The Philpotts: to think this says a lot about the morality of this country?

[SlowlyWakingUp]

Why was this 'getup' allowed to happen? Everyone knew about it, why was it normalised? It seems to have been all nudge, nudge, wink, wink, that's just 'Mick'. A man with 'needs'. Why were social services not involved? They were all over the TV long before the fire with him being aggressive and f'ing and blinding in front of the DCs on camera, dread to think what he like off camera. I bet he was an absolute bastard.

Why was he allowed to live with children after his earlier conviction for attempted murder and the domestic violence he perpetrated to his 2nd 'wifelet' who left before he got involved with Mairaid? Lisa Willis was their pregnant bridesmaid (with HIS baby) at their wedding. In the TV interview she said she did not 'like the wedding night' because she was 'ready to drop' that brings up all kinds of dreadful connotations. People must have known about this. Did they pat him on the back, turn a blind eye? Why did the neighbours not get involved? The school? Just the overcrowded, chaotic household would surely have been enough to ring alarm bells? When Lisa Willis left him a few months before the fire, she got a restraining order so she must have been alleged DV, why were the DCs left behind not checked up on?

I dread to think of the things they must have seen what with other men coming in to have sex with the 'mother', threesomes, booze and weed, the rocking caravan parked out front. I am sure they were aware of what was going on. How could anyone have thought this was 'OK'.

Why, why, why was this evil sexist pig of a 'man' allowed to carry on doing what he liked without being properly challenged (and I don't mean by JK or Anne Widdecombe)? It was a car crash waiting to happen and no one stepped in, just judged him for being a scumbag, the women for being stupid enough to accept it, without taking into account the most important factor, those poor DCs.

I KNOW ultimately the 3 who were found guilty today we were responsible but what about the responsibility of the community and the government agencies to say 'hey, you cannot bring children up in that environment'. Not just to turn a blind eye until an absolute tragedy like this happens. Sorry, it just sickens me that this went on and that similar scenarios are being played out everyday all over the UK.

Agree Mumsyblouse, depressing though it is. But I think one of the questions is whether society is directly financing these ways of life, and so encouraging this cycle.

What I find very hard to understand is: how can any woman want to be with a man who has stabbed another woman 27 times! and is served a prison sentence for it. HOw how how.

I feel so sorry for the poor children that end up with families like this one. There is no hope for them.

SW have their hands tied....I have worked with a number of very chaotic families....the evidence needed to get children removed is a horrendous amount. Social services have to show they have tried practically EVERYTHING humanly possible before a judge will grant an order for a child's removal. As a result children stay in very neglectful families for far longer than they should in some cases. This is a hard one though because some children become neglected simply because their parents need support and once they have this it all improves....parent and children have to be given that chance to remain as a family. Some cannot and will not ever improve though.

I think that's the issue though.....so much is not shared so you have a school head teacher saying "we had no concerns"....and possibly they didn't because they didn't know

As can and do act where there is evidence of dc ...many women in refuges are there by 'order' of ss and if women choose to remain with an abuser children can be removed

There may have been no evidence or reports of abuse within this set up, despite his history. By all accounts the children where well cared for, attended school, where clean and happy ...so what could ss do?

No one could have predicted what they did. The serious case review will reveal what was know and by who and I am sure it will show there where no indicators of concern around the kids

Well, in both the Sharon Mathews case and this one, there was evidence of community support - (often desparately poor) neighbours, raising lots of money to help (printing and dsitributing leaflets in the Sharon Mathews case, and raising £19K for a decent funeral for the kids in the Philpot case). Two neighbours entered the Philpott's house at considerable risk to try to rescue the kids. So no, I don't think it says much about society as a whole - it says something about one very, very dysfunctional couple (I won't say family, as all the feedback from the teachers etc, indicates they were six nice kids).

As being a swinger is not actually illegal, I'm not sure what the neighbours or the school could do....As Mumsy said, the whole plan was bizarre in the extreme, and I can't see how SS, neighbours or the school could have predicted it.

The children there is no hope for are the dead Philpott children murdered (not manslaughtered ) by their parents.

There is hope for all the others.

This is a society where tens of thousands of pounds were raised by neighbours to pay to bury those children.

There is hope. Most people are good.

I think what people are struggling with is this forces people to recognize that there are families like this out there.
In mn's liberal heartland it is a tough pill to swallow that these people exist and there is a underbelly of society who choose a life on benefits where children are seen as a possession and a means of upping their income.
It brings home no matter how much benefit money you give some they will still put themselves first and let their children suffer as they just dont have the moral compass to see the life they are living is wrong.

Exactly athinginyourlife

What you fail to get is that many of those who occupy mm 'liberal heartland' work with poor and disfunctional families daily ...so have actual experience of the reality

"There may have been no evidence or reports of abuse within this set up"

One of the women had just left and taken out a restraining order.

That should have raised concerns for the remaining kids (and their mother).

Although I accept that in this case the twisted evil about to be done to them was unguessable.

and many live in their nice middle class area, with good schools and little crime.

And many don't ...

"In mn's liberal heartland it is a tough pill to swallow that these people exist and there is a underbelly of society who choose a life on benefits where children are seen as a possession and a means of upping their income."

