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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

...to think that the police force has absolutely NO business whatsoever deciding that someone is 'pure evil'...

222 replies

almostblue · 05/12/2008 16:13

... much less issuing an official statement to the effect?

OP posts:
TheProvincialLady · 05/12/2008 19:30

SGB I agree with you that the police have no right to make moral judgements in public as they have in this case.

But to describe what SM did as unkind? Unkind is not feeding your kitten for a day, spreading nasty rumours about someone, stealing the parking space of a disabled person. Unkind is not drugging and abusing your children, whether you are stupid or not.

Just because someone does not actually kill a child does not mean they have not effectively ruined their life (potentially).

prettybutterfly · 05/12/2008 19:34

Unkind would be an understatement, yes.

TLESinChristmasStockings · 05/12/2008 19:50

oh dear I am going to upset people but yes she is PURE EVIL!!!!!! no mother would put their child through what she did evil is a nice term considered to what she could be called

She drugged her daughter for the best part of 2 years....

soapbox · 05/12/2008 19:52

The police often sum up the defendants behaviour once they are convicted. Look at any of the big cases involving nasty people and you will find a police statement of what they thought of the person who committed the offence.

The statement is usually given outside the court, just after the judgement has been given.

I really can't see why they are not entitled to their opinions, quite frankly!

Quattrocento · 05/12/2008 19:54

It did worry me that comment. I was worried on two counts

(i) Why should they comment?
(ii) A more general concern about the blockheadedness of the police - such a dimwitted way of expressing themselves.

TLESinChristmasStockings · 05/12/2008 19:56

Soap here here, those officers spent 24 days searching for what they began to believe a dead body. NOT a child whose screwed up whore of a mother had decided to play a frigging game with her daughter. The woman is fucking mental she deserves to be locked up and I hope for one she has the crap kicked out of her when she is inside. And sterilised to make sure she doesn't breed anymore.

hope i have not offended anyone

prettybutterfly · 05/12/2008 19:58

do you really?

IorekByrnison · 05/12/2008 20:04

YANBU. Absolutely agree with the OP. The police seem to have been exceeding their remit all over the place lately and it is making me very uncomfortable.

IorekByrnison · 05/12/2008 20:05

And for once I agree with Quattrocento too

IorekByrnison · 05/12/2008 20:06

and what solidgoldbrass said

TLESinChristmasStockings · 05/12/2008 20:28

Prettybutterfly,

I wouldn't care less if i offended that evil cows family but on here i don't plan to offend anyone. She deserves all she gets and more as far a I am concerned.

solidgoldbrass · 05/12/2008 20:39

There is no disputing that what Karen Matthews did was very wrong. But it's also wrong, and quite dangerous, for it to be acceptable that police officers make public statements like this. Justic has to be impartial, evidence based, and not cluttered up with subjective emotions. There are very good reasons for the police being the ones who do the investigating but do not pronounce judgement.

IorekByrnison · 05/12/2008 20:48

Quite.

eekareindeer · 05/12/2008 20:54

Exactly.

So glad op started this thread as it has been bothering me all day. And yesterday it was repeated and repeated. This morning there was even a phone-in on the subject on Five Live.

Feenie · 05/12/2008 21:00

Wasn't Karen Matthews' half-sister on here last year? I seem to remember that she had made contact with the family before this case, and had seen things that made her wish she hadn't, and she severed contact. Is she still around?

soapbox · 05/12/2008 21:00

SGB - that is why they do not make their statements until after the judgement is given. It has no part in the judicial process as the judgement has already been given.

notflorencenightingale · 05/12/2008 21:00

Dictionary definiion of evil

Not good; Bad or wrong, morally reprehensible, anything which produces pain or suffering.

Going on this (abridged) definition I would say that the police were in fact spot on in their assesment of this womans character and actions, something which in actual fact society expects them to do when detecting crime.

There seems to be a strong resistance on Mumsnet lately in allowing people to express very strong opinions, I have not yet to undertsand why especially whenh it involves the abuse (and worse as we all know of our most vulnerable, our children.

