Dreadful news about girls murdered in Soham

[MaryLou]

I've been very upset about what happened in Soham and wondered if others were feeling the same way. I had to go to work today and my father in law who was looking after my two children aged 6 and 8 decided to take them to Legoland. I felt so worried all day, even though I do trust him - I even burst into tears in front of a work colleague!

Reading the papers and hearing the frightening news really seems to have affected me. Does anyone else feel the same way? I keep thinking that the chances of it happening are very slim but it still affects what you allow the children to do. What can we do to protect our children without wrapping them in cotton wool?

Marylou

I know what you mean. I know that I am over protective of mine anyway, I don't like them out of my sight at any time and this has made me even more paranoid.
I have tried to explain to my children that even though I have told them not to go with strangers that the man who has now been charged was a caretaker and therefore not a stranger and the woman was a teaching assistant.

I was saying to some friends today that in the next couple of years we will have to let our eldest ones go out we cannot keep them near us for ever and it is so scary.
I cannot bear the thought of what Holly and Jessica's parents and family are going through.
My heart goes out to them. They will never get over this trauma.

I posted this link on the other thread about Holly and Jessica, but thought you might find it interesting. What to tell your kids .
I must admit that although dd1 (5.5) has been asking about "the little girls", and I have explained a bit, I have stopped short of telling her that their classroom assistant may have been involved - cowardly of me, I know, but I just can't think how to explain it without her getting really alarmed.

emieswill, me too. In fact, I specifically asked ex mil to make sure he doesn't know this if at all possible since he's starting school soon (staying with her atm). I'm cowardly too then. I read somewhere (Observer?) of a child who said they didn't want to go to school because "I might be murdered"

I have been feeling very sad about this for days. And it just gets worse. To hear thats "visual identification is not posible" makes me so angry. How can ANYONE do this to two innocent little girls??? And they say hes having a pyschological assessment. Excuse me for being dumb, but he seemed perfectly lucid and sane or whatever, when he was interviewed on the television.

I just feel very raw, very numb. Those poor little girls, how must their families be feeling? I can't even begin to contemplate how they are coping.

Sometimes I wonder what sort of world I have brought my children into. I know, I know, I've heard the statistics - how rare it is, but it doesn't make it any easier if it's yours does it? How can you let go? I want to hold onto my children and never let them go. I'm frightened, I can't bear the thought of losing my babies. I have been really affected by this.

It's just horrible

my daughter and her brother are 9 years old. i told them yesterday that if one of them was taken and they were threatened that something would happen unless the other one got into the car or went to their house of whatever, to run, i said because if they get you , you will never come back so look after yourself, not your friend , not your brother/sister
i hate having to have these kinds of conversations with my children

My son (nearly 5) came home from nursery on Monday and said "Mummy, Holly and Jessica are dead, aren't they?". I was rather taken aback, because I didn't know knew anything specific about this (he was away with us all weekend, and we never had the TV on or anything). I didn't really know what to do about this, because I didn't want nursery discussing this with him - I feel that this whole subject is something that dh and I should be dealing with with our children, because I don't want them frightened unecessarily. I want to know what they've been told. (Normally I have no problem with the nursery, by the way - I think it's a wonderful place.)

On talking to him further, I discovered that it was another child at nursery who had talked about it to him, not a teacher. This reminded me of another nursery mum who I heard threatening her daughter that if she didn't behave someone might take her and kill her like Sarah Payne (this mum's words still horrify me - fancy threatening a child in such a scary way).

It made me realise that I have to discuss these things with my children, whether I like it or not, because they get information from all sorts of sources beyond my control. I have told him that he must never go with anyone, not even someone he knows (not even Granny or Grandma), without telling me or Daddy, because we would worry if we didn't know where he was.

We have to try and remember that most people are not dangerous, and most people would do anything to keep a small child safe. Otherwise our kids will grow up scared of everything, and what sort of life would they have then?

I discussed this with my dh and we think that in view of the fact that most kids are abused/killed by someone they know. We will be drumming into our dd when she is old enough, not to go with ANYONE without our permission, whether it be her uncle, teacher, friend's dad, whatever, if it isn't prearranged then don't do it.

It's terrible that it has to come to this, but it is far more likely that a child will be abused by someone they know than someone they don't know. So I would be happier to let her play out, than I would be if she accepted a lift from one of her uncles.

At the moment only DS1 is allowed to play outside the garden but he always has times to report home (usually every hour) and he has specified areas where he can go. Yesterday he came and asked if he could go to a neighbours house because he had been invited for a drink. We don't know the middle aged couple very well though we did go to their house warming party a couple of weeks ago so I told him that he couldn't go. I really don't think that they would harm him but I'm so careful about everyone these days. I think it is sad when you have to make excuses to people in this way but thats how it is now.

A police spokesperson said: "Police are advising mothers and fathers not to leave their children alone and unattended at any time."

That quotation is from an article about a 2 year old child who was left in a car on their own!

As a mum to an 8 1/2 year old ds I feel so worried, it is beginning to affect my sleep.
I haven't really even let ds out yet, he does not have road sense and unfortunately living in the end of a cul de sac, where i can't see him around the corner I have been reluctant to let him go, especially as there is no one his age close. This year I promised myself I would have to bite the bullet, and now this terrible tragedy has happened I am so scared to let him go, but overprotection can be harmful too, I've heard and there has to be a point where you let them go

If anyone has any advice or suggestions please let me know. He has a 6 year old ds and dd as well, but I feel safer letting all three go along the lane because even if I can't see them I can usually hear them!!

