Should the parents of the Southport Killer face civil or even criminal action?

[mids2019]

Listening to the news I do wonder if the parental decisions of the Southport Killer reach a point where they need to face some sort of accountability. I understand that the parents aren't to blame but potentially they could have acted to stop their son and is there not some sort of sanction for this?

100%^ yes but will never ever happen under this govt and the BBC would be horrified

Agree, I think the law needs adjusting to safeguard this from happening in the future. The problem is you cannot eliminate all risk, but you can certainly take mire preventative action.

I would like to see a new service created for children and teenagers that pose risk of violence. Something that combines mental health, behavioural support and detainment (but is not prison), like a rehabilitation centre.

Mind you, I’ve just looked up youth detention center. Why was AR not in something like this?

I guess because the parents protected him or because there were not enough places? I think also if we are going to accept families from war torn countries we have to provide more support. We have seen what has happened to the Palestinians they have been through hell their mental health must be just awful.

The inquiry says AR should hv been referred to Channel which is another anti-terrorism talking therapy. Voluntary.

Dion R, AR brother, says that if AR had been removed from the house and sent ‘somewhere’ for intensive treatment ‘of some kind’ after school expulsion he might not hv turned savage.

So yes, we do need law changed so treatment is compulsory for violence regardless of what parents think and secure youth treatment centres built in which to carry it out.

The Rwanda legacy is a red herring - War survivors are less violent, not more. Ditto genocide - eg refugee Jews after WW2 didn’t react by murdering local kids.

AFAIK R family were on the warlord side, anyway, they were dishing out the genocide.

It’s awful and I feel sorry for them, but the R parents must be charged as accessories to murder.

There have to be limits to how shit you can be as a parent, for all children out there, not just yours.

There aren’t anything like enough extenuating circs. to get them off.

Claiming they were all victims of DV is pushing it when AR never hurt any of them physically.

(They said the ‘violence’ was outbursts of shouting and throwing plates, etc.. He threw water over the father. And milk on the bed.)

It didn’t take much to set AR off but it’s not the sustained campaign of terror a) they’d need as an excuse b) that other people really do get daily. And still defend kids.

Both parents enabled him very capably with years of neglect and aggressive treatment prevention.

They say they were scared of him - that’s their big USP, they say it repeatedly - but that’s not enough.

Because YJ will work not to have children criminalised, that is the law and the model in this country

So he had committed crimes but not ones that would have enabled any detainment. YOI are for when someone has been found guilty of a crime and receives a custodial sentence. This hadnt happened to him and I can tell you wouldnt have happened.

So if a man threw plates at his wife and water over her you would say that's not DV?

Well not just that, but its a contradiction surely to say that the parents should have reported a, b, c because it would have made the authorities take different action (it wouldnt) because it demonstrated he was such high risk

But at the same time berate the parents stance of being scared of him because he threw plates and milk at them and this isnt frightening or high risk. So this is what would be reported (as well as him buying weapons), that he is throwing household goods at people. Not using the weapons to attack within the home.

It would be noted, yes but to what end?

He wasnt always like that though. I think all too often there's a chance for early intervention and it's missed. Especially with send children.

No I don't. They probably wouldn't have got any help from mental health services anyway.

This, Something has to actually happen for them (mental health services) to maybe do something.

I thought he poured oil on the father (?)

I agree with all the above posts - it’s one thing to say you are scared of your own child, but it’s another to block treatment. The child desperately needed treatment. Usually behavioural issues are a form of communication from children. He was obviously extremely angry and had a lot of unresolved issues.

It still doesn’t make sense to me that they allowed all of those weapons in the house and for him to continue to have outbursts etc. what did they expect to happen, for him to spontaneously get better? I’d love to know their thoughts on this.
I also wonder if there was a degree of shame or embarrassment - again not an excuse. I think if risks have been raised by authorities about a child, then the law needs to step in and override the parents.

Agreed entirely.

Water and cooking oil too!

The parents’ case is really about implied terms in any society, human or animal.

While we tolerate every sort of weirdness in parenting, it’s so obvious you don’t enable your kid to be a mass murderer there’s no law against it.

(Eg there used not to be laws against puppy farms cos they’re so awful they thought no one would do it. Ditto revenge porn. Wrong.)

Law change, quickly, will save lives.

I think, having read the transcripts that the law needs changing so that parents, who absent themselves from normal parenting are held partially responsible for their child's actions.

You can’t convict people for crimes someone else committed without their assistance.

yes. Put him in prison alongside his horrible son

The mother is culpable too. She told her husband to “zip it” when questioned.

I think the law has to change because of this tragedy or what is the point? It maybe too late to bring criminal prosecutions in this case but in future maybe it would be a fitting legacy that prosecutions could happen. It is obvious the enquiry chair has laid some blame on the parents as well as institutions; we are expecting action from the institutions including perhaps resignations but no action against the parents; is this right?

The parents of the dead children only agreed to participate in an enquiry which would prolong grief if there were concrete results and change. Surely the change has to come from parents not being able to avoid accountability when doing an h things as accepting knives for a mentally ill child without informing authority? The parents actions were in some way a factor in these heinous killings and it is right for accountability to be sought or else you are running salt into the wounds of the bereqved.

