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?

When younger, DD connected with a girl who turned her life into a nightmare of 'thinspo', pro-ana, disordered eating, self-harming and suicidal ideation. She was wildly manipulative and, while not seemingly affected by an eating disorder or prone to self-harm herself, she preyed on DD, stalked and coerced her and made our lives hell for a long time. She was similarly 'working on' other girls who also suffered terribly. At the time, I had very strong feelings about whether her parents ought to be held accountable for their daughter's harmful conduct and should reasonably be expected to seek help for her and alert relevant agencies to her behaviour in order to prevent one of her 'projects' reaching a deadly conclusion. I reported and alerted until I was blue in the face but it was very, very hard to get anyone to take notice.

The thing is there is barely anything out there to support these very odd and anti social young people. They might get to level 4 support , even child protection end, all that happens is there are meetings after meetings and not much changes.
We need more in society to robustly support families who are outside of the norms in terms of all sorts of behaviour.

I have a teen in my school who has been in the cells for attacking parents with knives. There is basically nothing out there to help them. So they start keeping things secret because even when they do ask for help, call 999 etc , nothing changes. Last time they rang 999 because they were being attacked at home. The child was picked up by police and delivered to school. At the end of the school day, the child got the bus back home to parents.

That's so true @Nineandahalf - it's so shameful having a child who is violent to you. My work colleagues have no idea - I'm a professional and I would never tell even my closest colleagues.

For the child themselves, too, they want it kept a secret. One of the pillars of the approach we take is enlisting people the child looks up to and telling them about the incidents, but when we asked school they said yes but then they ignored our messages (the idea is that the supporting person speaks in a calm way to the child about any issues, fairly soon after any events). We now tell my dad, and DS PA.

@WeCouldBeNiceToEachOther & @MaryBeardsShoes but he was a minor, and he is his parents responsibility.

174 secure beds for violent children in today’s UK, pop 80 million.

Judges despair - nowhere to put dangerous/murdery kids. Families live in fear.

In the old days danger children were removed, hospitalised and kept safe with locks, drugs and guards.

These days it’s a rental flat with 24/7 ‘carer’ teams ie 2-4 hefty gentleman keepers who can restrain them safely.

Staggeringly expensive but worth every penny if you ask me.

Particularly for the poor fucking locals. And the family who had to get rid or get killed.

The 174 beds are full. You don’t say. No plans to build secure psych facility for children, ever.

So we know if the reporting had ‘worked’

1. Social services can’t do anything cos they don’t hv powers re murder in advance.
2. prevent can’t do anything cos he wasn’t Isis or EDL
3. CAHMS can’t do anything cos say he not mentally ill
4. Police can’t do anything cos murder in advance not illegal and he child.
5. the parents can’t do anything cos they ‘love him so much’

We need a public system independent of parental involvement that tags and monitors or restrains violent children.

Either that or you have to prosecute the parents because:

The parents could have told the police about the weapons stash; the parents could have told the truth to psych workers; the mother could have told the truth at any point. She didn’t want to.

The father stopped one attack but paid for the murder weapons for the next one.

Had the parents been just a bit truthful, the police would hv removed the weapons at least.

under the current system, the parents have blood on their hands.

Theres no public appetite for locking away children or even adults like this like the old days.

The law isnt set up to do this long term. Someone mentioned secure beds, but you need a court order and its for a limited time and the courts want to make sure its as short a time as possible. After a few weeks of someone being in one of those settings, their behaviour being ok because they havent got the opportunity to continue their behaviour, there then isnt the evidence to continue with the placement so out they come back into the community.

What about all the women who sit and silently watch their partners physically abuse their children after empowering the abuser for years by letting themselves be abused. It's a dangerous slippery slope to blame parents.

God forbid but I'd rather be the parent of a victim than a perpetrator any day.

What about all the women who sit and silently watch their partners physically abuse their children

Of course these women belong in prison for failing to protect their children and there are specific crimes on the booksto punish them for endangering their child through neglect or ill treatment. Is that even controversial?

Sometimes - well, almost always - blaming the parents is complicated and unwise.

But in principle, blaming the parents is fine. Why couldn’t it be? Do parents turn perfect humans in the delivery room? Sometimes it’s necessary.

eg - Women who prioritise abusers are treated as unfit mothers by the law. That’s not an argument these days.

This isn’t complicated either. Mummy lied, Dad paid. Three children are dead.

Although parents who prioritise abusive partners, which then causes direct harm to their children living in the same household, they are very rarely prosecuted for this alone.
children are removed from the parent but unless they can prove neglect/abuse there isn’t a prosecution.