Help!!!!!!

kkgirl, it's sad to say but our children are far more likely to die in car accidents than by being murdered, but we all take our children on car journeys, many of them unnecessary. As for letting your children play outside of your property, I don't think waiting a year or two until they're older will hurt esp. if road sense is still a problem

I was 11 before I could go into town on my own. Unfortunately the first day that I did, I was attacked by two 9 year old girls while an adult looked on!

That is very rare though. I didn't tell my Mum and Dad because I was allowed out on the condition that I was careful!

In my young head, I thought I would get into trouble.

How come the press seem to have forgotten all laws about court cases and libel?!

This was on the Peterborough Post website!

"well i know im only 14 and i dont really understand all the laws yet but what maxine and that insane man did was wrong! they killed, so they should be killed! they should suffer like holly and jessica did... can i just ask.... because i dont know myself but why on earth did they kill holly and jessica?? evry1s focusing on that yes they did it, but no one is asking why!"

Illiterate as well as stupid.

jbr- do you live in potty-borough???

It was on the news today that the next hearing for Maxine Carr is being help by videolink because there was so much trouble outside the court the last time she appeared. And the Vicar has had to publicly appeal that people who are not invited don't come to the memorial service.
There are definitely some people out there who do not have enough to do!

No, I don't. An old friend of mine does though. She used to work at that newspaper so I dip into it now and then on the internet.

I could tell you a few things about that newspaper but I can't prove what I'd be saying so I'd be doing exactly what I'm criticising the newspapers for!

kkgirl, it is so hard to start letting go of ones children particularly in the atmosphere that we are living in at the moment. I read somewhere recently that 6 children a year die at the hands of 'strangers'. This is obviously six children too many but this number has remained constant for many years. Our children are no more in danger in this way than we were. That is not to say they should not be looked after.

However, I really believe the fear that exists could be so damaging for this generation of children... some are being taught to hate and trust no one and some are so closeted from the world that they will find it very hard to function in the real world as they get older. There is a thread on Mumsnet about other peoples experiences of letting their children do things on their own. I will try to find it.

kkgirl, hth:

www.mumsnet.com/s/Talk?topicid=67&threadid=1813&stamp=020131180707#32096

kkgirl, my DS1 is 9 and is allowed out to play with friends only under certain conditions - He has to report back at specific times (usually one hour intervals). He can play at the back of our house or in the park (100yds away). If he goes to anyone's house or anywhere else he has to come and tell me first. That way, I should always know where he is. I have also drummed into him the rules about not talking to strangers, not going away with anyone else even if they say they have agreed it with me etc. Its still hard not to worry though.

They are more likely to have an accident than something like this.

Anyway, today's gem regarding the Soham case is this.

"Appalled by the arrival of murder tourists in Soham, the Sun newspaper demands, "What kind of people can treat such a terrible tragedy as a peepshow?"

Perhaps the kind of people who have spent the last three weeks reading bulletins by the Sun's Soham reporting team, experts in both the measurement and cultivation of florid grief. Reports such as "Torment is Unbearable", "The Town that Can't Sleep","Pilgrimage of Despair", "There is Hope", "GCSE pain for sister", and "Can you Help?" (offering £150,000 reward), culminated in "World Weeps with Soham", marvelling at the thousands of messages posted on a special website, the fast-filling books of condolence and, of course, the tribute mountain. "By mid-afternoon the number of bouquets, toys, gifts, paintings and photos left outside 14th-century St Andrew's Church had grown to well over 2,500. Flowers stretched along every path and lay 10 deep beside the walls. Inside, thousands of candles glittered in front of a shrine bearing the girls' photos."

Who would not, like the Sun reporters, wish to gawp at such a scene? Particularly when the vicar seemed to appreciate it too. "It is staggering to see how many hearts this tragedy has touched," he said. "Each of these bouquets tells a story and all are moving." The wonder is not that so many picked Soham for their bank holiday pilgrimage, but that anyone could be callous enough to stay away."

I was talking to dh about this this morning. He said there was a very pertinent comment made about it in the Newspaper review bit of 'Broadcasting House' last Sunday on Radio 4. One of the reviewers had looked at all the stuff in the papers about it that day and commented that if the Tabloid press were REALLY interested in the sfety of children they would be running a road safety campaign, as more children die on the roads every day than are abducted in a year. But, cynically, who would buy papers if that is what they chose to do?

I agree JBR - the Sun surpassing its own usual hypocritical garbage. Wouldn't donating the equivilant money to some good cause/children's charity in memory of the girls be a more useful gesture from a stranger than a bunch of flowers wrapped in cellophane and left to die on the pavement?

Thought I should share this here.

I've just read a report in a Spanish newspaper headed "Streets without children" which talks about the muders in Soham and ensuing paranoia. Apparently UK children are the 3rd least likely to be murdered (by anyone) in Europe (beaten by Sweden I think and can't remember the other country). The Spanish reporter seemed to think the country has gone mad, and compared it to the fact that the the Advertising Standards authority received its greatest number of complaints about a picture of a dead horse (suggesting we care more about animals than people). Wasn't quite sure about his logic there, but it's another perpective anyway.

susanmt you are absolutely right about the road-safety campaign thing, it's far more important overall. In particular the Sun could have used its reward money for something like this, instead of encouraging even more phone calls to the overworked police (and who really would not report something relevant unless there was money involved?)

Apparently there was a little girl murdered during the week that Princess Diana died. There was no publicity about that, no appeals for help or rewards. No, The Sun et al were too busy baying for Diana's family to parade themselves so we could all see whether they were upset enough for us. I think that says where their interests really lies.

BTW apparently there were people deliberately going to Soham before the girls were found hoping to find their bodies and claim the reward.

Indeed, Bozza.