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

[almostblue]

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

Absolutely, onebat.

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.

ah, whoops

god why has mn suddenly turned into the newsoftheworld

The labelling of fucked-up individuals as 'evil' is also a kind of superstitious talisman ie 'they are evil, I am not, therefore bad stuff will not happen to me or my loved ones and if it does it will NOT BE MY FAULT'.

yes that's v true sgb.

I think the what she did was despicable and unforgivable. If she had kidnapped a child on the street then this would make her disturbed, but the fact that she put her poor daughter through this makes her evil, in my eyes.

Here here Colacubes, I agree totally with everything you say. There are too many do gooders on here who like to see the good side of people, although in real life I doubt they would be as sympathetic.

but what does evil mean, mariemarie? How does it affect how we should respond to her?

And you're right , I don;t know her in real life. But neither do you - it doesn't affect your ability to make a judgment on who she is and why she did what she did.

I don't think that objecting to the term 'evil' is anyhting to do with wanting to minimise her wrongdoing, marie.

It's rather that the label has something a lot to do with various desires of the labeller to absolve themselves -- to absolve themselves of similarity, of the obligation to understand, of any sort of association.

What does it mean to impute her actions to 'evilness'? -- to something other than the causes or the motives which we might draw on if we want to analyse her crime and prevent similar crimes.

What are the gradations of evil then? If Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot are at the top where does Karen Matthews sit?
"Evil" has become lazy tabloid speak but doesn't actually help anyone working in the field of child protection.

SG's point about similarity is a good one. Despite beign statistically flawed, yesterday's survey revealed that 1 in 10 parents admitted that they disciplined their children to a degree that would be classed as physically abusive.

Those parents, I'm guessing, will be pretty bloody desperate to disassociate thsvs from Karen Matthews.

Onebat, that survey (or at least the publicising of it) does sound like a right lot of old cock: figures cobbled together from dozens of different sources, self-reporting, no objective measurement, no discrimination between the parent who gives an occasional smack to a misbehaving child, or uses harsh language ('worthless' 'useless' 'wish i@d never had you') and one who repeatedly and routinely rapes a child.

the numbers thing on R4 today seemed to be saying that amidst all the nonsense and talking up by the Press release, the statistic I mentioned above was realistic and in the actual report.

YEs but, was the '1 in 10' violence/severe neglect/SS involvement necessary or was it a mix of that and the sort of unkind parenting which is a bit subjective (mocking aspirations, being more interested in their own lives or a prettier/cleverer sibling, intense pressure to do well academically).

the stat was that 1 in 10 parents self-declared as disciplining their children to a degree which the authorities would consider to be physically abusive.

So I would ask which authorities and to what degree they are talking about? I am not a pro-smacker but also do not think that one smack on the legs constitutes taking-into-care abuse or necessitates a total social panic.

I hate it when people use the phrase 'do gooders' as if there's something wrong with doing good.

What ennoyed me the most on that statement (if indeed we are talking of the same one) is when the policeman said something on these lines (cannot remember exact wording) : "they did not go to the cinema or socialise therefore, they did not know what was acceptable by society. They thought what was acceptable was what they could get away with."

Am I alone thinking that quite a lot of parents do not have much time to go to the cinema and socialise? I know I don't, but I am quite confident that I still know the difference between right and wrong and what society considers acceptable. I do not think one has got much to do with the other!

Agree with AnyFuckerforaMincePie

And to add a different perspective:

I have a close family friend who is a policeman who also happens (as I can personally testify) to be a really decent human being, devoted family man, fairly liberal politically-speaking, opposed to the the death penalty, has managed to keep his humanity despite working in the vice squad (among other areas) and encountering some pretty horrific situatiosn.

He says that when you have worked as long as he has in this sort of field, you develop a strong instinct about people and their motivations and that in 20 years of policing he has only come across 2 men he would describe as "pure evil". I was surprised to hear him say this as he doesn't use language flamboyantly. He says when it occurs it transcends class, education, levels of intelligence but that he does personally think "it" (whatever "it" is) exists.

I've also heard three criminal barristers, two lawyers and one director of a homeless shelter say the same thing. All of them are highly educated and none would qualify as a "Daily Mail" reader.

Don't agree or disagree - just found it interesting that they (with their work background and experience) should say that.

Don't think the words "pure evil" are appropriate in this case however. Cruel, heartless, woefully stupid and misguided more apposite adjectives imo.

Interesting perspective Counting as we indeed do not see as much of it as they do, I do agrre as well that it is a bit strong regarding this case. It is true as well, that sometimes when we speek with our emotions we go a bit further and use more colourfull language than we would with a "cold head". But I do believe that in medias and official statements, it is compulsary to keep these emotions under controle.(www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/661412-Onthewarpath-HAS-NAMECHANGED-FINALLY)

I think it was evil of her to do this to her child, to be drugging her for over 12 months and exploiting her to get money. I also think she was evil to exploit the community where she lived, people were sending her money/food/gifts and were spending all hours searching for her child when she knew where she was. It was evil because she must have known how hard the police worked to find her child. Many of them worked 16 hours a day whilst searching for her and they would have expected to find a body. The emotional cost to others of this woman's actions are immeasurable, the stress and the upset that the community and the police officers went through. Many of them are parents and did feel real sympathy and compassion for the mother. She didn't think about them or indeed her own child. She just saw the reward. This is evil, however not the same as other criminals as it is impossible to compare crimes.

regarding te OP - I certainly raised my eye brows when I heard thae statement. I'm glad I'm not the only one.

I agree WannaBe, the police had every right to sum up what they thought of her. They only made public what the rest of us were thinking, let's face it.

I also raised my eyebrows when hearing this statement, but I'm glad that something was said.

This case is beyond words at time, so if someone chooses the wrong ones, it is somewhat understandable.

There is an article on the Telegraph online written by a vicar columnest which is about right - he says that evil is too strong a word and puts her in the same camp as Hitler. He settled on wicked (along with stupid and greedy).

As I said, I'm glad something was said. We are long overdue for a national debate on this topic (the underclass).