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Original poster

THAT family in sheffield...

71 replies

MyXmasPuddingSixpenceworth · 21/12/2005 23:58

have no link, but it has been all over the news, 'parents' for want of a better word, with (think it's 5) children ranging from 13months to 7yrs, kids were found starving (one with LIVE MAGGOTS in nappy). Parents have been jailed for 7 yrs. Good. but what was also horrible was learning that sw expect less from parents in deprived areas than from affluent areas, in terms of nurturing - so signs of neglect that would have led to action in some cases, are just left in others? I must surely have misunderstood that, I can't believe it - the implications are terrifying.

Whole story had me in tears, I just wanted to go get those kids and have them myself.

OP posts:
snowfalls · 22/12/2005 00:01

Tjats sickening glad they have been rescued.

bauble99 · 22/12/2005 00:04

I could launch into a major rant about this one, M2PW.

bauble99 · 22/12/2005 00:09

Poor littlies. I hope someone kind is looking after them tonight.

LadyTophamInAChristmasHatt · 22/12/2005 06:50

It heard this on the news too, but I didn't know there were more children as only 1yr old twins were mentioned.
It's outrageous if that is correct about the SW.

Poor little things

biglipskissinunderthemistletoe · 22/12/2005 06:52

oh yeah i heard about that too - how sickening

(and both parents are 24 too so they are young too)

leogaela · 22/12/2005 07:40

This is very sad. I wonder if the older children had always been neglected or if something went wrong in the family recently.

PruniStuffing · 22/12/2005 07:48

I don't know about anybody else but I can't get my head around this, in the same way that I can't get my head around what's beyond the known universe.

Wouldn't you have to be fairly far along on the mentally-ill scale to do this? As in severe personality disorder/psycopathy of some sort?

PruniStuffing · 22/12/2005 07:49

Just realised that looks like a defence of some sort and it's not.

Those two statements in my last post were unrelated.

katzglitterytree · 22/12/2005 07:51

story here
so sad

Original poster
MyXmasPuddingSixpenceworth · 22/12/2005 08:00

I haven't read it, but i'll bet my last mars bar that the 'parents' are druggies. Neglect on that scale often (i know mot always) goes hand in hand with serious substance abuse and people who can't see beyond their next fix. (NOT trying to make them into victims btw!)

why oh why did nobody report anything? the schoool saw nothing even though the 7yr old must have a) been filthy b) disappeared???

No health visitor for the babies?

No neighbours?

No friends or family?

I mean i saw the reports and the pictures of that house and oh dear god - human 'waste' all over the floors, broken furniture, bare floorboards, bed frames - no matrresses

when they eventually broke in, they found a 3 yr old locked in a bedroom, huddled in a corner, 13 mth old twins at 40% of normal body weight, one described as 'lifeless', all the kids filthy and malnourished. Those parents don't need prison, they need flogging. And I volunteer.

I hope I do this right \link{http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/story/0,1074,1672057,00.html?gusrc=rss}

OP posts:
Blandmum · 22/12/2005 08:01

Prunistuffing, the kids were kept in total filth and neglect, the parents had a reasonably tidy living room with TV, computer etc. The children were sleeping with their own urine and faeces.

Normaly when people are incapable of keeping themselves clean it is across the board, not targeted at individuals.

Original poster
MyXmasPuddingSixpenceworth · 22/12/2005 08:01

x posts K - but thank you cos my link failed miserably!!!!

OP posts:
PruniStuffing · 22/12/2005 08:02

I can't read this thread any more.

Blandmum · 22/12/2005 08:02

Re the school not doing anythings, I'm not sure what they have done, they may well be implicated in the falings.

However, I have reported what I am sure were non accidental injuries on children, and had SS ignore my concerns.

Original poster
MyXmasPuddingSixpenceworth · 22/12/2005 08:03

re my 8:00:55, - to clarify - no report i have read has said they are on drugs, but i cant think of anything else that would make a parent so evil. neglect etc etc

OP posts:
PantomimEDAMe · 22/12/2005 08:08

Good God.

I saw a documentary once about a woman who had grown up in a family like that and ended up with enormous psychological problems ? split personalities. Social services had ignored problems with her family that sounded very similar to this. She had a former foster mother fighting her corner who had, after years battling the system, managed to create an appropriate package of care which involved a roster of 24 hour care. But it had taken the foster mother 20 years to get this into place.

Blandmum · 22/12/2005 08:13

As a child I lived opposite a family wil similar , but less severe problems. The whole family were filthy, the house was infested with rats and cockroaches. They didn't have a toilet, they would just crap in the Garden.....and I don't mean a toilet at the bottom of the garden, I mean in the garden! The wallpaper whas hanging off the walls, dirt was mounded up everywhere.

Amazingly they were quite 'functional', they held down jobs, were very generous when you collected for charity etc. They didn't abuse drugs or alcohol.

The daughter grew up to be spotlessly clean, but when she had children of her own, the extra stress tipped her back into the standards that she knew as a child.

Most people who live like this are tied up in a cycle of ambuse and deprivation.

tigermoth · 22/12/2005 08:20

The local council I work for are going to reorganise departments so children's services coves education, health and social services. It's in response to the Victoria Climbie case and others like this. I hope it makes a difference.

Glitterygook · 22/12/2005 08:23

just don't know what to say, so awful

Mercy · 22/12/2005 09:23

Absolutely awful story. Someone earlier on this thread said the parents were quite young. 24 is not young! And is certainly no excuse for this kind of behaviour.

And as for the midwives and health visitors who visited the home.....words fail me.

gggimmesnowsnow · 22/12/2005 09:46

As a former hv, I don't understand either.....

homemama · 22/12/2005 09:58

Apparently the school did file a report but nobody from SS tied it up to that family.

Very shocked too at the suggestion that SS expect lesser standards of love and attention from poorer families. I've taught in very deprived areas and constantly saw kids whose parents didn't have a bean yet they were always clean and very loved.

The worst thing about this for me is the thought of how many more kids may be living like this and we just haven't found them.

DinosaurInAManger · 22/12/2005 10:01

Mercy, the parents were 24 but their oldest child was seven, so they were very young when they started having children.

But it is a mad system, isn't it, that sets children of 17 (with God knows what kind of deprivation and abuse in their own backgrounds) up as a little family unit with their babies and then ignores the fact that they give those children NO care just because there are other families in the same area who are just as bad or worse news report here

DinosaurInAManger · 22/12/2005 10:03

homemama, that worries me too.

I feel quite ashamed of myself for thinking this, but there is an argument for saying that those children would have been better off if they had been forcibly removed from their parents at birth and adopted straight away.

Mercy · 22/12/2005 10:05

Dinosaur, thanks for pointing that out, didn't see that bit