I've not read every post on here but my OH and I talked about this last night.

I was the victim of a very serious crime when I was younger. Serious enough that it made the press especially when he was finally imprisoned years later. I remember one of his friends doing an article for a paper where he said how surprised he was but then in retrospect there were these odd things about him...

I think even in the face of overwhelming evidence, people don't want to believe the truth. You see it in people whose spouses are cheating all the time. Blatant, in your face evidence that they're having an affair and it takes an age for them to see.

Likewise, there are kids who are just idiots. My OH was one when he was young. He was once in court on a GBH charge after beating up a guy who'd beat up his brother. There was an honour amongst thieves thing that led to the charges being dropped so he was lucky. I pointed out that there were signs that he could have gone further.

So with the specifics of this case, I completely agree that the parents should have acted, do not get me wrong. The parents of the kids killed are absolutely right to expect that but I think if the law is to follow that wish a few things need to happen.

1. Clear guidance on what dangerous behaviour looks like so families can recognise it and making that available to all communities.
2. How to support your child and challenge behaviours when you see them.
3. What kind of behaviour should be included.
4. What behaviours might indicate an escalation.
5. Support for lower level behaviours which are not a criminal route (which may prevent parents from reporting) but a route which help reform without entering into the criminal justice system before the behaviour becomes too serious. That might be working with trusted community leaders too who might be more able to make a difference.
6. What kind of behaviours constitute an emergency.
7. Emergency support if parents or other carers realise it's too late but support that's available very quickly. You can imagine a situation where it gets to that stage and no help comes.

Deport them.

I think this should be looked at but it would have to be on a case by case basis, which would be very difficult to define legislation for.
Some parents know their children are dangerous and either don’t know how or won’t accept that they need to, work to get them help or control their actions. And that isn’t acceptable. (Of course what happens when parents DO try to get help or control the actions of their children is another matter because the current response from the agencies that should give this support-CAMH’s, social services, the police, is absolutely woeful-but at least caring and good parents can say that they tried). In this case I would suggest that the parents did not seek to try to get help
for their son, and that they were well
aware of the dangers he posed- and their failure to report it contributed to his actions and the awful events we saw in Southport.

It’s incredibly difficult to parent a child with a MH issue, or one that is acting in ways that are reckless or dangerous for whatever reason. I had to give up work and most of my own life to care for a very unwell and at times wayward DD2. The effect it had on my own mental health, finances, relationships, career was and continues to be immense. I had to fight for the help she needed, and it wasn’t great when eventually what little provision there was was given. Not all parents can do that (circumstances just about allowed me to) and not all parents would (is the reality of it) for whatever reasons. Had I not done that she would either be dead (I’m pretty sure) or in very big trouble. It’s easy to see how these situations get to where they end up. But I think there is some level of parental responsibility in some cases, as well as the urgent need to for reform of MH services and other agencies (that had been needed for as long as I’ve worked myself in social care -25 years-and even before that).

I just feel desperately sad for the parents who will not get their girls back. Every time this is in the news it must be like living the day of it all over again for them.

If your child who you know is dangerous orders a machete or other weapons what might those weapons be for?

Of course they should report an extremely dangerous young man who has a machete.

The 'professional' that deemed the killer low risk should lose their job.

I don't quite get the sympathy for AR's parents as though admittedly they did struggle it has been publicly shown now that some of their actions were indefensible and could be taken as factors that led to this tragedy. I think it would be doing a disservice to the victims to add AR's father to the victim list and the enquiry I think has pointed this out.

An element of parental culpability surely has to be an outcome of such a lengthy gruelling enquiry. If the state needs to learn lessons then there needs to be a lesson about what is and isn't acceptable for parenting and the potential for overly defending your offspring to be unlawful if it leads to harm of others.

In England there are about 50 (yes you read that correctly) beds in facilities that are capable for caring for very mentally ill, violent minors). Their social workers have to bid for beds, and wait for one to become vacant.
I formerly managed community services for those children who were waiting for these places. Often 4-1 staffing, 24/7 , in their own home, (or more likely as they were often removed from families that either couldn’t or wouldn’t cope with them anymore) in council funded accommodation in the community. Which is also few and far between, so quite often they are housed in Chalets on holiday parks. Hoseasons and the like. Incredibly dangerous for unsuspecting people staying around them but also entirely unsuitable for the child who needs help. It goes on for years until they either commit a more serious crime, or injure themselves via self harm so badly that the police or NHS have to step in. I’ve had kids hiding home made knives behind pictures on walls, or in holes they have made in their matresses, attacking staff and absconding from
holiday parks and being recovered repeatedly from drug houses in nearby towns. And these children are being looked after by staff on not much more than minimum wage who themselves often haven’t been trained or supported. I’m always saddened but never suprised when these children Injure others or themselves.
The simple answer is that the provision for specialist youth detention for kids with serious MH issues is virtually non existent in this country.