Shannon Mathews

[user1477282676]

This was a shocking case. The child was without a doubt a victim in terrible circumstances. Her own Mother stashing her away under the bed of her partner...drugging her, lying to the public and to her friends about such an awful thing.

But.

Does anyone here think that the press and the public demonised her in a far worse fashion than criminals who do worse have been?

She was pilloried, called terrible names...really made into a sort of figurehead for everything "unwomanly" when there are plenty of men who commit arguably worse crimes and who get away without the public disgrace.

Yes she did a truly awful thing but the fact that she was

A: A woman
B: Working Class
C: Ignorant
D: Unattractive

All added up to ensure that she was the perfect example of a demon woman. Can anyone expand or tell me more about this sort of thing? Do you agree with me? Are there other cases which are similar?

I would ask the same question of you? Why the determination to clutch at straws that Hindley was in some way less to blame.

People aren't saying she was manipulated because we're sexist, it's because of our understanding of what happened. I'm not an expert in it so I don't want to discuss the case in any detail, but my impression is that Brady was leading and she was following.

Gwenhwyfar, you like some other people on here, are confusing excuses with reasons. They are different things. Everything anyone does is a result of a confluence of environmental influences. Literally everything. Most male pedophiles, rapists and serial killers probably had horrendous childhoods for example. There was probably some point in their lives when they were corrupted by another person or persons into becoming evil. Similarly, many terrorists are displaced, disaffected young men who were influenced to do what they do by radicalising ideologues. All these people do terrible things that they perhaps would not otherwise have done had an environmental factor or factors not exerted an influence on them.

Does this make any of this behaviour one iota less excusable? No. For the simple reason that lots of people who are abused but do not go onto abuse; lots of young Asian men do not become crazed medievalists who fly passenger planes into buildings; and lots of young women who, when asked by their boyfriend to assist with child rape and murder, run straight to the police. The fact that Hindley did readily and enthusiastically co-operate with some of the most heinous, evil crimes imaginable suggests that she had sadistic and pedophiliac tendencies that were awakened by Brady.

Yes the fact that Hindley was a woman and a follower rather than instigator does make sense in regard to patriarchal norms. Women are culturally socialised to be nurturing submissives; therefore when they commit acts of evil they often either do so covertly or in a submissive relationship with a man. That does not make what Hindley did any less sick, twisted or evil however. Nor does it make her any less accountable for her behaviour.

One thing I will say is that to this day the level of hatred levelled at Hindley is disproportionate to that faced by Brady. That is wrong. And it probably is to do with with her being so completely alien to what we expect a woman to be that all we could do as a society was dehumanise her into a cypher of evil.

One thing I will say is that to this day the level of hatred levelled at Hindley is disproportionate to that faced by Brady.

I think this is as much about her high profile campaign to be released, that kept her in the public eye. There is nothing about the moors murders that should be appropriated to make any kind of a feminist point. Nothing.

I agree that no feminist point should be made in Hindley's favour. But noting an especial horror of women who commit violent and sexual crimes against children is not to suggest those crimes are any less evil; it's just to observe that because we assume women are innately maternal and nurturing we find it hard to accept that they are capable of such evil against children. But of course women are human beings and therefore potentially just as capable of evil as men.

Someone mentioned the drama about Karen Matthews. My understanding is that it focuses on the community and their efforts to find Shannon and raise money etc. There is no footage of the crime itself. Karen is a "supporting role" so to speak. So maybe a more positive thing..?

Good grief, Lass and girlwith, are you seriously suggesting that it's some sort of insult to womankind to suggest that Hindley might not have committed her crimes had she not met Brady? It's purely factual: Brady was a several-times convicted criminal with a history of sadism, Hindley wasn't. It makes no difference that she was female - if Brady's accomplice had been a man with a similar history (and he did, after all, try to recruit David Smith) I would say the same about him. And, just for the sake of clarity, I really don't believe that the fact that Brady is very likely to have been the initiator exonerates Hindley by one iota.

Good then we are agreed. We can all then stop making excuses for women and acknowledge that grown up women are as fully accountable for their behaviour as men.

Good grief, Lass and girlwith, are you seriously suggesting that it's some sort of insult to womankind to suggest that Hindley might not have committed her crimes had she not met Brady? It's purely factual

I said nothing whatsoever about " insult to womankind" but I see my expectations that excuses would stop being made was shirt lived.

Lass, you seem to be confusing facts with excuses. There is a difference, you know - particularly given that I expressly said that the facts don't excuse what Hindley did in any way.

DeepandKrisp I agree it is unlikely that Hindley would have committed those crimes (though not impossible) had she not met Brady. However what is problematic is to suggest that Brady in some way coerced Hindley into doing something she did not want to do - or that she went along with him purely out of misplaced hero worship. The only reason anyone can be actively involved in the sexual torture and murder of children is because they are gratified by it. Any other motive is inconceivable.

My theory would be that these tendencies existed latently within Hindley, and it took the active lead of a hyper-dominant male to bring them to the surface. In other words, she was on some level a sadistic peadophile before she met Brady. You would have to have been wouldn't you? And because her crimes contradict a central pillar of civilisation (the nurturing madonna), people find them so incomprehensibly horrifying that they are compelled either to paint her as a victim or an almost supernaturally evil cypher. In reality, she is a very bad human being.

