Mother who killed her 3 children visited 50 times by social services (Upsetting content).

[InsanityandBeyond]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544146/Children-kept-horrific-conditions-drowned-pregnant-mother-visited-social-workers-FIFTY-times-council-failed-act.html

Controversial question but should fathers in this situation be prosecuted for child neglect as they have left their children in these situations. Shouldn't they be be responsible in ensuring their children are not at risk of harm even from their own mothers?

Incidents like this seem to be becoming more common. What should be done if families like this 'refuse' to engage with SS? Shouldn't the children's welfare come before the mother's rights? A similar case is this:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2424335/Amanda-Hutton-starved-son-death-claimed-child-be...

Horrifying .

[caruthers]

But any mother who allows young and vulnerable children into unsupervised contact with someone she KNOWS is a risk to them, yes, she is complicit in what might go on to happen to them

He couldn't exactly remove the children he didn't have the authority.

And in hindsight knowing what he knows now he probably would have informed the police and social services although it doesn't look like the social services were willing to do anything other than talk.

Killing someone is a very personal thing and the responsibility for that death is certainly the responsibility of the person doing the killing.

In this case the arguments and physical violence probably led to the killing of these poor children and it's sad that children get harmed by their parents every day.....but to actually name him as complicit in this way is terrible.

[Spero]

The LA did what they could. I thought I had read in the SCR that they applied for a care order and were rejected because they didn't have enough evidence.

I agree that they should have tried again - the pushchair and the biscuits was just appalling.

but failures in State protection do not and should not absolve parents from their fundamental and basic duties to protect their own children.

And that is how the Mail is reporting this father. If he has been stitched up by the Mail - highly possible - then I am very sorry for him and will retract my criticisms of his behaviour.

But if the Mail is reporting his views accurately - slightly possible - then I stand my everything I said.

[Spero]

sorry caruthers but I don't tend to change my arguments because my arguments are called 'vile' or 'terrible'.

You are entitled to disagree with me, but don't act surprised when I don't change my mind if this is all you've got to persuade me with.

[EEatingSoupForLunch]

Luck?? Really?? Ok, let's scrap social services and just let luck take it's course, we're all so incompetent and uncaring it won't make any difference, right? Or maybe sack all social workers and replace them with Mail reading pearl clutchers, who would clearly do the job LOADS better.

When it comes down to it, serial cuts to services will have an effect on how well those services operate. Sadly, cutting social services means some of the most vulnerable suffer most. This is the face of austerity in action.

[Spero]

Eating - we said 'some' children. No all.

You can't deny that some children fall through the cracks. These children did.

that is not to say that SW do not do a highly necessary and important job. I think they do. And I think the response of some that should know better - come on down John Hemming! - has been disgusting and probably contributed to this kind of situation where children die rather then getting the help they need.

[Mignonette]

The MH trust involved is in a state of collapse after its 'Radical Redesign'.

Frontline staff are engaged in a campaign to save their services which have been criminally damaged and undermined by Trust incompetence.

The death rate has shot up. Morale is non existent. Many staff are themselves mentally unwell because of their working conditions.

Read up on their concerns here.

[EEatingSoupForLunch]

Of course they do, and the cracks are being widened year on year by funding restrictions. John Hemming would presumably have advised these parents to go on the run abroad. Tosser.

[Mignonette]

I should have made it clear that my post referred to Fiona Anderson.

[AnyaKnowIt]

The father lied to ss, lied to police and left his children with a woman who has just stabbed him.

Yes he should take some of the blame

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

So sad isn't it?

Yes, agree fathers have a huge shared responsibility for parenting with mothers (obviously?), and should at least step in to give support themselves, or seek help, where their partner is clearly not coping.

Also makes me wonder why desperate mothers do not feel able to seek the support of social services (if not family or friends) and if necessary ask for their DC to be fostered. I can see that's not an easy path to take but surely would occur to most rather than killing them. Tragic

[Tiredemma]

migonette - what an utterly horrendous Trust to work for.

