General Chat

How can this woman think she has the right to sue social services


THE drug-addicted mother of the torture case brothers is prepared to sue social services chiefs for £100,000 – because they did not take the evil pair into care sooner.


Police are investigating the boys’ “toxic” home life to see if the parents can also be brought to book.

But the 36-year-old mother-of-seven has said she will go to court if she is prosecuted for neglect.

She claims she complained to social workers that the brothers were out of control for two years before their assault on two boys aged nine and 11.

In the end, she said she had to threaten to kill herself to get them to act.

Social workers finally took the 10 and 11-year-old into care after their mother told them: “I don’t want to be here any more. I feel like doing something to myself. I can’t cope.”

But with local child services at breaking point after the deaths of seven children on the “at risk” register, the brothers were placed with an elderly couple in Edlington, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire.

They were unable to cope and the pair went on a reign of terror which culminated three weeks later with the victims being put through a sadistic two-hour sex torture ordeal.

Last week, the boys were told they will be able to apply for release in just four years.

Until then it will cost taxpayers £480,000 a year to keep them in special child offender units.

An internal inquiry showed children’s services in Doncaster had missed 31 chances to halt them before the horror attack.

The parents of the brothers’ victims announced last weekend that they are planning to sue social services for negligence.


Kathy

These people sue Kathy, because they can......they are advised of their rights........if only the same consideration could be given to victims.....

We have to foot the bill for all this....

I just wrote a big responce to this thread and clicked, Whoose it went and it is to late to say it all again, so I will just say,
She has a Bl***y nerve.

Diane

Typical of the stupid woman's attitude to life, no wonder her kids are so awful. I did read somewhere that there is already an appeal for the lads sentences to be increased so that they are not young teens when they get out, and just as likely to go after their victims again.

Let's hope common sense prevails - this woman would get legal aid to sue and it's not right she should make money, she should be locked up as well and the father too.

Shows the state of this country, Kathy, so much wrong with our justice system and our social services too.

Lizx

Of course it is nothing to do with her parenting!! And she is a good role model !!! (In case it is not obvious I am being sarcastic)
She should not be allowed to sue anyone for the lack of care/neglect for HER children, pot and kettle spring to mind there.

The sentence should be a lot longer,

Liz

I cannot believe the nerve of this woman but bet someone is pushing her to claim as they will also make money from it. All these ads on television telling people to claim this that and the other in damages,.
You would think that she would want to hide her self away with the shame of it all.
Jill

We shouldn't be suprised. With the stupid system we have now that anyone can sue for anything e.g. bed to hard in prison.
If she goes ahead and gets legal aid then all expenses should be deducted from the amount she gets. I also think perhaps the victims should sue her.

You are right Jill, the sooner they do something about the no win no pay situation with claiming the better. She should not be allowed to sue, but I bet she will, especially if the victims parents sue. and you and I will then be fuelling her drug habit.

She is trying to pass the buck ,and make some too !! for her bad parenting. she was part of the awful way these children were brought up .or rather they way they brought themselves up in the terrible "home! life they survived in

Parents should serve the same sentence as the children, I know that is not the law, but to me makes sense.

gail

The parents are ultimatley to blame for there childrens actions, its unfair of them to pass the buck which unfortuanlty too many parents of vile children do, these kids aren't born bad they just reflect their homelife, violence breeds violence.

These kids must have had one hell of an upbringing to be as sadistic as they are.


The parents can blame social services all day long and yes they do make mistakes but the care and nurtering of those children was the parents responsibilty not social services.

As always, the parents get away with being useless role models, she will probably go on to have more kids, she should be sterilised and the father too.

Lizx

Hello All,

Why not let this woman exercise her ''human rights' and sue whoever she likes!! If she does, this would be heard in 'open court' and therefore she will be both named and shamed. In general these claims go before a jury, and what sensible body of "twelve good men and true" would ever award her any kind of compensation??
ALL the facts would have to come out, she wouldn't be able to hide behind anonymity, the world would then know exactly how she "brought up" her children.
I feel so terribly sad for the innocent children who were abused by these two, and even more sad for their parents who will be left wondering what they should have done to protect them.
Siouxie

I agree with everything that has been said, and I like the idea of sentencing the parents too. But, on some occasions it is genuinely not the parents fault. Children from good homes go bad too.

Ah, the Daily Mail and its fans ...


http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jan/25/edlington-torture-doncaster-council-investigation

A serious case review into the brothers' dealings with a range of agencies concluded the incident was preventable. The council's children's services were already under fire following a series of deaths of youngsters known to the authority.

Today the Audit Commission announced it will carry out a corporate governance inspection of the council. These inspections are undertaken only rarely, when a council is deemed to be failing, or when its performance has been so persistently poor that public confidence or safety is at risk.

Last week, the two brothers, who were 10 and 11 at the time of the attack on the boys, aged nine and 11, were jailed indefinitely by a judge at Sheffield crown court who told them they must serve at least five years in custody.

The case provoked widespread criticism of agencies involved with the family in Doncaster and the executive summary of the serious case review revealed that the attack could have been prevented.

It included 18 recommendations for improving practice, with a catalogue of criticism of authorities' conduct in failing to protect the victims.

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10 and 11 years old. Yes, let's lock them up for life. Or maybe bring back hanging.

As I read it, the mother said she would sue IF she is prosecuted.

There really does have to be a basis for suing -- some damages for which one seeks compensation. If she isn't prosecuted, I don't see any. If she is, she has an arguable case.

There is universal agreement it seems -- the authorities **could have prevented** the crimes if they had done their job.


