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?

This is absolutely right in terms of what people have to facd when reporting dangerous people

This thread, like others about this young man keep talking about him as if he should have or would have been sectioned. He wouldnt have been. At all

So he wouldnt have been taken away and would have returned to them. They wouldnt have been supported even if they had asked for help to have him removed from their home because there would have been no where for him to go. He wont have been housed by housing providers or services because he would have been seen as too high risk, but conversely not high risk enough to be detained either by MH services or criminal justice.

This is why the 'right service, right care' that is now being used to gatekeep services is utter bullshit. There is no right service for this person and his family, to keep them or society safe.

Of course they should.

They raised a monster.
They helped arm a monster, even signing for his weapon as you delivery companies won't even deliver a tomato knife without ID for an over 18 nowadays.
They gave him the money to be able to take a taxi when he decided to murder little girls.

He could not have done what he did without their assistance.
They should be in prison too.

This. The sibling grapsed the seriousness of it. Lessons need to be learned.

I’m pretty sure Labour wouldn’t be up for such a law but I think it would be right up Farage’s street.

Nicholas prosper was another

he killed his mum brother and sister and had intended to shoot in a nearby school

hos mum had tried…. He had been on CAMHS waiting list

be in prison on what charge? Our prisons are full

we need the places for true criminals

The more you find out about the parents’ behaviour the more it seems horribly inevitable they must both be tried as accessory to murder.

We desperately and understandably want to make excuses for them & their predicament.

They were such staggering, vigorous enablers that children died on their watch. We can’t.

They weren’t good parents either. Their pfb is gaoled for life.

But there’s being a victim yourself and three children being mercilessly killed. I don’t think we should remove all emotion from this, honestly.

Maybe parents should be made criminally responsible in cases similar to this, because the amount of shit his parents turned a blind eye to is crazy.

You are labouring under the misapprehension that, had they reported things, Something Would Have Been Done To Stop This.

The likelihood is that nothing much would have been done. There was nobody coming to take him away and lock him up indefinitely to keep his family and the rest of the world safe. The bar for depriving someone of their liberty is, rightfully, very high. Refusing to engage with services tends to get you left alone, in my bitter experience. There's every chance that, had reports been made, he would have refused to engage and still have been left in his family's "care", getting more and more dangerous and more and more angry with his parents.

You’re so right but sadly that’s not the point

As other PPs have said what would actually have happened if they had reported him? As I understand it he is serving his sentence in prison and not in a secure hospital. That would seem to imply that the authorities do not regard him as having serious mental health issues.
If he had been taken into care would it have been in a secure unit?

I do think the parents in this case could perhaps have done more but I am hesitant to judge as I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like trying to parent a child like that.

DD has autism and parenting her can be very challenging but she is not in any way violent and I would imagine that would be very difficult.

The family also had a traumatic background which must have had some effect on how they dealt with their son's behaviour.

I totally understand the parents of the girls reacting as they did. They must be going through hell but I am not sure that criminalising AR's parents will solve anything.

There just doesn't seem to be sufficient provision to deal with someone like AR who is not able to be sectioned but who is clearly dangerous.

I also think that the culture in.some institutions makes it difficult for professionals to act exactly as they might wish.

Yeah, I hear you. Don't get me wrong, I think they should have reported him, over and over and over day after day after day, to anyone and everyone who they could.

But the reality is that until he actually did something he could be imprisoned for he was going to be left in that house under their supervision and he was going to be a danger to them and everyone else he encountered.

And that isn't the parents' fault. If we are trying them for being accessories to murder, where does it stop? Do we try every professional who also ignored the warning signs? The parents were in grave danger themselves and they knew it, they were scared of him, but they were trying to walk this tightrope of appeasing him because they had to live with him. I suspect that, had they known for certain that he would be taken into safe protective custody, given appropriate MH treatment, and most importantly kept there until he was no longer a danger (no matter how long that took) they might have made different choices.

Definitely so. They knew what was going on with him and they had a chance to stop it. Evil.