[Owllady]

My situation is rather different as one of my children is severely disabled, but I moved county and my daughter's care package was reduced to zero. I rang and rang but was told they were not taking on any mire cases. After eighteen months they agreed to assess us. Two and half years later with very little real support we were properly assessed and given imo a proper social worker who actually cared about the welfare of my daughter. At this point, two and a half years down the line with no external support, I was absolutely on my knees and my own health was failing so my gp got involved, the day after he rang and wrote to them we were phoned/ visited and care sorted.
It's nit always that parents are obstructive, I certainly wasn't and I am nit the sort of person who would ask or even take help if we really didn't need it

[Spero]

Owllady I am sorry to hear of your situation. It sounds horrific.

And it makes me even angrier when I compare your situation to this and think of all the money that was spent trying to help this family and in effect wasted because they would not co-operate.

Whereas people begging for help are turned away because there is no money.

Our child protection system is indeed in a terrible state but not for the reasons Hemming et al would like to argue.

[JamNan]

Try reading this version published by a different newspaper:
report by The Independant

Or this from the Lowestoft Journal: Fiona Anderson's funerel

Only her stillborn daughter Evalie was buried with her - not her other children as she had pleaded. Fiona was only 23 years old; Evalie was her fourth child.

Walk a mile in her shoes...

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

The tone of the article in the Lowestoft Journal does seem exceptionally sympathetic to Fiona and her family as though the whole thing has been a terrible accident (and I suppose it was in many ways)
But I just wonder if talk of her being able to "oversee" the children from her plot because they are near is slightly losing touch with the reality of what happened.

[Owllady]

It was her funeral, an article put forward by her parents and the directors. Whatever we may think or not think, those people have lost their daughter and their grandchildren and the father if the children has lost his children too. I think we all can acknowledge the pain caused by that :(

[fifi669]

She was afraid her kids would get taken away.... Killed them instead. 100% her fault.

[Spero]

I hope I never become so hardened to the awful things that human beings do that I cannot recognise that a lot of these awful things come from a place of pain and suffering.

But recognising this and being compassionate does not mean that we should not talk about responsibility and what it means - particularly when children are concerned.

I note this quote from first link Friends said she had contacted social services for help but became worried that her children would be removed from her

And according to the SCR that is not accurate. She and the father actively obstructed SW.

[Spero]

I also watched the ITV news report.

It is hard not to feel very sad for the father; his distress seems real.

But he is asked ' did she seem troubled in any way?'

And he replies. 'No she didn't'.

this was after he had attended hospital for treatment for the knife wound she inflicted on him.

[InsanityandBeyond]

I don't see any difference in the facts reported in either newspaper. The stillbirth occurred because the woman deliberately jumped from a building while pregnant.

I find it hard to reconcile a woman who cared 'too much' with reports of young children and babies sleeping strapped in pushchairs, dumped in playpens, unchanged nappies, malnourished, fed on biscuits FFS!

[Spero]

I can completely understand why her family are desperate for a narrative other than - this was a mentally unwell young woman in an unhappy and unhealthy relationship who had 3 children in quick succession and wouldn't let anyone help her.

Because the family need to ask themselves some pretty hard questions about why the situation described in the case review was allowed to continue.

I don't want to argue over who is most to blame. Too late for the children. But I do agree with your op that we should be paying more attention to the fathers in cases like this.

I am getting fed up of children being seen entirely the domain and responsibility of women, unless and until some seem to want to jump on the Fathers for Justice bandwagon - and then, that seems more about them getting their 'rights' than what the children need.

[fifi669]

When my ex left his ex wife she stabbed him in the chest. He refused to press charges, make a statement etc saying she was a good mum and it wouldn't be fair on the kids. He was sure she wouldn't hurt them. That was 6 years ago? Aside from not letting her DC know DS (their half brother), she is bringing them up well. My point being violence towards him doesn't mean violence towards the children too.

[Owllady]

I agree with you Spero. The children going into foster care was not the worst thing that could have happened to the family. Whether foster are was available is another issue though

[caruthers]

She sounded like a really caring mother

She was a family annihilator and deserves to be thought of as such.

[MadIsTheNewNormal]

I just want to applaud bochead for her post of 01:01. I could not agree more. It makes me sick when feckless/absent/abusive fathers crawl out of the woodwork to castigate SS and the authorities, demand public apologies and look all heartbroken for the media when they were oblivious (or even worse were actually party to) so much that went wrong in those children's lives.