Was the Daily Mail right to call Mick Philpott a vile product of the Welfare System?

[Notsoyummymummy1]

Can we say that benefits create this kind of man? I don't think so!

He and the law would argue he had served his time for his previous crime. What I am saying is what do you expect the state to do when whoever he is with is covering up for him. The kids werent covered in bruises, they seemed well fed, they were overcrowded (of course you would be with so many chidren!).

The neighbours, the Philpott family. They were closest to it. Did any of them report any serious concerns. His sister has disowned him but surely she must have known what was going on and also his history. Did she report any concerns to SS?

A SS visits the house, speaks to Maired about the time he was arrested for pulling her into the street by her hair, she covers up, wont press charges. People who suffer DV often dont. Its very sad tbh. And like my relative. That relationship ends and you look for the same type of person again.

It rocks a family when someone is doing this again and again and again and you know they are covering up and lying for their partner. I have to admit I got angry with her. Ironically when the first violent relationship ended she literally became the victim and said she was forced to do what she did by him - and then went into another similar relationship with the next man a few months later.

My gut feeling is that he wouldnt have had the number of children he had with the benefits if I am honest. But we really dont know.

If we think it is not linked to benefits and getting more and more then we would say he might just left a trail of misery but we also have to think about the women in all of this. He hasnt had these children on his own. There are various women who have had them for him. Why?

I do think the benefit system had some bearing on his behaviour. He did not have to go out to work to socialise with people who may have questioned his actions. He got to run a little regime cut off from other people. He would not have been able to hold some of the views he had in terms of just doing whatever he wanted if his way of life was not being bank rolled by the tax payer. He most certainly wouldn't have had 18 children if he was responsible for paying for them all.

No the benefit system did notable him a chauvinistic woman hater or a murderer but it was IMO a facilitating factor in the whole affair.

Part of the problem is the state's attitude that he'd served his time and was therefore of no further interest to the state.

Violent woman-hating men are still violent woman-hating men once they' ve served their time. We need to recognise and address that instead of burying our heads in the sand about it.

Because young girls and vulnerable women and women and girls who have been abused can end up in relationships with abusive men that they can get subsumed by.

Read the relationships section on here, or literature or studies produced on the subject, I expect various women's and children's charities have links.

Personally, rather than blaming the women and children, or the benefits system, I will blame the violent serial abuser.

Lots of violent, abusive men have jobs, madamc. Their employment status doesn't stop them holding those views and abusing the women and children they live with.

But we don't know that his family or his neighbours didn't report them to SS. The family were certainly known to them.

I do agree that it's harder to prove when people collude with the abuser to put on a front of all is ok and I sympathise with you on that front, having it in your own family must be incredibly frustrating and distressing.

My relation was not vulnerable. She had a university and private school education. She had her own house and career. She had a loving family. But somhow she was attracted to what she saw as dominate men. Men who could look after her, take charge of a situation etc.

I saw through them immediately and so did other family members. What made her not see the same thing? I must admit I struggled with how she is.

It is not always abused people who then take up with people who then abuse them.

That last post was to handcream

The judge at his last trial said he was extremely dangerous.

He was right, wasn't he?

Basically he shouldn't he been on the streets.

It is frustrating. We are at a point now where we leave her to it (does that sound too harsh?) We are tired of lies and the cover up's. It is more important now to support her parents who are just worried sick about all of this.

"shouldn't have been"

The judge would say that! They have just been found guility of killing their children in a botched attempt to do whatever they were planning to do!

Hindsight is a great thing.

Think u need to remember that abuse victims get a form of stockholm syndrome.

they were v young and vulnerable when they met him. They'd spent almost entire adult lives controlled by him. What's amazing is that one of them found the strength to get away.

handcream I appreciate this is all very stressful with your family but maybe your individual circumstances are colouring your views here.

This man was a serial abuser, violent, sexually abusive, including underage girls, extreme controlling behaviour including attempted murder. It should not have been beyond the ken of our criminal justice system to spot that he was a pretty bad sort and keep him locked up out of harms way. You'd have thought. Apparently not though.

It's not a conversation about the benefits system that's needed it's a conversation about our criminal justice system.

It's not just that he didn't go out to work I know lots if violent scum bags work (I was married to one) but he got to run a little totalitarian regime with no one at all to answer to which would have fed his ginormous ego. Imagine always being in charge, always being right, having no one but Widdicombe question your beliefs, you would have thought you were invincible.

Well he shouldn't have been on the streets because he had a proven track record of violence against women - being jailed for attempted murder.

However, the sentence for that was derisory and he was free to go on his own merry way and well..look what happened.

Saw an, excellent post on this today http://stavvers.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/polyamory-mick-philpott-and-abuse-apologism/ stavvers

Sorry on phone stavvers

Sadly, Madame, these totalitarian regimes are far from restricted to people who don't work. Some are run by "pillars of the community" in prestigious or lucrative jobs.

The fact the money (rather more of it) is coming from own business or salary doesn't seem to ameliorate the brutality. I do wonder if it sometimes makes it worse.

There is a lot of victim blaming here.
Would you blame the two 14 yr old girls mentioned upthread.
Not really hard to see how Philpott and Jimmy Savile got to preside over their reigns of terror for so long is it? Because we live in a society with a lot of abuse apologism in it.
And Savile wasnt a benefit claimant.

The problem is that none of the changes to the benefit system change this. They will only make the problem worse.

With no housing help for young people, many look for similar 'guardian angel', no support for refuge services, no legal aid for people leaving abusive relationships, cuts to police service etc these situations will keep happening.

Have had lots of comments about my blogpost today, and they really fell into two camps; those who understand domestic abuse and those who think it's a choice.
wp.me/p2J1P5-4I

Brilliant blog post newpencilcase. Agree with every word.

Thank you. It's criminal that the debate is entirely constructed around politicians agenda, rather than what would actually help.

Two great blogposts there. And the judge's summing up of the case is now being widely reported; she got what was going on, she talked about his misogyny and abuse of women.