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?

No, because they had reported him for prior incidents. This should have stopped at the stage of those previous incidents. The system failed to pick up how danferous this kid is.
If they had hid it, encouraged him, brainwashed him or whatever, but it was rather early published in the news that his family had reported him on other occassions. And they are sorry not to have done the same on the days leading to the knife attack on children.
They would have done so if they knew this would happen.

But there were more incidents and the level of risk in my opinion changed when there was clearly a change in his behaviour. You ought to continue reporting, even if it’s only logged, you just keep going, you don’t stop. There may have been a different police officer or social worker that you spoke to that week that DID take action. You don’t give up when you know there is a new risk.

The parents admitted that they did not tell the whole truth to the Services involved with AK, hence the Services closed the case.

I do, therefore, think they are culpable to some degree.

I think there were things they did or failed to do which could be prosecuted.

Agree with PP it's a bit mad if it's completely fine for parents to be taken to court for not getting (often mentally unwell) children (on a waiting list for camhs help for years) into school but nothing for allowing children to wander around with a machete that they let them keep under their bed

He was living in their house. Why didn't they go into his room for a look? He was creating ricin ffs, had that been reported and police then searched his room and found the ricin or the weapons or the terrorist training manuals then those girls would probably still be alive.

It almost seems these days the bigger the crime the lower the punishment whilst normal struggling parents are made responsible and fined left right and centre

@GreenFrogYellow I think there should be consequences of sorts for any parent who knowingly allows their child to live with a violent partner and not take any action. As a parent it is ultimately your duty to protect your child and that should come above everything else.

Ive read a few posts in this thread where people refer to him as psychotic or even "deep in psychosis". My understanding is that there is no evidence that he was suffering from psychosis so I'm not sure why people are bandying that around. I feel like "psychotic" has become a way of describing violent behaviour (I see this online all the time, seems to be something of an Americanism) but it's inaccurate and just contributes to the stigma that genuinely psychotic people experience.

From what I have gathered the lack of services to help them was the issue. We all know MH services are almost non-existent and there needed to be a specialist to understand that his SEN and hyperfixations were violent and he needed sectioning. The parents did try to get help, which is all any of us would be able to do.

Those families were let down to a degree that is hard to consider.

Yes, I agree. There needs to be a specialist service for this.

I hadn't seen this.
None of us know what we would do with the seemingly vast array of things this teen was doing, but we do know that there was no help and it was unclear who they needed to go to. We have so much money in anti terrorism when we are creating kids like this because the funding for services in mental health are so low and not catering for the needs of the kids we know have problems who are in society.

This. Parental responsibility isn't an 'oh well I tried for a bit and no one helped' abdication of ongoing responsibility.

If this were true no parent would be fined more than once for school absence. You aren't allowed to just say 'my son is now bigger than me and I tried on the first day to get him in and asked for help but now I've given up'.

There were so many opportunities missed to stop the horrific slaughter of 3 lovely innocent little girls. If there is no accountability for anyone -parents or professionals (which seemingly there isn't these days for big crimes, lots of fines etc of the otherwise law abiding for little issues) then it WILL happen again.

If everyone knows if girls are murdered they can just say 'sorry' and 'lessons will be learned' then carry on as normal this or something like it WILL happen again.

There were many professionals who did try and report him. They need promoting, those who shut it down need to be sacked. And yes, the failure of the parents to bother showing the slightest interest what he was doing in his room / report the fact they had illegal weapons, ricin and terrorist training materials in their house should be prosecuted.

If the police find ricin or a machete in my house would I face any consequences or can I just say 'sorry, didn't know about it' ?

The father seems to be some sort of accessory.

Well said.

Risks and behaviour are dynamic and ever changing, and it’s not acceptable to say well I reported it once or twice before and that’s it. That’s negligent.

Also, I found the parents to be contradictory. Especially the father in his statements. Terrified his son would be taken away, but also terrified of him? So which one is it? If I was terrified that a family member of mine was going to kill me, I don’t think I’d feel scared of them being taken away… and I wouldn’t be concealing their behaviour. Also how old was AR when he was getting deliveries to the house? If you knew he had even just once ordered a knife, surely you’d be inclined to a) check his future deliveries or b) stop giving him money!

It really is very bad parenting. If the fear you have for your son stops supervision of him, then you are failing to parent him adequately. And I agree with the girls’ parents statements in that you are responsible for bringing up a responsible human who is law abiding, safe, healthy etc.

