To think there is a sub-class of people in our society

[bluewanda]

Baby boy died in 'filthy' home with 'traces of cocaine in his system'

https://mol.im/a/12545263

What the hell is wrong with these people. How the fuck can they subject an innocent baby to such a horrific life?! These children should be removed at birth because they don’t stand a chance. It is so utterly depressing.

Well I’m certain most families don’t have food contaminated with class A drugs and cannabis that they pass on to children.

Indeed, they don't. But the mother didn't dose Grant with drugs as the term "give" would imply.

Grant didn't die because of the trace drugs in his system, the coroner was clear on that. He died, ultimately, because his mother was generally unfit to parent him.

Lol I had a moment there where I thought you were an ai bot breaking into sentience. There’s been some weird posts tonight all over.

If you are… well life’s complicated.
If your not.. that’s a lot of questions

What the heck wasn’t he removed from that stinking hovel?
Reeking litter trays, a sweltering house, scabs on his head, left for goodness knows how long in an inappropriate sleeping environment-
The drugs to be in his system must have been significant to have been picked up in his tiny body, it’s awful neglect.
Litter strewn about the place- probably with maggots and flies in the heat-

That poor baby.
Social workers should have insisted that access was given if the parents denied it-
He could have been a loved baby who stood a chance if removed early on.
Although attachment disorder can manifest in adopted and fostered children, it’s better than death.

That was my thought- But the water temperature was set to 80 degrees centigrade
that’s searingly scalding, surely.

It wouldn't take much to find traces in him.

With the parents' histories, he should have been taken away when SS were denied access the first time. Court warrant, five o'clock knock, police with the big red key.

And so should the cats be taken away.

I think that more than likely fault will be found in the original decision to put the baby on a CIN plan rather than CP.
Another issue is that the systems aren't joined. Health isn't joined with SS. That was another Tory contract given out that wasn't fit for purpose. Had the systems been joined then the Mother's MH would have been known by the SWs. Had the right questions been asked when writing up the pre birth plan, there would have been enough to put the baby on a CP plan, or even removal. The lack of joined up working was a factor in Baby Ps death, yet here we are sixteen years later. The parents in this case stopped engaging with everyone at two months in. It was then up to the professionals to save this child's life.

His parents weren't fit to parent him. Let's not say that it's ok for a father to allow the death of a child.

It isn't so much poverty as deprivation. The deprivation, abusive childhoods go back generations. There are people who being born in this country doesn't bring any privilege, whereas you are privileged via your upbringing. This child's mother had MH issues, they could have been hereditary, hence a lack of support.

How incredibly heart breaking.
Addiction can affect any person. I'm assuming breast milk can carry traces of substances. Thorough investigations of mothers and newborns might still overlook a mother who actively tries to cover up addiction or even occasional drug use. It's very very sad and good reason for drug use to be further included in all pregnancy education and antenatal check ups.

I'm very tired so forgive me please if I've missed the point here or generally say something daft.

I'm from an "underclass" area, it's entrenched with decades of poverty, addiction and chaos in many homes.

Often the people who live these lives have very low intelligence and struggle with the basics such as hygiene, keeping a home clean and even feeding themselves, let alone a poor baby.

I have some shocking and devastating stories from people I went to school with, most of which I don't think people who haven't experienced these low social economic areas as someone who's lived there could even imagine to be true, but sadly they are.

I think it's easy to blame scummy parents and in cases of abuse, rightly fucking so.
But these cases where the parents simply cannot care for a child I think we need much harsher tactics from outside agencies allowed.
Refusing social workers is an absolute joke, I mean, red flag or what?
Engaging with support workers and being made to attend courses for learning about basic hygiene and how to prepare and cook food and safety feed a child, they shouldn't be even optional if you've got social care involvement for negligence. And these people who are negligent need monitoring.
If children have poor school attendance, why? Are they dirty or hungry, why?
We're too easy of this because of funding and every other reason but the reality is, even if the reasons for why these families can't care for children aren't simply just because they're awful people, these babies and children will continue to die.

I remember when I had a baby and I still lost patience with her at times. But I had economic security and had had a loving upbringing. How much harder things are for parents how lack one or both of those elements. Unless the OP is planning concentration camps for the people she identifies as the underclass, we as a society really need to improve living conditions for everyone

People don’t end up ‘’scumbags’’ for no reason. Like a pp said, situations like this are borne out of generations of poverty and abuse. If the parents were parented properly and adequate protective factors were present they likely wouldn't be addicts in the first place to put a poor child in that situation. It’s just a sad cycle that continues.

Do PP’s think someone is born and just suddenly decides to be a scumbag for no reason? There’s all sorts of things at play.

Social services have let the child down for a start.

The majority of people dont come into contact with these people, some dont beleive they exist - genuinely they think its just a scornful label or made up joke in bad taste - you often see this on MN.
Some people dont realise how insulated they are in their little bubbles of middle class or even upper working class they dont know what its actualy like at the rough end.

Was the mother bf? Am confused if not as to how cocaine and cannabis ended up in system of a baby who wouldn't have weaned yet.
Still people with the 'it's ss fault' probably the same people who would be on here shrieking about baby stealers and intrusive, over judgemental ss if they had gone in and removed Grant at birth.

