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?!

I vaguely remember at the time something about there being no reason for social services to be involved. Of course they could have been lying about that.

Edited to say I think it was Kate who invited them to talk to her. SS hadn't asked to talk to them.

Sorry to say this again, but I used to work as a housing officer. I've been in houses where people hoarded ( and my late husband was a hoarder too). I've been in houses where there was no working toilet and we were never told by the occupant. I've walked across human faeces because the tenant had declined to the extent that using the loo was too much trouble. All sorts of appalling situations. Yes, I did report it, but honestly my colleagues in social care were often completely overwhelmed with cases. And, how often do the general public complain about how much tax they pay? If we want a better system, we need a discussion about how we provide that system.

Of course she loved her children. Who doesn’t love 3 and 4 year olds? Children that age are very lovable.

Love is a feeling though, and quite separate from the things you have to do to be a responsible parent. As we all know, being a responsible parent is really hard work mentally, emotionally and physically. It requires you to be strong, organised and stable. There are so many reasons why a parent might not be strong, organised or stable. Love does not have much to do with it.

I've seen threads on Mumsnet where Women are told not to let the Ex in the house. They've no right to come in, it's your space etc. What was he supposed to do? Force his was in? Knock her out of the way? The children appeared well presented and his family reported the mother.

this story has been reported in a way that makes her appear severely negligent - when all involved say that was not the case.

She was a mother of 4 clearly struggling with serious MH problems - the boys were tidy/ well behaved/ polite - she wnet to 'the shop' - not 'shopping' - she went to get them food! She was a mum struggling too much to take 4 young children with her - she has paid the ultimate price.

She clearly needed help she didn't get it - what purpose is served by sending her to prison?

She clearly wasn’t coping. The fact that they were living in squalor shows that. It looked to me like social services closed the case when they couldn’t engage. Plus they hadn’t attended school for 3 months. Alarm bells should have been ringing louder for ss.

Because the mother was in charge of the children. She cos he to leave them long enough for a fire to be lit and for them to perish.
it really isn’t that difficult to see why all the blame is on her, it was her fault!

The father was regularly visiting. He knew the state of the house. His mother was asked to look after the boys and knew the state of the house.

This woman had sole care of 2 sets of twins from newborn and 1year old. 2 xnewborns and 2x 1 Yr olds, you can't do that at nursery's. Can you imagine how hard that would have been? And dad wwnt off to make more babies elsewhere.

She was clearly mentally unstable, dad did nothing. He left his kids with her, knowing she was not coping and that she was leaving them. He was just as responsible. She didn't have any restraining order or special custody rights, he could have just taken them back to his house. They should both be in jail. And he should be castrated.

Loads of people who commit crimes needed help but didn't get it. It doesn't absolve them of all responsibility.

She was a shit mother and and her children died as a result. She's where she belongs.

Even the grandmother, who goes and babysitter in a house that bad and doesn't immediately take the children away. Or call your entire family to provide immediate support clearing and cleaning that home.

Teachers, neighrrs, even the paternal family say she was a good mother. She must have just completely cracked, full spiral into breakdown.

And also because Madeline ( presumably) died at the hands of a predatory paedophile, not as a result of their neglect . Just as those children have died as a direct result if their mother locking them in a rubbish strewn house with a lit flame in it while she went out for an hour and a half, not as a result of their neglectful father.

NC for this because anyone who knows me will recognise it.
My DC went to their father's home every other weekend. He always picked them up, and I'd always honk the horn outside the house when I picked them up from his home. When I saw him, he was always very tidy and quite dapper.
Then one day he had a health scare which meant phoning for an ambulance. The DC were with him so I was called to pick them up.
The house was truly horrifically disgusting. Unusable toilets; broken shower and bath, and the towels and bedclothes were waxy because they had been unwashed for so long. Teetering piles of crap everywhere. Food festering for years in the kitchen. Rodents everywhere, and rodent poison just scattered on the floor of the kitchen.
The paramedic said that it was the worst they'd ever seen.
I had no idea. None. No-one did. The DC said they knew it was bad, but it was also just their normal for dad's house, so they never said anything. I think there was an element of protecting him too.

