Another parent who has done the unthinkable. WHY? Why do they do it?

[hecate]

here It is a sad one, a father, estranged from his wife, has killed his 2 children.

I am torn in these cases. I think what kind of bastard can kill their children in what appears to be an act to punish their ex.

But I also think that surely they must be mentally ill to do it, because I just can't comprehend any other reason for harming your own children.

but overwhelmingly I feel so sorry for those poor kids and for their poor mother, whose life is doubtless ruined.

[wotulookinat]

How sad.

[Janos]

I don't think anyone was hijacking it though - just commenting on how terrible it was?

Anyway can remember several of these cases this year, all of them horrible and distressing.

And of course none of these men were denied access!

[LazyLinePainterJane]

They said on the news last night that he called their mother between killing them and himself to tell her what he had done.

sigh

[Janos]

Yeah I saw that too, the report makes very sad reading

[Janos]

I mean the news report. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

[PinkTulips]

it's not just men, there was a woman not that long ago who did the same

i think men are the more likely to do such horrendous things as they are the more likely to lose their kids during a seperation or divorce.

[Janos]

Yes women do it too. Dreadful case in the news atm with a woman who killed her 4 year old daughter and my reaction is that it's equally abhorrent.

But, pinktulips that's no excuse. Nothing excuses the taking of a life. There are Dads on here who are in a situation where there are issues over access and I bet they would never even consider such a cruel and selfish action.

[PinkTulips]

i didn't say it was an excuse

that being said, if dp moved out tomorrow with my kids i'm not sure what sort of depression that would cause, and depression can make someone do truely horrific things when they get trapped in that dark hole.

[LazyLinePainterJane]

But when women do it, hoards of women don't rush around saying "well....this is what happens when men deny us access/call us names/make us give them money"....what are FFj on?

[theNaughtiestGirlKeepsaSecret]

I worry my x might do something for this. He thinks he loves the children, and in a way he does, but that love will never be as strong an emotion as the hatred he feels for me, or the bitterness and anger at the way things have turned out for him. (I dared to leave him, and he is consumed by that).

It is a form of mental illness, but it's a brought on by a stubborn refusal to accept that the woman was 1) allowed to leave, and 2) that her leaving or cheating (or whatever) was disrespectful to his ego and therefore too humiliating to bear. So self-absorbed. So arrogant. Priorities so fcuked.

[LazyLinePainterJane]

That must be petrifying.

[Janos]

"i didn't say it was an excuse"

Well actually you did PinkTulips. You inferred that it happens because families split up and therefore men are driven to it?

And the depression line is just utter nonsense, hundreds of parents suffer from depression and don't kill their children as a result.

It just makes me mad - livid actually - that there's still an assumption that men are 'driven' to these actions by women. It's complete nonsense, and cruel to boot.

Also I note this father wasn't denied access, was he? That's how he managed to do this in fact. And he took the time to let their mum know what he'd done too.

[LittleBella]

They do it because they hate their ex more than they love their children. So they punish her by killing the people she loves most.

There is a difference between killing a baby because you have PND, (which is the main reason babies under a year are killed by their mothers) and killing your children in order to wreak revenge on the parent who loves them better than you do.

Most men wouldn't dream of killing their children in order to punish their ex. The ones who would, generally have a history of control-freakery at the least and violence at the worst.

[LittleBella]

"i think men are the more likely to do such horrendous things as they are the more likely to lose their kids during a seperation or divorce."

If you look at the figures, there are very few cases of women who have lost custody doing this. The percentage who do, is far lower than the percentage of men who do. (And the percentage of men who do, is absolutely tiny.) It isn't about custody, it's about control.

I don't know whether such a desperate need to exert such a level of control over other people's lives, counts as a mental illness or not tbh.

[ElfOnTheTopShelf]

I have just been reading the Sun online (yes, I know, terrible paper) but they are reporting a statement from the mother.
It states in the paper that the mother and father had only been separated for three weeks and this was the first visitation.

