17 year old found starved to death in Birmingham

[PinkPussyCat]

Just heard about this on the lunchtime ITV news... Apparently there were several other emaciated children found at the scene following a call to the emergency services.
They don't have any more details than that atm.

How can stuff like this be happening in the UK in 2008?

No, the parents should not be shot or strung up.

They should be slowly starved to death like that child was.

Starvation has got to be one of the most unpleasant and painful ways to die that there is. Imagine how you feel when you miss one meal.

I pray there's a heaven.

Bloody hell, what a shocking story. How on earth can this have escaped the notice of the school, the HV and anyone in authority?

This story has had me in tears since I heard it. I cannot believe people can be so incredibly cruel. I want to take the rest of those children and feed them and love them. And I want to yell at my two children who think it's fine to take a single bite from a piece of fruit and bin the rest.

She supposedly home ed

Oh Jesus wept. So no-one in officialdom ever thought to pop round and check the kids were OK?

SS aren't saying whether they kew the family or not.
Find it odd that the house was all boarded up though!

Lilylou- Handsworth is one of the most deprived places in Birmingham if not UK- I suspect is is boarded up as someone would probably have trashed the place tonight etc.

such a terribly sad case

woman was preventing kids getting bread neighbours put ut for birds

rest in peace little one, so sorry you were so badly let down

As I said on another thread

Its always the same old story isnt it?

Neighbours thought 'something funny was going on'

Social services confirm that the 'family was known'

Inquiry reports that 'lessons will be learnt'

Its all a load of bollocks, What a tragic waste of a young childs life.

Poor little girl on news now

Am I being paranoid or does this sort of thing only ever happen on such a scale in this country.

I know other countries have isolated cases but for god's sake, it seems to happen all the time here. What's wrong with us?

Nametaken I am absolutley sure that these types of things are not more frequent here than in other countries. It may be that they are reported more here. They are still very rare given the population.

This is absolutely horrendous but please don't let yourself think that this sort of thing is happening all the time, and that no-one is able to help/stop it, that isn't the case. I know I can get in a right state sometimes at things in the news but looking at my actual experience of people I encounter tells me that there are many more kind people than evil.

What has happened to this girl though is, obviously, tragic.

Bad things happen sometimes. But most people do a reasonable job of raising their kids. THere aren't 'Lessons To Be Learned' from this case: most social workers do a reasonably good job (and get blamed just as much for taking kids away from bad, mad or inadequate parents).
Shit happens. But not that often. End of.

"SHit happens" "end of"

Bollocks to that

Dying of starvation when you know others in the house are eating? and that food is in the house? I hope they are given a suitable punishment.

How are the siblings doing?

Madamez, I would bet my mortgage that the 'lessons to be learnt' line comes about in this case.

It always does.

I dont deny that SS do a bloody hard job and more often than not get it right.

"shit happens" is a bit odd. Its a seven year old girl starved to death.

i do wonder how often this sort of thing is hapening though,especially when i read about some awful neglect cases in the local press.the only ones that make the nationals seem to be when a child actually dies

I reckon (and flame me if you must) it happens a lot in the uk because the difference between "rich" and "poor" is so sickeningly big, and if you are poor you most likely live in a deprived area and nobody has the will to check you are all right, after all you are a number in the statistics and nobody really cares about a poor family. Further, the "rich" tend to think mostly about themselves, and are very ignorant about being "poor" thinking of it in terms of shopping in Primark rather than trendy boutiques, and nothing beyond that. It will never change.

Quint I actually think that your post is the most stupid thing I have ever read on MN, and my god there has been a lot of stupidity over the years!

I also imagine that those families who live in poverty but duck and dive to keep their children fed might think it more than a tad f*ing patronising - but I have no wish to speak for them!

If the whole family had been found starving then I agree that would have been pretty damning on our society. But the parents weren't starving were they. I know if I was skint I would feed my child first, before me. That was not the way round it was (apparently) happening.

I don't think this is about rich and poor, it's about a pair of extremely nasty people.

Those kids didn't starve because their parents couldn't afford food! What rubbish. This was either a case of deliberate sadism or mental illness. I'd guess these poor the skiny, starving children were noticed and reported, but there was a failure by social services of some sort. It's heartbreaking.

The reports tonight linked it to home-edding and commented the children had been taken out of school

Reading between the lines about the reporting about the children eating bread the neighbours had left out for the birds, it sounds like some mental illness involved.

Very sad

Quattro - Mental illness from the children or the neighbours?

I think the parents - sorry for being unclear

I hope no one sees this as a reflection on SS or SW's. 1,000s of children are saved from abuse and death, they're given a better life elsewhere or their parents are taught to look after them. Social workers work hard, they have a thankless job leaving them with the highest on the job death rate - even over the police. But we don't see the good on the news, we see when it goes wrong.

Sometimes things do go wrong, it is terrible, it is a tragedy, but I don't think the social workers should be blamed. There are usually a lot of agencies involved, sometimes messages aren't passed around properly and the courts have ultimate say over everything.

It's always really sad to hear that something like this has happened. Someone has let this little girl down, in the most monumental way. She was not being protected by her parents, clearly, and any one from SS or elsewhere also have let her down and cost her her life. However, it must be so difficult. If she is ot in school any longer and there was no serious concerns about the family previously ( i don't know as i've not heard SS involvement being mentioned in the news reports on this. ) then there would be no reason, or ability, for anyone to know anyhting was going on. If the children have not actually been seen by anyone, then how could it possible be known?

Madamez, i'm really surprised and quite shocked at your response to this. You may not get overly emotional about things happening to people you don't know, and of course there is obviously nothing wrong with that. However, to say that 'shit happens' is a really odd and unpleasant thing to say about the report of a child dying in such horrific circumstances!! Also to state that the OP should know the facts etc... in every single report in the news on this case, the fact that she died through neglect and starvation was the almost the first thing said, almost without exception. So i'd say the OP was informed of the facts, as much as anyone can be from news reports. I just can't believe your 'shit happens' comment referring to a child dying. Really shocked. I've never seen you write anything so unkind and lacking in compassion before, doesn't sound like you at all