Pretty sure the parents of the killers of Stephen Lawrence never spend a day in jail. They didn't just become racist over night.

If we are going down this line the parent of every child or person with an asbo the parents of every rapist, domestic abuser, killer etc should all be on the hook for their child's crime. Hate to break it to you, criminals come in all colours.

Yes the reality is that even had they reported the most recent incidents honestly, what action could be taken and by who?

He's not and wasnt mentally ill in the definition used to detain someone.

He hadnt at that point committed a crime and if he was found (as he was by police at one point) to be carrying a weapon in public, he would be arrested and bailed, not banged up

So what then?

What do people on this thread think would have happened if all and every single disclosure about this person had been made to the police, to health, to social services? What would have fixed him?

I think there needs to be an improvement in mental health services and support. Many killlers have mental health issues that seem not to have been managed properly. It sounds like his parents did not know where to turn. The police had been involved due to prevent concerns so maybe there is an issue there too. It’s a real fine line because he was mentally ill but unsupported. His family were terrified of him but he didn’t leave the house I believe.

I think you make fair points. I think what failed the little girls is society generally. Just not putting in better systems and ensuring we prioritise their safety. That feels incredibly difficult to change or even recognise and admit.

Ive said repeatedly on thresds about this young man and other similar subjects, the only way we would have 'better systems' is to enable me as a professional or other professionals to determine that someone needs detaining when they havent done something wrong (yet) and are not mentally ill

Generally speaking, 'people' dont want a system like that, they dont see that as a 'better system' because it would involve locking up their vulnerable children, adult children who they know are violent, aggressive, weird, odd, whatever the descriptor but who they believe wouldnt actually cause this harm.

The UK made a decision to move away from institutions for people like that. This is the cost

We either want that system back or we dont.

No. Don’t be ridiculous. The person who commits the crime should receive the legal punishment. No doubt the parents will receive social punishment in any case.

No.

He was responsible for his own actions. Holding other people responsible just makes it seem as though he wasn’t in control.

We have been the parents of a young child who was violent and called for help.
He was much younger but we called the police on many occasions and all they could say was "keep calling us and someone will have to take notice".
Our son is not psychotic but has injured me several times. We've been at the hospital telling them what was happening and despite them also saying "we feel for you" they also ultimately did nothing.
His school also ignored what was going on at home, offered no help beyond hollow sympathy.

Improvement for us came when we finally found a parenting method that takes this phenomenon - parents being afraid of their child's reactions - seriously, and better medication for him in addition.

Fair enough it’s interesting to get a take as a professional. If someone is likely this and not fitting the criteria for mental illness what should happen? Society needs a view on that.

I also think more broadly that we should look at any system whether it’s asylum (yes ik it was his parents) or the headteacher safeguarding fail that we simply ask is is this system prioritising girls and women?

If it doesn’t prioritise their safety then change it so it does.

Well systems that allow violent people to go round unsupervised or unmedicated (to calm them down, Im not talking treatment as such) doesnt prioritise anyones safety

More men are killed by men, than women are killed by men. We're all at risk from people like this. Look at the recent stabbing on the train

MH services are hugely reluctant to force medication even when detained. Ive worked with clients ( I dont work in MH per se) who have been detained and continue to be ill, but medication is not forced, these are finely balanced clinical decisions.

Out in the community, you have to have someone wanting medication, how do you force it on someone who is out and about and refusing to come to appointments. In his case, it would simply be something like a mood stabiliser, whats his diagnosis? Its not treatable as such. Medics dont like (for good reason) just sticking people on something to calm them down. And certainly not children

In other countries they're less worried about doing that, and equally they are often criticised for how they 'drug up' the vulnerable or stick children on medication to be able to manage them.

Well in my view, sometimes you need to.

But the parents signed for the knife deliveries. They paid for the knives!

The least they could have done was refuse the deliveries. When you buy a knife (I have been buying good knives to replace old ones) you have to give dob and id on delivery. It’s not as if parents mistakenly thought he was ordering a pair of new trainers. Also AR was using false names for repeat orders.

This is a good point