I think the negligent, hands off parenting and lack of supervision and even just level of fear they had for him combined with a lack of joined up approach from authorities including Prevent hugely failed those poor girls. Clearly Prevent isn’t fit for purpose either if it does not recognise terrorism that doesn’t subscribe to a particular ideology. It’s still terrorism. He had machetes and ricin (though I don’t know if this in particular was reported). This guy slipped through the net.

Again if the parents reported more frequently and more up to date e.g. on the lead up to the murders or even on the day, I wonder if that would’ve triggered a response by police / other organisations that could’ve stopped what happened. That’s where the parents hugely failed and was a critical incident for me. All they needed to do was pick up the phone and say hello I think my son has gone out with a weapon - he hasn’t left the house in a while - he previously did a week ago and had a knife - there are also other weapons at home.

I think they should be held to account yes however it cannot happen because society has decided that children have independent rights from approx 13 and have gradually pushed parents to one side. A good example is gillick competence - children deemed (if competent enough although who knows how that’s decided) to be able to consent to medical treatment with out parental involvement (but who has to/ is expected to pick up the pieces). Schools allowing children to ‘transition’ at school including name changing etc without telling parents. I know this is slightly different but parents not being told about MH issues if their YP whilst at uni.

Parents have been sidelined by the state at every opportunity. All whilst we are told that YP brains don’t mature until 25. That does not excuse anyone however the state needs to make up its mind on consistent ages for things eg voting, driving, claiming benefits etc and most importantly where parents should take some responsibility for their child’s actions.

I agree this is a grey area and the trans issues have muddied it further.

I personally think that if the child has SEN the parental requirements should be stronger (for everything, medically, law etc) but ALSO supported by the state, be that by a mental health professional or social worker with direct specialism in their type of SEN or something new set up. If a child is NT they are likely to be able to deal with "life" far easier and make better choices, which is why we screen for SEN in the first place, to support them.

I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I had acted in the way those parents had.

They knew he had weapons in his room. They feared for their own lives so they knew he had the potential to use them but they didn’t report it, and when they had reported it in the past they’d not told the whole truth and his mother had made a zip it sign to the father.

If your child is having weapons delivered to your house, your duty is to go to the police. You go every day if necessary. You don’t bury your head in the sand. They absolutely failed. I don’t feel sorry for them at all.

Knew he was dangerous and he stated he wanted to kill children.
Bought him a machete
I think that tells us what we need to know😡

He was reported to Prevent at least three times.
Police were involved 4+ times
He was under the care of mental health services.
He was expelled from schools.
He had committed violence before.
He had been found with a knife by police and escorted home with a warning.

These services were not sharing information.

Parents should have rang the police immediately that day. They failed in their duty of care.

In retrospect,
They should have not allowed him on the Internet, no phone etc, from when he went through puberty and first started signs of MH, before he got too big and terrifying to discipline him.

But how many parents let their children have free access to the internet.

This is also how Brianna Ghey's killers lost themselves into evil hateful ideas.

The parents of AR were overwhelmed once he started threatening them.

There was a disabled wheelchair bound child in the house too, that they had to protect.

AR was failed by his parents and all of the above mentioned services.

And this caused the terrible heartbreaking tragic end result of the tiny kids murdered and many more traumatized and hurt.

Why did they buy him a machete? For what reason

Because he wanted one?

They knew he was a risk they could have said no maybe. A machete, madness

Where is your source that the parents bought him a machete? My understanding is that he ordered the machete(s) unsupervised, but they were aware it at least one under his bed

Just don’t understand how you can allow multiple weapons in a house with a threatening and violent young man. So dangerous.

They didn’t buy him a machete. He bought the machete, his father accepted delivery of it.

Usually when parents try to interact with services regarding children's MH, their concerns are minimised. This suggests to the parents that there isn't help out there or that they are infact overreacting. It is an exhausting process. Another example of had services been properly funded and children recieve the intervention the desperately need this likely wouldn't have happened.

I think bringing in laws to blame a parent for a teens actions is a slippery slope. Should teens be supervised at all times? Should benefits support parents so that every household has a SAHP until 18? Or 21? For their lifetime of disabled children? Should parents of teens that play knock a door run be charged with harrament of their neighbours. There were news reports of teens setting off fireworks in a local town and two teens were seriously injured. Should their parents go to prison? What about fights at school, the school is in loco parents so should the lunch time superviser be changed with physical abuse of a minor?