I applaud the poilce for bringing about this horrendous womans conviction and applaud them also on sticking their necks out in expressing their view of her. maybe if more people aren't afraid to tell it like mit is then fewer bad and evil people will dare to commit their evil acts.

colacubes · 05/12/2008 21:25

Is it harder to describe her as evil because she is the mother? is it hard to say that a mother could be such a thing, if it had been a man, there would have been hell to pay on here for the torment these children had suffered.

She is the most heinous of creatures, she is a mother a child can not trust, i can think of nothing more deplorable or wicked than that, may she suffer for the rest of her days. I would bet my life the only tears she has ever shed have been for herself,and those poor children were nothing more than her wage packet, let her rot in hell.

TLESinChristmasStockings · 05/12/2008 21:29

Colacubes I agree with you 100%

jsparkle · 05/12/2008 21:33

Totally agree. Interesting how they are always the first to say a 'woman' is pure evil - you hear that more than about men. We are expected to be more humane.

solidgoldbrass · 05/12/2008 21:37

Florence: I don't think there is a resistance to people expressing fuckwitted tabloidy Strong opinions on here. Strong opinions get expressed, equally strong opposing opinions get expressed. That's what internet discussions involve.

Jsparkle: well, quite. Women are vilified far more for doing bad things than men who have done worse things.

Quattrocento · 05/12/2008 21:37

I cannot imagine that that unfortunate woman is "pure evil". Pure means undiluted. For the police seriously to have described her as pure evil is an abuse of their position and an absurd statement in itself.

Karen Matthews was, I understand. the product of a wretched and miserable and unloving upbringing herself, it is no surprise that she was incapable of creating a stable and loving home.

WilfsElf · 05/12/2008 21:40

Excellent OP. Haven't read thread but entirely inappropriate for the police to spout such nonsense. And the BBC this evening discussing the state of her house as if it were relevant (and then showing pictures of a perfectly normal house with lots of kids creating mayhem).

She's clearly disturbed and struggling. But the ridiculous caricature is unhelpful.

onebatmotherofgoditschilly · 05/12/2008 21:49

This is a quote from Andrew Cooper at the Tavistock Clinic:
"The task facing us is to work out how we can improve the capacity of our practitioners to tolerate "thinking the unthinkable" and so have a better chance of interrupting the unthinkable things to which some children are subjected. Naming the actions of abusers as evil, or demanding practitioners' resignations, serves only to stop us thinking. Hard to bear emotionally, very hard to understand, frighteningly difficult to confront - these are the tests with which these terrible cases face us."

He was talking about the vilification of the Baby P social workers. But in fact his point about the word 'evil' could equally be applied to anyone whom society wants (I would say needs) to call a Monster.

In calling people Evil, we hope we won't have to think about them any further, because Evil is not really susceptible to analysis or quantification. But we DO have to think about these people, just as we have to think about paedophiles if we're to understand them, (which we must do if we're to control them) and if we're to prevent children both from being harmed AND from becoming abusers themselves.

Evil also implies that they can be excised from society. But they have come from society, they are part of it. And parts of them are, to whatever degree, a product of society. We have to face that fact.

superfrenchie1 · 05/12/2008 22:00

yes agree onebat. once you call someone 'pure evil' you're explaining away the problem. "she was evil, that's why she did what she did, end of story".

but it's messier than that. she is not very bright. she may have a mental illness. she is obviously unable to care for her children.

we must all agree that no-one is born evil. hmm.

but yes of course personally i do think what she did was appalling and disgusting and - yes, evil. and i guess after someone has been convicted the police do have a right to issue a comment / summary.

i saw bits of the documentary and the fact that she had her children by so many different fathers seems to play a big part in public perception of her. if she had her children by the same dad maybe people would be more sympathetic and say, there is a woman who cannot cope, mentally ill, needs help, totally misguided. the documentary showed the family tree and went on about all teh relationships she'd had, sometimes with people related to previous partners / fathers of her children, just made her sound awful, really awful.