Ahhhh, now I see it.

Because when I read "these people" in relation to the Philpotts, I take it to mean dangerous abusers like Mick Philpott and the victims that sometimes don't protect their children.

Domestic abuse is not confined to certain sections of society.

And it is the abusiveness of the family set up that seems most significant to me.

I know for a fact that there are people who have children because if the financial benefits. I've worked with them.

But they are not in the same moral universe as Mick Philpott. If he'd been rich he still would have used multiple pregnancies to trap his victims. And it would have been even easier to keep them penniless.

This really has nothing to do with benefits.

He got away with a lot by being a bit of a character, just being "Mick". In many rspects there are similarities with Jimmy Saville, who was regarded as a bit of an eccentric, a law unto himself. Both had an air of menace about them too. This sort of Jack the laddery shouldn't detract those concerned from what is really going on.

But upper and middle-class men in monogamous relationships kill their wives and children, too. This is not about class, or being on benefits, or about having an unusual family setup. It's about one extremely dangerous, violent, psychopathic man preying on vulnerable women and treating his children as disposable objects.

And, to an extent, it's about the ongoing propaganda that a woman 'needs' a man, that men are in charge, that men must be pleased and obeyed and that love will 'change' a horrible man into a nice one.

(Oh and Mairead Philpott and Lisa Willis worked. Philpott used to drive them to and from work and take all their wages - the benefits the family recieved would have been child benefit, housing benefit and probably tax credits, but this wasn't one of those (actually mythical) families with 'Three generations who have never worked').

"This sort of Jack the laddery shouldn't detract those concerned from what is really going on."

Exactly.

A Thing In Your Life Thank you, you seem to understand what I mean! Quite late last night when I posted this and I was feeling so angry and upset after reading the details of the case so the post is a bit garbled.

If anybody at SS had bothered to check up on the Philpotts after all their publicity due to their twisted setup, I am sure they could have easily discovered his previous conviction and that was a very serious one IMO, he should have been kept a close eye on, bollocks to 'he did his time', when someone crosses the line like that and then has DCs they should be kept on the radar. Did the police inform any of his partners about this, did those women know he'd almost killed 2 people in a premeditated rage after deliberately breaking into their house while they were asleep? Also Lisa getting a restraining order should have meant that this was flagged to SS surely? How the school did not think the living environment warranted investigation I don't know?

It may have in all likelihood not stopped this happening but I still cannot understand why this 'shitbag' was not stood up to by anyone before this happened.

TBH when I see people treating their partner or DCs abusively (like shouting/swearing/being rough with them), I so want to intervene but yes, I am afraid of coming off badly or making things worse, I hold my hands up. Recently I have noticed that I have witnessed men swearing at and calling their female partners abusive names quite a few times in supermarkets while I have been shopping. I have to stop myself approaching the woman and questioning why she puts up with it and yes, I am afraid to. Maybe if we all took a stand to these abusive scumbags, it might make a change.

Are people still not able to extract the benefits issue from this case and study it from a different angle? Yes, it played a part but he was a whole other kind of beastie (compared to those who are 'workshy'). It's a classic scenario, the multiple pregnancy thing. It's surprisingly common in DV cases (and sometimes the abuser will wait until the OH is pregnant or until after the birth to step up the abuse, as they feel they're sufficiently trapped).

I'm sure the wife was fairly clued in on everything but it sounds like he had form for doing this to previous partners and that says a lot about him. This was not just about benefits.

I have to stop myself approaching the woman and questioning why she puts up with it - sorry but that's really not the greatest approach. And if you did say that you'd be letting the man who'd just called her whatever think that it was ok because she takes it.

It brings home no matter how much benefit money you give some they will still put themselves first and let their children suffer as they just dont have the moral compass to see the life they are living is wrong.

Do you honestly think rinch people don't do this as well? And that sociopathic behaviour is the excluse preserve of the underclass? There have been several tragic cases in the past couple of years of middle class men exterminating their families before killing themselves. Sometimes it's been because of their loss of status after going bankrupt, in others it's just because their wives have left have left them, taking the children. In ALL cases it's been about control.

rich not rinch!

abuse builds up slowly & people tend to try and trivialize it to themselves and downplay it, like the abuser normally does. Ok sometimes it never reaches more than swearing at your OH a lot and being emotionally abusive but you can bet your bottom dollar that they didnt behave like that at the start of the relationship...

higgle exactly!

I think the Philpott case puts to rest the idea that throwing more and more money at families (via benefits) helps. In the Philpott case, they were apparently getting more than £60k per year in benefits, yet the kids were badly looked after and starving, however they had all the latest gadgets but their children were lacking love and attention.

In my opinion it would have been better to have pumped this money into making sure the kids were fed, educated and healthy rather than just giving the Philpotts so much in benefits.

I also think it is disgraceful that social services were so lax with this family and it makes me wonder why they seem to go after middle class families with such zeal whilst ignoring the often much more serious damage being done to children in families like the Philpotts and Baby Peter's.

Just really such a sad, tragic case and a damning endightment of the state of the UK, both morally and from a welfare perspective.