How could this have happened?! Trigger warning - child / animal neglect

[ljs22]

I don't usually post links to articles - please delete if not allowed.

This made me so angry and upset. How and why can this happen??

This couple claimed 7k per month in benefits yet seriously neglected 7 children and 36 dogs. This is disgraceful. One child had to have all their teeth removed under general anaesthetic as they were so decayed. Another child discouraged from attending school and made to look after the others. A child found covered in animal faeces next to a deceased dog. Utterly heartbreaking and absolutely infuriating at the same time.

I don't know what I'm posting for, I'm just upset and angry. Why did this happen? They can't exactly claim poverty on 7k per month, so why were these children not provided for?? Are they just selfish / evil people?!

Christ, just looked at her FB and she has her own dance club??

This is absolutely where home schooling is so very wrong

@jonesy1999

I don't understand either. Any of it.

It sounds like some older children had moved on, worked etc.

Were the childrens' additional needs masking the neglect, or the neglect giving an appearance of additional needs?

It doesn't make much sense. When did all this occur, if it's come to court now?

@picklemewalnuts

The article states:

The court heard that police were called to their then address after a report of a domestic incident there at 11.40pm on 14 June 2021.
That's when the kids were taken into care, following that visit by the police.

Course it did. Sorry, just trying to put the pieces together with FB. Makes no sense.

I can’t piece it together with the FB either :/ There are a couple of photos of the house around 2021, one is her daughter I think opening presents in their living room and another one of a vase of flowers in the kitchen... in both the rooms look really clean and tidy, yet the article talks about the house being squalid and stinking really badly. Also no dogs to be seen on there.

Then again Facebook isn’t the most reliable source I suppose.

@thebestcestmoi

Might have been taken in someone else's house maybe? Who knows. The RSPCA photos are shocking and they clearly show the utter filth they were living in.

One of the articles mentions her partner calling 999 and telling the operator he's going to stab her, that's how all of this came out.

Those poor children have likely witnessed years of domestic violence on top of neglect, and before anybody jumps on me I'm in no way suggesting that her being a victim of DV justifies the terrible neglect.

On another thread a poster is saying how important the hv service is and how everyone should engage. The agencies weren't doing such a good job here were they?

This has nothing to do with income, whether it is from benefits/a lottery win/a highly paid job.

It has everything to do with abusive parenting.

Because it’s a slippery slope. I worked full time and paid tax and NI for 30 years before I became too disabled to work. It’s none of your business what I spend my “benefits” on. Ergo it’s none of your business what anyone spends their benefits on.

Try and remember that total and permanent disability is only a heartbeat away for anyone. One day it might be you, and trust me you’ll wish you were working for a decent income rather than scraping by on disability benefits!

Just sickening. They were failed in so many ways.
There had to be drug or some other type of addiction involved. There was obviously DV since the police had been called out about an incident.

If they were getting £7k a month, they would have been able to pay rent and bills as well as have good and keep the house clean. At least normal people would have.

As for the 35 dogs, they may have kept them indoors most of the time so neighbors wouldn't have seen how many they had. They would have heard them but no way of knowing whether is was 4 dogs or 30 dogs barking.

35 dogs is definitely a hoarding disorder as well as the filth and squalor.

When I hear about these cases, I think about the others that are going on right now that nobody knows about yet.

Do you want to swap my disability and “free money” for your life? Fucking have it. You’re welcome to the derisory sum I receive a month in exchange for my health and the job I loved.

I don't know if these children were actually registered at school or not. But from what you are saying they weren't when they were taken into care. But they used to go to school and were de-registered as school couldn't meet their needs. Nothing unusual about that.

But concerns were raised while they were at school. So another case where people on here blame abuse on home education. Please stop doing that.

I’m disgusted that they lost two small children in such horrible ways and that was not the wake up call for them to change their lifestyle. That should have devastated them enough to do things differently. They will never change. These poor children’s lives are in shambles and the parents are being entirely self serving. disgraceful.

Homeschooling is too easily used as a cover for abuse and neglect. Of course there are people who do it properly, but the current system makes it far too easy for abuse to fly under the radar. If local education authorities had an adequate level of involvement in children's 'homeschooling' cases like this wouldn't exist.

Why are you blaming home education? Concerns were raised when the children were still at school. So it clearly wasn't "used as a cover for abuse and neglect".
Why not blame the school instead? If they had been able to meet the children 's needs they would still be at school. Why not blame social services? The school had raised concerns already.

Lost two small children?

To this extent? Please find a comparative example? Because this is absolutely horrifying.

Because clearly, in this instance “home education” was an excuse for the parents to keep the children at home. Yes, the school should have alerted authorities in a more rigorous manner but it is quite clear that home educating these children was not in their best interests.

Exactly, concerns had already been raised when the children were at school, so why were they allowed to be deregistered without any appropriate or adequate follow-up inspections from the local authority? This just proves my point that rules regarding home education are far too lax.

I’m so confused as to how each thread about this turns into an argument about benefits.

I have not seen a single person say that no one should ever receive that amount of money if they needed it for children with disabilities. People have been shocked that a family have been able to get that amount. And I must agree, I was shocked. My aunt had a stroke and was left needing lots of care and had to stop work etc. The process she had to go through to get tiny sums was torturous. I didn’t think getting that amount of money was even possible. People are allowed to be shocked by that.

and people are surprised that you can receive those amounts with no checks being made. That seems to also cause offense.

But in all frankness, who gives shit about any politicised arguments about benefits??!

This case is so disturbing. The fact this went on for so long, and no one intervened points to such a failure in our system and society.

how did these children attend school or not attend school and not cause enough alarm so as to activate involvement? Our borough has stopped doing home visits when your child starts school. I really think they should be maintained . And if people decide to homeschool then proper checks need to be made.
Her facebook feed shows she has friends. How did people see her children - take the one who needed 14 teeth removed - and not be concerned about neglect.

where were the neighbours, who must have seen stuff? The teachers? People at her dance school?
her youngest child was little - so she would of had a health visitor then/attended doctors & hospitals. How did no one spot the level of the deprivation her kids were living in?

and how does the paltry sentence reflect the magnitude of the crimes involved that will impact generations?

Why weren't adequate "follow up inspections" done to the referrals made while the children were at school? If there are concerns regarding abuse or neglect of a child registered at school SS don't just "cancel" the referrals at the point of de- registration. Safeguarding and education are two separate things.

You don't need permission to de- register a child unless they are at a special school.

Well yes, you'd hope that once your child gets diagnosed with a disability you'd automatically get offered lots of support but that simply isn't true especially if the disability is something like autism. A lot of the time you have to fight for any help.

This shines a light on how disabled children fall through the cracks in an underfunded system in disarray.

How shameful that these disabled children were not monitored despite multiple reported concerns from school and neighbours.