No, I agree he clearly didn't coerce her; and for all we know, if she'd hooked up with someone else, she still wouldn't have led a blameless life because she was possibly attracted to that type. But the fact is that the chances of her hooking up with another evil murderous psychopath were limited, and the chances of any inherent sadistic tendencies coming out would have been diminished had she never met Brady. But what really irritates me is that, when you get a situation with a man and a woman involved in murder or serious crime, the papers are forever trying to recast the woman as Hindley.

I agree that Hindley should not be mythologised. It serves no good purpose to do that.

Arguably because women lack the sense of power men have, their darker tendencies are more submerged; and therefore a more dominant lead - or an extraordinary set of circumstances - is required for them to be given expression. Hence many female killers and child abusers offend with a man. Those who do offend on their own tend to do so covertly and not in an overtly aggressive way (female child molesters who disguise their abuse as being maternally tactile for instance). It is all very different, and when you do get someone like Hindley, no one knows how to make sense of her. While horrified, no one is surprised when a man does something heinous like that - but a woman!!? Not only is she seen as a mythic monster, but a train that's on completely the wrong track as it were. Because women are soft and fluffy and caring and can never do evil, twisted things. Except they can - because guess what, they're people just like men.

Unfortunately, I was quite close to this case and the original plan WAS to kill Shannon. However, it was altered so that she would be released in Dewsbury Market and Karen's boyfriend would find her (no holes in that plan, oh no!) They eventually decided to give Karen's boyfriend a lesser role. He was later found with images of child abuse on his computer.

What a previous poster said about the local supermarket didn't go quite that way. The large Asda close by gave them the opportunity to fill a trolley for free. They got home and realised there was no booze so went back and asked to do it again and gave this as the reason why.

All that Shannon went through, and those other children. They will be lucky to lead a "normal" life.

I highly doubt a child of Shannon's age would have been adopted. Also there were lots of siblings and they would have tried to keep them together.

Unfortunately now she's over 16 she could have been put out of care and be on her own in some homeless hostel somewhere.

" Unfortunately now she's over 16 she could have been put out of care and be on her own in some homeless hostel somewhere. "

I am afraid this is true,,,let's hope not though.

From a 2011 article it appears the siblings were split.

That's really sad :( to think of the odds of her being an uncared for former-LAC after all the shite she had from her mum

That's the story for most looked after kids.

We just don't hear about them.

"she was on some level a sadistic peadophile before she met Brady. You would have to have been wouldn't you? "

Would you? Were all the people working in concentration camps cruel would-be murderers before they got their jobs?
She never displayed sadism or paedophilia before she met Brady so we just don't know.

I think Shannon went to live with her Dad as far as I recall. When the serious case review was published he went to court to stop the full version being published in order to protect her identity. He won and you can only read a summery of her case.

Concentration camps aren't similar situations - in that case you're talking about a holocaust or a genocide where so many people are involved it is a national/cultural attitude so it becomes 'the norm' and a completely accepted regime. The people involved were in most cases convinced they were doing 'the right thing', that these people were 'lesser', not the same as us and would damage society if not eradicated. And still some people refused to be involved.

In Hindleys case we're talking about a society where the abuse and murder of children is considered the worst crimes that could be imagined. And she went into them willingly. She wasn't a captive, she didn't have a gun held to her head, she could have walked away.

It doesn't really matter whether she would have not committed similar crimes if she hadn't have met Brady. Because she did - and there was clearly a part of her that was capable of sadism and enjoyed being involved in the abuse and murder of children.

The same can be said of Rose West. The same of Ian Watkins co-defendants.

In theory the same obedience to authority could apply to both. Along the lines of milgrams old experiments etc - they weren't captives or threatened in any way either

Or en masse

Milgrams studies aren't really relevant - they were based on a figure of authority that had given societal 'authority' and it was the 'legitimacy' of this figure that the responders were abdicating responsibility to - so someone acting as a superior officer, a Dr etc. The 'teachers' wore white coats which was to suggest education, experience, professional, valid.

An experiment saying using a 'teacher' with no apparent professional legitimacy would have had very different results. Brady was a convicted criminal that Hindley was obsessed with, he had no 'professional legitimacy' that Hindley could be responding to.

If Milgram had an experiment saying 'this random person says to do this or even your partner/Mum/friend says this' then it might be relevant.

And in Milgrams experiments when the responder was required to take physical action as in - not just taking orders and pressing a button to give an electric shock but actually having to hold down the hand of an adult to create that shock, the rates of co- operation dropped hugely.

I'm sure if the instruction was to hold down and strip a terrified child who would soon be murdered, the number of people who did that would be nil. Because it is so rare, it would not be seen in a laboratory experiment.

IMO it doesn't matter in what way the one person views the other as their superior, only that they do.

Rates dropped hugely, but people still did it.

Of course I'm not suggesting that literally anyone would do it, just that the fact that Hindley did participate under those circumstances is not proof that she would have offended without Brady. Because he was that authority figure to her.