The fathers mother is defending him and his actions and attacking the mother

[WideWebWitch]

This is so awful, agree with LB and dittany, it's about control, fking selfish cnts.

[DrNortherner]

What littlebella said.

[DrNortherner]

It is not depression/mental illness that drives a man to do this, it's selish bastatdry imo.

I would always love my ds more than I could ever hate my dh.

[Janos]

"The fathers mother is defending him and his actions and attacking the mother"

Didn't this happen with that awful American case too? Neil something...his parents insisted he wasn't guilty.

Same with Amanda Knox/Meredith Kercher case.

Perhaps reality is simply too painful for these people to face and they go into denial.

OTOH they could be the root of the problem. But we don't know.

Still very much out of order and she won't get much sympathy.

[ummadam]

At the risk of being flamed - we d not know, nor are we likely to ever know all the details in this case. It is a horrid, tragic thing for everyone involved and my heart goes out to their families.

One thing that does come up time and time and again in these reports is that the parents are so deep in their depression that they believe the world is too bad a place for their children to grow up in. They often kill them in ways that they think are not distressing, suffocating in their sleep, gas, medication. There is no doubt that this man and other parents who kill their children and then themselves are mentally ill and while we can judge the act (which is murder and despicable) we are not really in a position to judge them or draw generalisations without knowing all the details.

I would hate to think that someone (mother or father, as us girls do not have a monopoly on being wronged) who may be a mumsnet reader and in despair would read comments suggesting they were evil rather than ill and not get help before another tragedy occured.

[solidgoldbrass]

Here's www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/nov/05/ukcrime.lornamartin one article, there was another on Wednesday but I can't find the link. Basically the men who do this almost always have a history of domestic violence or at least severe emotional abuse and controlling behaviour: better domestic violence intervention seems to reduce the risk of these awful murders happening.

[priceyp]

One of the most disturbing but (appears) to be widely accepted parts of this story is the age difference between the parents. The mother is 20 years old and their eldest child is 3. He was 33 years old. "The Friend" quoted in the article is also 20 and reported to be his former girlfriend.

By my reasoning, she would have been about 15/16 when she met him and had her first child with him. This is purely my opinion but does no-one else find that to be disturbing??

Also he was either seeing the former girlfriend at the same time or before so how old was she then!

This is controlling, grooming behaviour. The outcome is tragic, but so many children are being brought into these frankly disfunctional situations, how can we ever hope to see an end to it.

[solidgoldbrass]

Well, something that would help would be that when a couple separate if there are any allegations of domestic violence/abuse then the violent partner should not be allowed unsupervised access.

Now, yes, of course, there are some vindictive, spiteful women who will use allegations of violence to stop access because they want to punish their XP for his sexual rejection of them but there are far, far more women who are treated as hysterical liars even when there is evidence of abuse and dangerous behaviour from their partners - in case after case of men murdering their children, there have been reports of prior cruelty, controlling behaviour - in some cases there has been repeated police involvement - yet these men are still regarded as 'good fathers' because it's only their wives they hate. (Reporting often blames the women for what has happened - ie it wouldn't have happened if they had obeyed the man and if they have had sex with another man or even spoken to one, then it serves them right if their children are killed).

I appreciate that some fathers suffer because they are forbidden access when they are guiltless, but having to have supervised access would surely not be that bad a thing - and sorry but it is about time it was accepted that a little inconvenience for men accused of violence is OK if it protects women, rather than it always being women who have to adapt their behaviour and take responsibility for placating men and managing their violence.

[edam]

I'm you, solidgoldbrass. On the grounds of the severity of the risk - supervised access may not be great, but it would limit the chances of an appalling tragedy.

And what on earth is it going to take for attitudes to change so that officialdom and everyone else understands that domestic violence = bad, dangerous father? 'Oh, he ONLY attacks the mother' is such a stupid line to take. But seems to be not uncommon for CAFCASS and the courts to work on these lines.