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Original poster

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

195 replies

InsanityandBeyond · 23/01/2014 21:30

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 Sad.

OP posts:
Poppiesway · 25/01/2014 23:31

An alert would have been placed on unborn baby as soon as mother made it known she was pregnant again, it was started when she was mths, that would have been at the point where the hospital cp staff felt they had to put further actions in place.

Lioninthesun · 25/01/2014 23:33

bochead we are saying the man is equally to blame as the mother for not parenting the children.
"If he was abused for the length of the relationship, controlled and manipulated then why shouldn't he be seen as a victim?"
Victims can still be good parents. Why do you think women who suffer DV go to such lengths to get their kids away from the perpetrators?

bochead · 25/01/2014 23:38

Everyone except in cases of bereavement has TWO parents. Both screwed up big time. The mother murdered her own babies, and ignored/avoided repeated attempts by professionals to help with the aid of her partner, before she eventually became so disturbed as to go beyond the point of no return.

Please do not project your own prejudices onto me.

The father cannot exonerate himself from this sorry mess by pointing the finger at the authorities. The parents are to blame for this tragedy, noone else.

Lioninthesun · 25/01/2014 23:41

Sorry Bochead that last post by me was meant for BoneyBackJefferson Blush
I need a good night's sleep!

Lioninthesun · 25/01/2014 23:43

Boney the deats probably wouldn't have been so 'completely unexpected' if he hadn't lied about her being the one to stab him...

Spero · 25/01/2014 23:44

So you are saying he shares no blame whatsoever?

None at all?

Goldenbear · 25/01/2014 23:50

Sharaluck, how was it an overreaction? Their concerns about their parental abilities were proven right- they physically and emotionally neglected them. The woman killed her children - she was obviously an extremely violent person. The kind of person who shouldn't have one child let alone three.

It is abnormal to keep your child pinned in a double buggy for 12 days and caged in playpens. That is not ignorance FFS, it is determined abuse which she must have known as she avoided all offers of help and intervention. In these circumstances the children should've been taken off her, such avoidance should ring huge alarm bells but it doesn't on this country!

Sharaluck · 26/01/2014 00:50

Yes I do think it was an over reaction to have proceedings to take the first unborn child into foster care when Fiona was 8 months pregnant. The evidence for these proceedings were that she had not been attending the more recent antenatal checks (I didn't realise these were compulsory?) and Fiona had reported a low mood.

And I think starting these proceedings alienated the parents which is why they were suspicious of ss later on. Understandably so imo.

I don't understand why ss rushed into trying to take away the first unborn child without trying some more positive outreach strategies. At that stage they had been known to ss for only a couple of months. I can understand rushing proceedings to take unborn children if there was evidence of child abuse towards siblings or more serious concerns such as drug abuse and violence between the parents, but I don't think a low mood and avoidance of prenatal checks is a huge red flag.

Sharaluck · 26/01/2014 00:54

Also the buggies and playpen incidents obviously happened AFTER the child/ren had been born.

I said ss overreacted with the initial cp proceedings that occurred before the first child was born. And I think this in turn hampered efforts by sw after the children were born as the parents became more paranoid and avoidant of sw and children's services etc.

macdoodle · 26/01/2014 01:12

Well we dont know thats the entire story, and IMO (I work in the medical field), there would have been much more than this. The papers want to pain the father (and even the mother) as poor innocent victims let down by social services. What a piece of crap, when will we start expecting people in this society to take responsibility for their own actions and stop finding someone to blame.

Topaz25 · 26/01/2014 06:43

I am surprised people are blaming the father. The mother stabbed him, she was clearly abusive towards him. If it was the other way around and a woman was stabbed by her husband who went on to kill her children, would you be so quick to blame her? People are judging him for not using contraception and not going to the police but that is not so easy in an abusive relationship. I think people would be more understanding of a woman in the same situation.

horsetowater · 26/01/2014 08:24

Does anyone know why exactly they wanted to take her first child away and why she was on the radar before the first birth? It can't be just because of low mood.