So whilst the father of these children was naïve to think it was appropriate for their mother to pop out to the shops, it is entirely possible for people close to families not to know about neglect.

I will always feel guilty for not knowing. Just typing this makes me sick, thinking about my lovely kind kids sleeping in filthy sheets with dead rats on their bedroom floor.

the fact teachers thought 'covid' was a reason not to check on the children shows you all you need to know about our isolated fucked up society.

the court reports say she had serious mental health problems - no mum of 4 small children on her own should have been left in the situation she was.

@waterrat
She clearly needed help she didn't get it - what purpose is served by sending her to prison?

At least in prison she won't be able to get pregnant again with kids she can't look after by some feckless man (who should also cease his repetitive reproduction IMO).

It's an incredibly sad case. Two sets of twins in two years without a co-parent is unthinkable. (Even with a co-parent the mind boggles.)

It never fails to amaze me how far people go to stick up for men.

He saw them, he knew the situation, he CHOSE to do nothing.

@FuckMiniBabybells yes and plenty of people are costing society millions pointlessly rotting in prisons. it's a shit system and most of the people in prison had shit childhoods themselves.

If these boys had survived and grown up - and been taken into care away from here - (an entirely plausible outcome) - they could easily have ended up in prison themselves because of the adverse childhood experiences they lived through.

vast numbers of people in prison grew up in care - and were victims of exactly this sort of childhood abuse

funny how the sympathy stops

I don't agree. She is absolutely guilty. The children were in her custody at the time of their death and she left them alone in a house with a naked flame. It's irrelevant where the father was- he could be dead! She left them alone!

The filthy house full of rubbish should have been dealt with by social services before the icicdent- but that's not what killed them- she left them alone, that is what killed them!

3 weeks not 3 months
careful about Chinese whispers when you don't actually know

Yes. Exactly. People think he would have known what the house was like. People think the children would have said something. But why would he (or you) know what the house looked like when you didn't go in it and why would children say something when as far as they know that is just normal for mum's house (or dad's in your case). What goes on behind closed doors isn't what people present to the outside world.

Daddy was busy off making new families with other women, leaving this mother alone to cope with four under-fives.

I'm not excusing the mother's actions in any way, as she made some very bad choices, but I think SS have a lot to answer for (once again) as they were continually refused access to the children so just closed the case. More children let down by the system.

Objectively 4 children under the age of 5 are a lot to cope with. You'd have to be superwoman to breeze through that.

Add in being a single parent, years of lockdown restrictions, removal of early years resources and support structures, limited money, a cramped, squalid house and known mental health issues and it must have required some serious cognitive dissonance on the part of those round about this woman to imagine that she was ok and coping.

But you are making that up you do realise? It's not fact. So putting it out there helps no one.

Where was her village? Her neighbours? Child carers? Grandparents? Extended family? Her friends? All the 'missed opportunities'. This is the fault of every single person involved imo, including their father, as we have a responsibility to the children in our society, as a society. Somehow, every single adult let them down.

..and if the relationship had completely broken down? how would that work? i wouldn't want my ex within a million miles of me, no matter the situation.

The bottom line is they shouldn't have been living like that, no loo's no sanitation, this is supposed to be a 1st world country, not Dickensian England.

But its not uncommon, housing for the poor is a disgrace, can't even make many buildings safe from fire, damp etc.

She probably did love them actually. But sometimes love isn't enough. You also need to be (capable or willing) of providing safe, non chaotic living conditions.

@PyongyangKipperbang

The fact is that he didnt take his children out of squalor and look after them properly.
I'm not disgust everyone was shot in this situation but to argue that he should have just taken his kids away from their mother to live with him is not legally sound. You know that's not something men can do. Thank god. Can you imagine if this was allowed?