To be so upset about Arthur is it normal

[Onthedowns]

I just cannot stop crying. I know it's another thread but listening to those recordings of that poor boy i have been physically sick and so upset. I have cuddled my children so hard. I came from an abusive background but nothing like him.

I feel completely irrational

Coupled with covid what has happened to society 😔

@sqirrelfriends

I agree with *@Yearn*, watching a child's pain doesn't help them. If my DS was in a tragic accident, would I want footage of that shared? No I wouldn't.

Arthur is already gone, what we can do for him is respect his privacy and vote in governments that aim to fund social care appropriately. It costs an absolute fortune to remove children, if social services had more money, they might have taken the reports about Arthur being abused more seriously.

It's not just a money issue. It's a collective mess of paperwork and administration and it's failing every year. Rightly so there has to be stringent measures but equally its missing these poor children. Arthur wasn't failed by money he was failed by people

Can you please explain why you believe this? It seems like a monstrous view in my opinion

To turn away from a child suffering for me, is what is monstrous.to not want to look, becayse your feelings come first. A dead child doesn’t want privacy, their abuse should not be hushed up and hidden, to pander to others sensitivities. So they can carry on without being a little too upset about it. Telling people to remove it, so people don’t have to see it. That’s what’s monstrous.

Overworked, underfunded people, who often don't have the support they need to actually do their jobs properly. Poor management to the highest level. Afraid to enter homes with aggressive and angry parents, no help dealing with the trauma they themselves will experience when dealing with horrific cases so they get burned out/compassion fatigue, etc. No support or poor communication from other agencies. The list goes on but it all boils down to money in the end. If there was money and it was spent appropriately, services would be properly staffed, communication could be properly monitored and maintained and so on leading to few vulnerable people being let down.

@Yearn

Overworked, underfunded people, who often don't have the support they need to actually do their jobs properly. Poor management to the highest level. Afraid to enter homes with aggressive and angry parents, no help dealing with the trauma they themselves will experience when dealing with horrific cases so they get burned out/compassion fatigue, etc. No support or poor communication from other agencies. The list goes on but it all boils down to money in the end. If there was money and it was spent appropriately, services would be properly staffed, communication could be properly monitored and maintained and so on leading to few vulnerable people being let down.

These child murders and neglect were happening under labour governments. It's not just a case if throwing more bodies into the mix. The whole system needs overhauling. Too much administration like every public sector job - I work in one said emergency service. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. The job on the ground has been forgotten about in a quest to have smart administration systems. They don't work.

Looking back through my care notes in the 80s. My social worker was stretched. Yes funding is an issue but in some cases and it appears on this case its pure incompetence. It will be interesting what comes out in the review.

@Bluntness100

Can you please explain why you believe this? It seems like a monstrous view in my opinion

To turn away from a child suffering for me, is what is monstrous.to not want to look, becayse your feelings come first. A dead child doesn’t want privacy, their abuse should not be hushed up and hidden, to pander to others sensitivities. So they can carry on without being a little too upset about it. Telling people to remove it, so people don’t have to see it. That’s what’s monstrous.

That's such bullshit in my opinion. Viewing it will not force people to care. It turns it in to entertainment for the sickos out there, it becomes a way for grief vampires and the facebook wailers to make it all about them (even more than they do now), sharing even more harrowing screenshots of a child's torture to prove how much they "care" without actually doing anything at all.

Putting every single detail out there doesn't change a thing. It runs the risk of desensitising people in my opinion.

Victims deserve to be remembered at their best, not by their abuse.

@Yearn

Overworked, underfunded people, who often don't have the support they need to actually do their jobs properly. Poor management to the highest level. Afraid to enter homes with aggressive and angry parents, no help dealing with the trauma they themselves will experience when dealing with horrific cases so they get burned out/compassion fatigue, etc. No support or poor communication from other agencies. The list goes on but it all boils down to money in the end. If there was money and it was spent appropriately, services would be properly staffed, communication could be properly monitored and maintained and so on leading to few vulnerable people being let down.

No it doesn’t come down to money. Any human being seeing Arthur hours before he died should have known something was wrong. No matter how overworked or under paid, it’s impossible to understand how those two women claiming to be social workers, didn’t see it.

Christ we are lay people and we can see from the videos well before this , the terrible physical condition of that little boy.

That’s not about money, walking away was a level of cruelty seldom seen.

I hope the jury have been offered support and counselling. Just being excused from
future service won't help them
with the trauma ....

I was talking about the service in general with that comment, not this particular case. Obviously there were severe and horrific failings at the most basic level here but once again I believe that proper funding leads to better training, better support, better communication, better management etc. which means those failings become fewer and and less serious.