TheFabulousIdiot · 26/01/2014 08:36

The Case review it says something about previous issues and also some troubles within her own family so she and her parents may already have been known to social services. It doesn't sound like she came from a very healthy background which perhaps explains a bit why she made a bad relationship choice and so young.

horsetowater · 26/01/2014 08:42

If there was abuse stil in her own family and if she was deemed a vulnerable adult I could understand this. 'Previous issues' is a bit vague if that's the argument being used by ss.

horsetowater · 26/01/2014 08:44

It is sounding more like she was vulnerable and that ss believed her partner was taking advantage of that.

Daddyofone · 26/01/2014 09:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Poppiesway · 26/01/2014 09:22

Yes macdoodle, exactly. There is a lot of extra information that was not released which is so frustrating when you read all the misinformation. I don't know why information is not publicised. Wether it was to protect other people I'm not sure, but by doing so it's almost releasing some of the blame from the father. (Who was not always around to help the mother and was too busy hanging around with people we would class as undesirable characters)

This case has certainly made me realise to take all information released in other cases with a pinch of salt.

Lioninthesun · 26/01/2014 09:44

As we have seen on other threads where SS is in the media, we know that we are always going to get a biased view because SS are bound by confidentiality. We will never know what went on to alert them or what they were investigating initially, be it in the mother's family, father's family or their own family. To say that they were 'useless' is unfair IMO - when MP's are going on about doing everything to avoid letting them in your house, the father lying about the fact the mother stabbed him and both of them not being able to parent the many children they chose to have - to blame a service that has to pander to public opinion, a judge and now MP's who have the press as their mouthpiece is a bit rich. Daddyofone, what would you have done in their situation? How would you have done the job better, bearing in mind how many people the SS have to please to protect someone's child? When you have MP's telling everyone that children are always better with their family, no matter what, this is what you get when the press back him up.

Lioninthesun · 26/01/2014 09:47

Just to clarify - I know the system is broken and has flaws, but to blame them because in 50+ visits they hadn't been able to 'snatch' a baby (which is how the press would have portrayed it if it had happened) is naive.

Spero · 26/01/2014 09:52

Ok, all of you upset that in 50 visits SW could not protect babies, how about this as a reform?

If a parent refuses to co-operate or let a SW into their house, SW are empowered to go with the police and kick down door and remove children?

Its a reform that would have saved a lot of children's lives. But I am not sure any of us would want to live in that kind of society.

Therefore I think it is important that we try to help people understand about why intervention from SW can sometimes be necessary. And we stop this passing of the buck from parents who claim that it isn't their responsibility to safe guard THEIR children.

TheXxed · 26/01/2014 09:58

Spero I am happy to live in that kind of society.

Daddyofone · 26/01/2014 10:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

horsetowater · 26/01/2014 10:22

Without reverting to a feudal witch-hunt based legal system we have a great weapon that we can use to prevent these cases arising.

The weapon is education. Informing young adults of the definition of abuse and teaching them to recognise it for the poison that it is.

Helping abusive young people earn how to recognise a healthy relationship and thrive eithin it.

BoneyBackJefferson · 26/01/2014 10:30

Lioninthesun

Victims can make good parents, but many times on here we see threads where the victim has to be convinced that their DP isn’t a good parent because they abuse them.

“Why do you think women who suffer DV go to such lengths to get their kids away from the perpetrators?”

I am fairly sure that you don’t want to go in to the lack of provision for males victims of DV.

“the deaths probably wouldn't have been so 'completely unexpected' if he hadn't lied about her being the one to stab him...”

Again many victims of DV do not report the truth about what happened to them.

Bochead

“Please do not project your own prejudices onto me.”

You mean where you take a full account of one person’s situation but not the other persons situation?

Spero

“So you are saying he shares no blame whatsoever?”

I am not saying that at all, I am saying that if we are going to take all of the mother’s problems in to account then we should do the same for the father, if for no other reason than he didn’t kill them.

JugglingFromHereToThere · 26/01/2014 10:31

The visits might have been regular things though. SS found that the family was struggling and say offered to visit weekly over a year or so for support (and monitoring of situation I guess) But I'm just saying that it would be quite easy to have 50 visits if you had a social worker assigned to your family?

Like your post too horsetowater - I think we could do much more through the education system to prepare people for relationships and parenting. Also other aspects of living independently as an adult.