Should the father of the 4 Hoath boys also be charged with manslaughter?

[Inkyblue123]

Just that really - he abandoned those 4 kids to the care of someone he knew had psychiatric problems and living in filth.once again the judicial system punished a women while overlooking the broader systematic failures and the responsibilities of others.
YANBU - he should stand trial
YABU - he’s not responsible for this tragedy

Don’t be ridiculous.

To judge the man we'd need to know more facts than the media has reported - about what he knew or didn't know about conditions, how often he saw the kids etc.

I agree OP. Time and again absent fathers are wringing their hands after these tragedies when they've completely stepped away from their responsibilities.

I don’t think the law can do that. But wish the judge could have added a pithy, shame inducing observation about how the father was absent having fathered 4 very young children, and that perhaps with his more active involvement their lives might have been saved.

The father didn't leave them in the house on their own with candles on.

It’s hard to say without more information but maybe things would have been better all round if they’d shared care 50/50.

I can't comment on this particular father, I don't know enough about him / the situation.

And of course legally these men can't be held accountable.

But morally, yes.

Also, inevitably in these cases there are wider family members, grandparents etc, coming forward afterwards saying how devastated they are.

In this case, those 4 little boys apparently hadn't been to school or preschool for 3 weeks before they died. Their house was full of rubbish.

I'm always sceptical of the proclamations of devastation from these family members when there clearly should have been some kind of intervention sooner.

The presumption of care for young children, both in the courts and on this site, is that it should be with the mother. You have no idea about the facts behind this so you cannot judge - but she was the one who walked out and left her children unsupervised in the house, and she was the one responsible for their living conditions and deaths. Nobody else.

Maybe we should have laws about abandoning children and the responsibilities that come with them, although why would you want your children with a parent that doesn't want them?

It doesn't stick in the pan that he gets to wipe his hands clean of them when she was clearly not fit and struggling.
Why did SS not give him the children?

Its a difficult one. Idk

He left his children in the care of a manifestly unfit mother. That’s neglect.

I also think men who don’t pay child maintenance should be prosecuted for neglect - they are failing to feed, clothe and house their kids

No because he wasn't the RP.

But it seems mad the authorities just thought she'd be able to cope as a single mother with no support from him while suffering MH problems. He certainly should've done way more as a father. No doubt.
But only she was in charge of them that day.

The saddest thing is she went to the shop WITH A FRIEND. So the friend could've stayed in the house, or gone to the shop on her behalf. She wasn't totally alone and had someone with her?

The whole thing is absolutely terrible.

I think the wider family and the father have to take some responsibility here. If they visited the children, surely they’d know the state of the house and that they were using buckets for toilets with faeces smeared over the walls. They’re upset now, but what did they do to support and help them before this happened?

This. I'd like to know hiw active he was in the boys lives before and how much he helped out. 2 sets of twins to handle on her own is immense work ,wonder how much he was there for it before this.

This.

He left them in the house full stop.

The squalor in the house and leaving them alone are two different things. He is just as responsible for the day to day lived experiences of those boys, but she is the one who left them home alone to die. It would be the same if a babysitter had left them home alone - he or she would be responsible.

With their mother.

Don't be so fucking stupid.

Honestly 🙄

Has the friend been charged with anything?
Surely any adult involved should be held responsible.

I always think it's surprising how little people talked about Peter Connolly's father in the huge attention the Baby P case got. He testified that the last time he saw him he was visibly injured and screaming in distress at going back to his mother's home - and he just handed him back over. I don't think it takes away any of the responsibility of those who tortured and killed Peter to say that his father badly let him down to a degree that I would call criminal.

Agree.

It's always the same.

They always come out of the woodwork after the kids have died, saying how heartbroken they were.

Very rarely have they actually been involved and trying to prevent the inevitable happening.

The basic premise that fathers should in some circumstances be held partly or wholly responsible I support. Just as long as it applies to all absent fathers, for example the late Cecil Parkinson or if anything happens to them, the children of Boris Johnson whose mothers he had not lived with.

I don't know enough about the case to have an opinion, I have only read the headlines. Is anyone else finding the news almost too much these days? I know the media focuses on bad news but there seems to be no end to these cases of children losing their lives in horrific circumstances. All those lives ended before they had barely begun