What solutions does anyone here have to offer, to problems like these kids?

Take away children at birth if we don't like the cut of the parents' jib?

Take away all children whose parents use drugs or alcohol to excess?

Will there be any children left in their own homes at the end of it?

And will all the hand-wringers be happily paying the taxes to keep the children in foster homes or institutions? Or maybe fostering them, themselves ...


Children suffer the consequences of many social problems. These kids certainly did. What must a child's life have been like for it to commit such acts?

"It emerged during the court case that the elder attacker watched ultra-violent movies as part of a home life of 'routine aggression, violence and chaos'. He also watched the gruesome Saw movies when he was as young as 10, and was familiar with the Chucky films, as well as pornography DVDs."

These children SHOULD have been removed. They weren't. Whose fault? Theirs?


I'm sure the parents themselves had model parents, and were reared in atmospheres of love and affection and wanted for nothing ...

I'm sorry but to have seven children and then complain that you can't cope seems a bit odd.

Surely you would realise sooner - after one or two children - and then do everything in your power - and I mean everything - not to have more.

Silly woman.

Jill

Ms. G -- a bit odd ... so how do you explain it?

Are some people just born evil, causing them to become drug addicts and have 7 children and raise them in violence and chaos?

Or born "silly", causing them to do it?


I can't imagine doing any of those things. I was born *lucky*: my parents weren't drunks, my father had a job, I didn't live in a slum, I was instilled with enough feelings of self-worth to believe abusive men were not worthy of me, I was exposed to the ideas of women making our own choices and controlling our own fertility (and was not taught that contraception was a mortal sin) ...

Somehow I doubt that the woman in question had much of that luck.

It might go a very small way to preventing children seeing films like Chucky, and many others, if we had any sort of censorship that prevented them being made in the first place. We used to have a film censor.......and we used to have the late Mary Whitehouse too.

Maybe we are all supposed to have 'moved on' and be adult enough to not need someone telling us that some things are just not nice.........but, it seems not. It has been said that films/magazines/tv programmes with sex and violence in them do not influence people because people know that they are not real,...are just stories...........if this is so, why is an enormous amount of money spent by companies on advertising their products......surely they would not bother if no-one believed in them or bought them.....if people are influenced by advertising, then they are influenced by other things that they see too.......why have they stopped the advertising of cigarettes..........because cigarettes are bad for people of course.........how much more so then are images of extreme violence and sex.........One hopes that a good proportion of adults can tell that a particular brand of toothpaste or hair product is not actually going to change their lives, but what about the less intelligent adult.........and what about the children of that adult. If advertising makes people buy into a particular brand or culture, then so will advertising crime/violence/porn etc..it is all advertising in the end.

Eileen
birth name

I think I was basing it more on personal experience Janey. I realised after having my son that I was not one of life's "natural" mothers. I love my son and we have a really good relationship and considering I was a single parent through much of his childhood/adolescence he has turned out to be someone I can be very proud of, but, if I had my chance to go back and change things - would I? I would have to give that serious thought.

I don't consider myself a bad mother, but, I used to look around at all the other mums who seemed so happy and contented and I'd think "But babies - they're sooo boring!" I still think babies are boring, but young children, teenagers, young adults are not - aggravating sometimes - but usually fun or at least interesting.

So, looking at my view on my life, in her shoes - I would have moved heaven and earth to not have more than the one child ... I would have done anything not to have had more than the one child. No way would I have had seven children! (I personally managed to stop at just the one)

So she had a rough deal, a poor upbringing ... maybe. But if she'd paid a smidgeon of attention at school, or from her mates, she would have learnt of birth control at least. And yes, it's not infallible, but it goes some way to stopping at least a few of those pregnancies.

And I still think that having 7 children and then saying "I can't cope" is a bit bizarre. She probably couldn't cope from the first child.

Jill

I dunno, Ms.G. I'm still left wondering what the explanation for such behaviours might be.

Of course you or I would not have gone on down the road she took. I can only speak for me, and I know I would never have started on it. Although, had I had an unintended and unwanted youthful pregnancy and been unable to terminate it, say, I know I could not have relinquished a child, and my life might have taken a rather unhappy turn, had I been a single mother with little schooling. Or I might have felt I had not choice but to relinquish, and been miserable about it ever after.

Imagining what one might do in someone else's shoes doesn't really mean putting someone else's shoes on but still being one's self. It means being that person. I know nothing more about her or what prompted her to make the choices she made. I just imagine that there must be some reason why people make choices that are so obviously going to turn out so badly.

Who would really choose to be the drug-addicted mother of seven living in a home where there was constant aggression and violence??

I quite agree that she probably couldn't cope from after, or before, the first child.

I had a neighbour about 25 years ago who had a young son about 7 who was not particularly well-behaved, an intellectually disabled daughter about 10, and an elderly and obviously declining father. She also had two dogs, which she allowed to run loose, and which constantly chased cars that came to a stop at the intersection directly in front of the duplex where I lived, and had my office (the very first months I was in law practice), on the second floor.

One day, in complete exasperation and incomprehension, and after numerous requests and complaints about the dogs, I asked her: How can *you* stand it??

Do you have kids? she asked.
Hm, I thought. Well, I'll play: No, I answered.
Well, she said, If you can put up with the kids, you can put up with the dogs.

And there you are, I thought. A philosophy to live by.

Unfortunately, it really is the philosophy that a lot of people live by. You just put up. And many of them are pretty much right: they just don't have the resources or the power to do anything about their circumstances.

Or I dunno, maybe all drug addicts and social assistance recipients and violent 10-yr-olds really were born evil, or lazy, or both ...