This is why our schools and kids clubs are so careful now about getting parents permission for photos of kids. When I used to work in a community service press office we had to make sure all children we asked to be in a photo (say of a new youth project or someone planting a rose bush with kids in the background for example) had to have a permission slip from their parent. We were moaned at endlessly by parents whose kids didn't bring one so weren't asked to step in.
BUT the reason we did it was that a similar service in another area had included a little boy of about five in a photo of loads of kids at an event. The boy knew he wasn't allowed to be in school event photos but this was outside school but in school time so he didn't think - he was only five! Mum hadn't allowed for the school taking the kids off site and had just said no photos of him to be taken at school other than the usual ones parents pay for. And the school forgot to inform the community service that this boy couldn't be in a photo. This was before almost compulsory permission slips had to be obtained by anyone using a child in a photo. So he ended up in the pbad
He had his school jumper on with a logo. The photo went into the local paper. And a mate of a friend of his father, whom the family had moved to another part of the country to get away from after he landed his wife in hospital, had seen it. They told the friend in passing, not knowing the facts about the family, the friend told the dad. Dad had spun a line about wife walking out on him,taking the kids, not mentioning the broken ribs...the friend thought he was doing the dad a favour (which he was but it wasn't an innocent friend he was reporting back to).
And dad turned up at the house having tailed them from the school gates the following week.
Mum and family then had to move yet again just to get away from him.
So now I try not to moan if photos don't appear in the press of events DS has been in. You never know if there is a young kid who has sneaked in when the photo is being taken and a parent has vetoed the use for safety reasons when they find out. I also Photoshop out any logos on photos of DS if I am sending them to friends via the OC. Paranoid? Probably, but I have seen and heard too much to trust that photo will stay just between me and mate and my boy's safety comes before people laughing at me.
I had an ex abusive hubby and, though DS is by my second marriage, I don't want ex knowing anything about him thank you!
I too cannot understand parents who hurt their kids, presumably to 'teach the other partner a lesson'. Mental illness doesn't come into it. It is selfish control over the other parent. The father has now sentenced that poor mum to wonder what if for the rest of her days. RIP Mary.