I am a social worker and run a parent assessment centre. I support a lot of parents who genuinely wish to care for their child but have experienced poor childhood experiences, mental health, trauma etc. None of the families I work with have ever wanted to intentionally hurt their child. I feel traumatised by Arthur’s horrific experience. It literally hurts my heart and I can’t stop thinking about him. I’m devastated that he was let down by services who should have supported him. Ultimately his carers murdered him. I think it is vital to share Arthur’s experience however I do wonder if showing the CCTV is ok? It really is traumatic and is impacting my mental health daily. Bless his little heart. Such a beautiful boy, it’s just unbearable to think how he must of felt .

I remember years ago that snuff movies were an urban myth. Now there's one in the public domain that anyone can watch. In an epidemic of anxiety that's not going to do any good at all.

@Fizgig

I am a social worker and run a parent assessment centre. I support a lot of parents who genuinely wish to care for their child but have experienced poor childhood experiences, mental health, trauma etc. None of the families I work with have ever wanted to intentionally hurt their child. I feel traumatised by Arthur’s horrific experience. It literally hurts my heart and I can’t stop thinking about him. I’m devastated that he was let down by services who should have supported him. Ultimately his carers murdered him. I think it is vital to share Arthur’s experience however I do wonder if showing the CCTV is ok? It really is traumatic and is impacting my mental health daily. Bless his little heart. Such a beautiful boy, it’s just unbearable to think how he must of felt .

I'm really sorry to hear that you're having such a hard time with this case. Do you currently have someone who gives you clinical supervision? I know it is not about your work, but given how much it's affecting you, I think it could be worth raising - you may also be suffering additional trauma from your experiences through work, perhaps having built up over time. It can be so easy to put oneself down and just add to the pressure to 'cope'. But it's okay to tell someone and ask for help.

@Yearn , you said Victims deserve to be remembered at their best, not by their abuse

What about surviving family members who disagree with you? The most famous being, perhaps, Mamie Till:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamie_Till

(Trigger warning: murder of a child, hate crime)

This isn’t about me or my feelings, it is about the horror Arthur went through. I don’t need any support, Arthur did. It’s that, as a social worker, I struggle with this. I just wish someone had saved him. I know how pressured social workers are and we can all discuss lessons learned. If individuals are set on a path to manipulate, deceive and harm it is sometimes impossible to protect. It is all just heart breaking, thank you for responding , I appreciate you offering supportive advice.

Genuine question.. what can I do to help, is it donating to the nspcc, did they have any input in this case or anything similar who can I donate my time or money to in order to help vulnerable children

Some one has started a petition for the animals to serve full life sentences if anyone wants to sign it.

www.change.org/p/uk-parliament-petition-to-have-arthur-labinjo-hughes-killers-given-a-whole-life-order?recruiter=false&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf_combo_share_initial&recruited_by_id=b17d2ab0-5544-11ec-9fbd-159f03b53175&utm_content=mit-31435545-10%3Av2

@Bluntness100 I just done it and shared it, hopefully it makes a difference

I just notified it’s not done on the gov website, I think it needs to be to be debated in Parliament, I’m not sure.

OP it is horrific and graphic and we all just want to run in there and save him 😞

This case is so upsetting. I haven't listened to the recordings. I just couldn't. I can't even read it in the papers. It's heart breaking. I can't stop thinking about it, about him. That poor little defenseless boy. I hope they get killed in prison. Vile dispicable thugs. I too have Covid and this has depressed and upset me so much 😢😢

I think anyone not effected by this situation is more of a worry. I have children similar ages to him so have avoided it as much as I can, but I still can't stop thinking about him.
If hearing those recordings makes people angered and appalled, then thats' a good thing.
Maybe we should channel our anger at the government who cut funding and reduce the effectiveness of social services and police?

I don't think sentencing and parole are decided by petition yet.

@PleasantBirthday

I don't think sentencing and parole are decided by petition yet.

Thankfully not!

Does the criminal justice system work that way?

I have learnt a hard lesson that by reading the details of horrendous cases like this, it will haunt me for the rest of my life. Probably OTT but that's the truth. I'm still haunted to this day by the Jamie Bulger case - particularly at the moment as I have a 2 year old. The idea of actually listening to these recordings makes me shudder. No way I'd do it, particularly as I have a 5 year old.

Not read the full thread but wow some harsh comments on here! Personally I have not seen any competitive grief on the pages I did read. No " I feel worse than you" stuff.
To the OP, everyone deals with grief in different ways. It's ok to feel " physically sick" . Some people do that.
As for the posters who said why watch the vid. Some people watch the video and understand the story/ pain a bit better. I personally watched it after hearing about it, it did not change much how I felt as I was already upset, but it made me feel even more empathy actually hearing the pain and upset in his voice.
I wish to God they are never ever released from prison.
How anyone, let alone his own parent can do that to a young kid.
Unfortunately it's very common these days. Still the pain is felt each and every time I come across this type of case.