If he had killed himself instead of others, would your stance still be the same that the parents should be prosecuted? And that’s a general question btw not directed at you!

theres no easy answer but what worries me is SEN kids having no support once they finish in education and become adults

so many get into trouble and then end up in custody through lack of support, and parents leaving them to find their way. I see it every day and it makes me sad

Not sure how the ethics of suicide are identical to mass murder.

So of course yes, prosecution is always situation specific.

Laetitia’s an accessory until she gets a trial where she could clear her name. (Not that it would, but giving her the chance is only fair).

Yes I do. Normally I am quite liberal but how could they have accepted their violent child storing weapons in their house. It seems criminal to have done nothing.Those photos of the lounge you can’t imagine anyone living in there surrounded by machetes , knives …

I hate this word 'support'. What do you mean by that for children like this

He was violent, deluded, anti social, fantastical, obsessed

What 'support' would you suggest for this? Bearing in mind he isnt going to be able to engage in therapy and sit there and be able to reflect on and analyse his views to make changes.

@soupyspoon i was referring to kids in general. I didn’t mention Rk

those of the future, and once they become adults

support could be CAMHS, one to 1 teachers, ss, assistants, family and friends. All drops off when they reach adulthood.

Have you any idea how many kids there are like AR though?

What support do you think fixes this?

CAMHS wont and cant 'treat' something like this, its not a MH condition, nothing to treat. You cant change or fix autism, the likely condition that made him obsessed and fascinated with things, in his case unfortunately violence and led him to have such intense extreme feelings and behaviours.

Family and friends, well his family were petrified of him to the degree that they couldnt cope, the brother is most likely traumatised by growing up with him.

What sort of assistant?

I realise you're talking in general but I dont think people understand just how many kids, male kids usually, are like this. Its only by luck that there arent more fatalities but there are lots and lots of injuries and violence, much of it not reported to authorities and even if there are convictions, you wont really read about it in the press. This made the press but much of it doesnt.

How many kids are there like this?

Are murderers getting younger?

Ditto - any new system (as opposed to none as now) would be much easier to install if we knew what % of school kids went into it.

Basikerly, you’d be installing a red button that overrides parental duties - kid too hard to parent, family & school terrified. Sanity boot camp? Children’s reform home? Might work. You’d have to let them out at 18, or house them with keepers.

All i can go on is how many are in the prison I work in! Too many. So yes, yes I am very aware of kids like RK.

what I’m saying is once at 16,17,18, they are invisible. Until they are not

I don't understand why the parents tried to apologise in court as that was an insult to the parents of the victims. It's as if the parents felt there should be something to apologise for (i.e. they knew they were at fault) and thought a heartfelt apology would somehow be accepted or make a difference. RK's parents should have remained silent on that point.

I don't think the parents of the killer can come away from this as victims and indeed claiming victimhood would only inflame feelings on this. It looks like the state are going to have to the killers parents into some sort of changes identity program at a great deal of expense to the tax payer sadly.

No I think it goes down a very unjust path to start blaming parents for their children’s crimes. For goodness sake a significant number of women who are killed, the perpetrators are their sons! It’s a murder after all so are you going to imply these women didn’t do enough to prevent their own murder, of course you’d say of course not!! Take the argument to its logical conclusion, are you going to say the sort of person who kills their mother doesn’t also have a very likely capacity for violent crime generally? Look at the evidence and often the parents other children often didn’t turn out the same. Yes I do feel the parents should have done more but then no acknowledgement seems to have been given for their honestly to the enquiry, which they didn’t have to do?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, I’ve no doubt if these parents knew he would actually go and do that they would of done more to stop him, they were in a very difficult situation and didn’t realise things would turn out so badly. I respect them for trying to say sorry that they didn’t read the situation differently, seems like they’d be damned whatever they did now in many people’s eyes, short or just lying about what they knew

Because they feel guilty of course. As a PP said, god forbid but they would rather be the parent of a victim than a perpetrator

I cant imagine, and neither can anyone on this thread, what it feels like to know your child did something like this, and that yes, you were living in fear of this person and so sometimes didnt tell the truth about him and sometimes gave in to his demands.

Its not an insult to the victims parents, its just humanity, messy horrible humanity. What can they say, nothing. If they say nothing, why havent they said anything.

Horrific, unsolveable, unfixable situation that now no one can do anything about and I'll wager couldnt have done anything about either.

Where did you find images of the lounge?

Yes, that’s worrying. That’s how they slip through the net. When they’re no longer a child, and do not present to adult services.