting him to say he was sorry he wasn’t there in their lives enough to protect them but he paused and just said he was sorry they weren’t here any more. Sounds like he provided a bag of crisps occasionally though.

Very, very tragic, those poor children. They look good in that photograph, happy and healthy in fact. Imagine having two sets of twins so close together! I too feel for the mother and hope she gets some help. She will never again be the same though.

Pease don't be that person. You can absolutely be racist and have a black husband. You can be racist and have a black kid.

Few things sound as racist as when people list all the black people they know.

The children were failed by so many people. At least one grandparent knew she left them alone to go to a shop, they claimed she said it was the shop 7 door away, but i’d imagine buying from a corner shop is expensive, so maybe she started to leave them for short periods. No excuse for leaving the kids alone, but social services signed her off? What about their father, her family, grandparents? A house knee deep in rubbish. Kids chat, they must have told someone they didn’t have a working toilet? They hadn’t been in school for 3wks, what happened there? We all know that’s a big red flag. Poor kids. As many have said, many people would struggle with 2 young sets of twins. She clearly needed help, but didn’t receive any.

This is so tragic.

Everyone let those boys down. There are only guilty people left.

The thing is, you can’t force help on someone. She refused to engage with the help offered. How would you go about making someone accept it?

The children weren’t yet under a child protection plan, so her engagement with SS was voluntary. They died before it got that far.

From what I’ve read I get the feeling the situation in the house developed over a fairly short period of time coinciding with the mother’s deteriorating mental health. I imagine she kept them off school because she couldn’t bath them and keep them clean. We can see from photos that they were clearly looked after and well turned out at some point.

While I agree that absent parents have an equal responsibility for their children, I think it’s odd that people think he should have known what the house was like. If I had an ex, I wouldn’t want him in my house and I don’t think that’s unusual.

I absolutely agree - my first thoughts were 'why hasn't the father been charged with neglect'. Any woman would struggle with 4 babies, let alone a woman on her own, no support, her ex left her to father even more children, in lockdown. Social services were appalling and I'm sick of hearing 'lessons will be learned'. I find it hard to go to the shops with 1 toddler, let alone 4, so it isn't hard to see how she would have decided to pop there without them. The next door neighbour heard her shouting at them? Well knock and offer to help then. Sorry, I just find it incredibly upsetting for all concerned.

This. It is not difficult to imagine how the mother, mentally unwell and looking after the boys alone and with limited resources, reached the point that she did. Yes, she is culpable and she should have put her hands up and said "I can't do this" and asked for help to ensure her kids were properly cared for.

It is more difficult to understand why those around her - the father, family, social services - let the situation get to the stage it did.

Well surely you can’t choose whether to accept help when your children are being neglected. Social services should have stepped things up surely.

I guess many people wouldn’t let an ex in, mine comes most days to visit my kids. But even so, no-one can honestly say that those kids wouldn’t have disclosed some of this if seeing their father. If he was banned from seeing them, then what was he doing about it. Sad on all grounds. In cases like this people jump to defend the family and friends. But i cannot believe that they weren’t aware. I guess any enquiry will look into this. I guess that it will be on their conscience.

School? Social workers? Neighbours?

None of the above are legally or morally obliged to clean someone else's house, even if it is a cesspit.

I don't see what he could have done. Social Services were already involved with them. He could hardly break in and clear the house up. And I doubt he'd have had much chance of becoming the resident parent.

We don't know which parent decided to split up, so we have no idea whether he was a careless dad or a devoted one.

And what do you want to change? Assumption of 50-50 custody? Unfortunately, that's not great for the kids who end up never having one stable home. Maybe we should randomly make half of dads who spilt up be the RP? I'm not sure that's going to be a wildly popular proposal.

If he ever saw his children he would be, the bath was unusable and if they were at the stage of neglect that they were having to go to the toilet in pans, do you really think they had clean clothes etc? Either he never saw them (most likely- in which case a media tour is gross), or they would have been unkempt and dirty when he saw them and he didn't care. I usually feel empathy for parents who are struggling, but in this case nothing for the 'mother'. Poor boys were failed by everyone.

She clearly had significant mental health difficulties. That doesn't mean "she felt a bit sad and let herself make bad decisions and not bother cleaning." It means her ability to cope with reality was drastically reduced. No, she shouldn't have left them. But the people on here casting her as evil may be making themselves feel good but they're achieving nothing else.

I don't think social services shrugged and said "all right then." This is the reality of a stretched service, it can't do what it should. If they have ten more urgent cases they'll prioritise those because they have to. They can't stretch infinitely.

So social workers have no power to remove children living in a house with no functioning toilet or sanitation? What's the point of them then ffs.