Not to drip feed but there is addiction (alcohol and gambling) there has been abuse and murder. There are major mental health issues too (depression, suicide). But we are a generation that is saying the buck stops with us and we invest heavily in our mental health. However it’s because we have the financial and educational means. My mum literally grew up in rags, she was abandoned by her mother; my dad was an alcoholic BUT we (as in their children) still went onto university and have professional jobs. It was chaotic growing up in our house. Our parents and GPs didn’t speak English well, were uneducated.

Your point about depravation doesn’t ring true, our families lived in third world conditions even in this country in deprived areas.

Addiction is a scourge and society needs better ways of dealing with it. i also agree that domestic violence is a significant factor and one that should be dealt with differently.

There are far too many parents who see their children as possessions - things they have a right to keep, to see, to take from the other parent.

Money is not the only answer, but things like Homestart might help parents who just don’t know better or who need support. They are never going to help parents like the ones in this case.

Drug addiction, violence, serious (ie dangerous) squalor, refusing to engage with SW should be massive red flags that allow much more draconian action by SWs, police and the law where vulnerable children are involved. These children have rights.

Some people might be part of a ‘subclass’ that is a drain on society and causes all sorts of issues for themselves and others but that is a slightly different issue to people who are a risk or an outright danger to the
children in their care. There may well be significant overlap in the two groups but it ought to be possible for society to act for the good of the children. These parents bear the responsibility for killing their child but we as a society ought to be able to take a clear-sighted look at it.

Personally I would crack down really hard on drug use/addiction where there is a child in the house. People can be addicted behind closed doors of course, but these parents were known to authorities. If the parents could be sent to a compulsory rehab and be offered sterilisation as an option, and the child removed at birth and adopted, there would be a chance of better outcomes.

As much as I agree the responsibility is with the parents, I do also think society has a responsibility, we have support services in place, social services, police, care system, and people like these parents will always exist.

These people were known to be a risk, a huge risk, it wasn’t some surprise as the parents presented as people who presented as capable. As such, I think that social services failed in their responsibility

that little baby didn’t even have a bed. Nothing to support their little head. They had class a’s in their system. They will have been over heated, and much more we don’t know about.

social services knew that baby was at risk. Even basic checks were clearly not done.

They're ignoring behavioural genetics as always. All behaviours are partly genetic in cause, to varying degrees. Genetic susceptibility to alcoholism, or addition to any drug, for example, is heritable. The children of two alcoholics, adopted at birth to a non alcoholic family, remain more likely than others to become alcoholics themselves.

The same applies to all the behaviours, personality traits, and IQ, that underlie different criminal behaviour as well as child abuse. Risk-taking, for example, disagreeableness, low IQ, impulsiveness, low conscientiousness, inability to empathize, mental health problems, personality disorders. That's one of the reasons why there is a correlation between suffering child abuse growing up and criminality in later life. Environment is the other, including of course the prenatal environment, where a lot of harm is already done in many cases. It's a correlation that dogma insists is a cause.

In other words, child abuse and criminal behaviour share many similar underlying behavioural and therefore partly genetic causes. Children removed at birth from abusive parents remain more likely, statistically, to become child abusers or criminals themselves.

Actual experts know this, it's not even arguable in 2023, but pure environmentalism is a fanatical dogma, and not coincidentally it pays a lot of salaries. Most social policy is built on it and has been for a long time.

Many people will get upset about the above. Anyone reacting with - 'but I was abused and I turned out fine', 'but my parent was a criminal and I'm not', or shrieking about eugenics and concentration camps - statistics is taught incredibly badly at school but this is basic stuff and I think most people can follow it if they can set aside their emotions long enough to try. I won't be explaining.

At an ICPC, mum's MH would've been discussed. There would be midwives/health visitors invited, potentially mum/dads G.P too. If MH services were involved with mum/dad, a representative of that service would also have been invited. Same for if a drug/alcohol service are involved, then they're invite too.

The problem comes if there are no services involved at the time, they won't have a full picture, but the SW report should mention the state of the house etc. Depends how crafty the parents are too and whether they appear to be doing everything right at the time of the ICPC.

No one made the parents buy and take drugs. Too many people on MN make excuses for drug taking

Your argument is ridiculously facile and you have no understanding of addiction and how some people struggle with it.

Had this little boy survived and grown up with an addiction (thanks to the traces of drugs already in his system at 4 months old), would you say "but no-one made him take the drugs".

Children can be born with addictions thanks to drug use in pregnancy. When they grow up into "scumbags", are you going to be sat there saying "oh but nobody made them take it, it was all their own choice".

People are not born shit people. Obviously they have turned into awful people but babies don't become awful people alone.

The article says that social services had taken her other children. So this is a social services failure for a start as they should have had heavy social services supervision from the get go and the baby should have been removed based on the state of their house.

But it's also an issue of addiction, likely generational trauma, likely poverty, poor mental health. So many areas of social failing contribute to situations like this.

Surely anyone with dc who is a drug user and has drugs in the house is putting the dc at risk and yet so many celebrities are up there doing it.

What the op really means is drug addicts without someone to care for their dc and clean their homes and run their lives whilst they’re off their head on drugs, they are sub human.
The rich and famous either don’t get caught or are tragic and get admitted to rehab by their agents.