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?

Well who cares if they were married or not?

Some countries have a cultural marriage which might be seen as 'marriage' here or might not, somewhat irrelevant to my view

They appear to have raised reasonable, good citizens in their other children.

I feel kind of torn. I mean what about the parents of James Bulger's killers? The parents of any child murderer.

He terrorised them by the sounds of it but they should've done something sooner. I am just imagining if I had a son who turned out to be a murderer I guess I would take my punishment as I'd know it had to be partly my own fault.

I wouldn't necessarily hold parents responsible for their children's actions when the child certainly has psychological issues. But these parents obstructed the police and failed to alert the authorities about his behaviour. They feared that he'd be taken away. If only he had been.

Yeah. That's the bit that's dodgy. He was severely abusing the rest of the family but they couldn't see that taking him away was in theirs and his best interests. It's true others say their other kids didn't go criminally insane. But it must have been damaging for them sharing a home with AR.

There could be severe MH issues in the family that just never got treated through generations.

AR doesn’t have any mental illness, and neither does anyone in the family inc his one sibling, older brother.

No one’s claiming they’re standard issue humans but they’re certified not insane. AR wasn’t abusing his relations - he needed them.

AR was diagnosed with autism/high functioning autism, but the parents blocked what therapy assistance there is (it’s not curable) and refused to administer meds.

Yes many of us have made this point in the face of constant cries for 'he should have been sectioned'

He did not have (and still doesnt unless Im mistaken) a diagnosed, treatable MH condition

However I think he was abusing his family, very much so, his poor brothers and yes his parents

I didnt realise he had meds, which were these? Sometimes kids like this are prescribed mood stabilisers even though they dont have a MH diagnosis.

I didnt realise he had meds, which were these? Sometimes kids like this are prescribed mood stabilisers even though they dont have a MH diagnosis

It would seem he didn’t have meds as his parents refused to give them to him. If he had of been on prescribed meds this whole thing may have been avoided, and their home life may have been somewhat normal/tolerable.

So was he prescribed or not?

When I said 'had meds', I mean that someone has prescribed them. Whether a patient takes them is another matter.

What were they?

That is a very interesting question. Did AR perhaps have ADHD as well as high functioning autism? The two conditions do sometimes go hand in hand after all. And ADHD can be treated with meds whereas autism can’t.

But you’re right, if he did have medication, it must at some point have been prescribed by a doctor. And it would mean that AR wasn’t just diagnosed with autism.

He was suspected of having conduct disorder I think which is the label they give children who they are concerned may go on to develop an anti social personality disorder. They don't like to label kids with that too early. Autistic children are more at risk of developing personality disorders often due the trauma they go through due to being autistic (in my understanding).

I definitely do not think the parents should be criminalised. No one can predict the future and everyone wants to think the best of their kids. Even if they did report him they probably wouldn't have got far because he hadn't actually done anything at that point. They don't lock people up because they might possibly do something in the future. They would have removed the weapons but that probably only would have delayed him. Many killers are already known to the police. Valdo Calocane already had an arrest warrant out on him and was known to have serious mental health issues, he'd attacked a police officer I believe.

How on earth would I know? Surely, that’s a question for those who treated him, which was not me.

I don’t think they should be charged. I think they are hopeless parents who had no control over him, who made awful decisions within an ineffective, useless and non-supportive system of care/support.

I am not sure we can put the burden of this not happening again on parents (and by extension the parents of the next hypothetical murderer).

@LizzieW1969 But you’re right, if he did have medication, it must at some point have been prescribed by a doctor. And it would mean that AR wasn’t just diagnosed with autism

Nope, you can be ‘just diagnosed with autism’ and be prescribed medication. There are some medications that are indicated for use in ASD, you don’t have to be diagnosed with anything else to be prescribed. It’s dependent on the behavioural traits with someone’s ASD, so would not be applicable to all people with ASD but on the surface of it I doubt this person would have been ineligible.

I’m not close to this and don’t know the details but what has been written is he was threatening to kill people. If this is indeed correct, I don’t understand why you would buy someone (either ND or NT) knives in this circumstance. There’s a difference between having no control over someone and enabling them, if what is written is correct.

Totally agree . If the son isn’t crazy the parents certainly are. Absolute madness!

AR was prescribed anti-depressants off label for mood and the parents wouldn’t help him take them when he was reluctant.

Psych tried to get them to click that they had to cooperate if they wanted to see an improvement in their son, no dice.

I agree that their hopelessness enabled him. I don’t think they gave him a knife though - rather they bribed him with money to do activities of daily living like showering and they knew he was purchasing knives with that money. I think the dad made some weak attempts to block him from accessing the packages but didn’t do it very effectively.

They were terrible parents - don’t get me wrong - and buried their head in the sand. I am not sure if they had reported it much else would have changed though (based on things I have experienced professionally). It is hardly like there’s a crisis team ready to swoop in with loads of knowledge and a magic ability to motivate the most hard to reach families into becoming functional members of society and the time to do it all properly. If you have ever tried ringing the crisis team lines/adjacent support systems you will know this!

it is heartbreaking and I hope it leads to change. It won’t though.

Beautifully put! AR parents are a problem refusing help.

The real problem is that parents who do try to get help can’t.

^This. It’s been beyond exhausting pressing for help with our DD1 (17). Even now, we’re still waiting for her ND assessment to be completed. And we’re facing long delays with her epilepsy review.

Not necessarily no, because lots of children (and I presume adults) are given mood stabilisers without a MH diagnosis.

Are you the poster that stated that the parents refused to give him meds?

If you know this, where do you know it from and what meds were they, thats all Im asking, you seemed to know

Ok, so this answers that question

How would anyone make him take the meds?

Does the psychiatrist also bear responsibility then? For not realising this was a child with neglectful useless parents who might do physical harm to himself or others?

I don’t know where you start drawing lines.

I imagine the parents will never forgive themselves - and neither should thet

AR parents were told by AR he was off to try and kill. Twice.

These were unrelated incidents though, right? It's not been suggested that they had any knowledge of what he'd planned to do that day.

They paid for and received the weaponry, because he was too young himself. No police called.

Again, this was a moral failing. It's agreed that they knew he was generally capable of harm, but not of any specific plans he'd made for that day.

I suspect they won’t be charged because no one can decide what with

It's not that no one can decide what to charge them with, it's that's there's nothing to charge them with.

It's not illegal to not report a crime, or suspicion of one, in almost all cases. An act of terrorism is one of the very few exceptions where not reporting is an offense in itself. The Southport attacks weren't classified as terror-related, but even if they were, there's no evidence that the parents had any knowledge that he was planning or conducting these crimes.

the point is should there a new law to accommodate thankfully rare cases like this

I guess the question is...what specifically are you looking to criminalize with that law?

If it's 'failing to report credible evidence that your child intends to carry out a serious crime to the police'...ok, that might be specific enough to prosecute, but it wouldn't have applied here as the parents had no such evidence.

It would also require massive legal upheaval... currently it's not a criminal offense to plan or prepare for a non-terrorist offence. This would criminalize someone for not reporting something that isn't even a crime.