Decent post.

The kids involved never had a chance and the parents should indeed be held at least partly responsible.

Agreed, there is absolutely no point in blaming abused children – their behaviour merely reflects the extent of the violence they have been exposed to themselves.

Millions will now be spent mopping up the aftermath of this crime – needless to say not everybody is happy about it;
http://www.gopetition.co.uk/online/30126.html

Mind you I suspect the parents of the Edlington boys were abused themselves – I cannot envisage a time when the cycle of depravity will be ever be broken – perhaps the new mayor of Doncaster can sort it out?

Mind you I suspect the parents of the Edlington boys were abused themselves

Yes, I thought about mentioning this, and while it may be true, whatever has happened in their past they have responsibilities, they are adults and able to make decisions. Their own upbringing may be a mitigating factor but it is only that, it is not a “get out of jail free” card.

Before the shit-storm gets under way, one highly pedantic point:

“have quite literally been demonised by the mass media, with The Sun dubbing them ‘the Devil Brothers’.”

They weren’t literally demonised. They were metaphorically demonised. To be literally demonised it would have been necessary for the mass media to physically turn them into demons. You know, literally. Demonisation is, by definition, something that can only happen metaphorically, given that demons don’t actually exist.

Unless you know something about metaphysics and the Bible that I don’t, of course…

(sorry)

Good post.

Quite right, Paul. As a pedant myself, I can, and in fact do, know better. I’ll change the word.

I’d say their parents literally demonised them.

Or on the other hand, maybe I was right first time. To demonise means ‘to represent as diabolically evil’ and that is literally what happens. But ,… whatever.

Excellent post.

Good post. We’ll no doubt have have acres of ‘broken Britaln’ bullshit from the Right, and a smaller but equally bullshit attempt to blame Thatcher on the Left, but exceptional events are just that.

If you say social and economic factors are the cause, then all families on such low incomes should produce such children. The fact that the parents took large amounts of cannabis and drunk extensively no doubt made the situation far worse.
If the parents had not spent so much money on cannabis and alcohol they would have been in a better position to look after their children.

We’ve already had Mad Mel pin the blame for this on single parent families and the welfare state.

“Children are being born to lone mothers who were themselves raised in shattered homes by mothers who in turn came from identical backgrounds. The outcome is households in which children are neglected and maltreated, subjected to drug and alcohol abuse, violence and emotional chaos; and where the cruelty and indifference they endure is often translated into the sadistic way they treat others”

“For the past three decades, warnings that the disintegration of the family would result in social catastrophe were brushed aside. What was deemed more important was never to hurt the feelings of those living in fragmented households and to throw welfare benefits at them instead.”

“Those who objected that this merely fuelled family breakdown were told they were cruel and heartless because depriving such families of welfare benefits would harm the children.”

“Now in Edlington we can all see the result: four child victims, two of them horrifically attacked and tortured by two others whose very humanity has been taken away from them.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1211620/MELANIE-PHILLIPS.html#ixzz0QRbVKjUK

Conveniently forgetting that earlier in the article she had said that “their father is a drunken brute, who regularly beat them and forced them to watch violent horror films”. So this wasn’t a single-parent family all the time then? Does she think that the outcome might have been better if the “drunken brute” stayed within the house, to provide the children with a father figure? Should the state have financially incentivised the mother to accept the beatings from her partner for herself and her children as the “cost of a stable family” and prevented her cutting him out of her life? Is she serious?

Also – as is always the case – forgetting the fact that violent and horrific crime such as this occurred prior to the creation of the welfare state in the 1950s, the liberalisation of social attitudes and widespread availability of contraception in the 1960s and the large increase in single parenthood in the 1980s and 1990s. And the fact that countries with minimal welfare states also experience high crime, even if they are packed full of good Christians (e.g. the US).

Charlie2 @12: “If you say social and economic factors are the cause, then all families on such low incomes should produce such children.”

I think that sli @4 already addressed most of your point.

Social and economic factors were *a* cause, but they were not the only element. Others have speculated that the parents may have been previously brutalised, but that is just hypothesis. Nor do we have any information at this stage about the investigations being conducted by criminologists, psychologists, psychiatrists and practical social workers into the circumstances of this horror.

What we do have is two offending children who deserve the chance for rehabilitation and a social services department under the microscope. Neither exercise will be productive if it is conducted with a closed mind.

These 2 were being fostered at the time too. Obviously, not knowing the full details but on the face of it, I’d have suspected they should have been separated as they were on bail for previous incidents. They obviously need to be banged up but, as mentioned, charges should also be made on the parents.

[14] “What we do have is two offending children who deserve the chance for rehabilitation”

As do the traumatised 9 & 11 year old boys who were tortured – I wonder if they will receive a comparable level of state assistance?

“They weren’t literally demonised. They were metaphorically demonised”

How about their parents demoniacally metamorphosed them into metaphorical demons?

Or just…. their parents ” fucked them up”?

Not a huge fan of Larkin but he comes into his own when Liberals start getting pedantic.

Incidentally….I’m assuming Venables and Thompson are the subject of a court order protecting their identities…when you write…

“IN ALL likelihood, the workmates and neighbours of two twentysomethings formerly known as Robert Thompson and Jon Venables do not realise with whom they are associating.”

…how do we know they are ‘reformed’ at all? Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the article…I don’t want to ‘demonise’ anyone and I hope and assume Venables and Thompson are leading useful and productive lives or, at the very least, not bothering anyone but if either of them had been violent…imprisoned even…would we ever find out? Genuinely curious.

I was living very near Bootle at the time and I still don’t know which caused me more grief…Jamie Bulger’s murder or the knuckle dragging twats attacking the police vans.

“Forced adoption is even now an option and should remain one, but it needs to be seen as a last resort, and not the default position at the first sign of trouble in a family.”

I’m also curious about this? I know little of Martin Narey..but I doubt you get to be head of Barnardos if you’re some kinda social conservative “bring back the workhouse” type. I’m guessing this is a statement he’s after much soul searching and a review of the available data…furthermore, I’d say he’ll now be shunned by many in the social services and social sciences generally…unless he had cast-iron overwhelming evidence I doubt he’d have make this call. I’m also sure that the longer you leave it the worse the harm and the greater the likelihood that it can’t be significantly reversed. I mean how long do you leave it when a matter of a few weeks months could mean the damage is hard-wired.

I’ll probably google him now and find out Martin Narey’s a ravin right wing loon.

“But proponents of this view – such as Barnardo’s chief executive Martin Narey – seem to forget that the Devil Brothers were already under the care of social services at the time of the attack.”

Proving what exactly ? Other than that “under the care of social workers” is meaningless and probably amounts to little more than a 10 minute vist one a fortnight and/or that the majority social services interventions are ineffective ?

Either way, you contradict yourself when you say this:

“The emphasis needs to be on repairing these obviously damaged children, and little purpose is served in keeping them banged up for life”.

Assumes that they can be “repaired” which is both arrogant, and based on empirical evidence, very unlikely – all the evidence is that psychological damage inflicted in childhood is manifest behaviourally throughout adult life.

“So while the maximum sentence for grievous bodily harm with intent is life imprisonment, it would in this instance be inappropriate to impose it”.

Inappropriate on what basis and who decides ? If they are capable of comitting the crime they should be capable of taking the punishment

[18] irredeemable, eh?

Then perhaps you would like us to adopt some of the methods used in the USA such as child execution?
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=15118

Or a mini-guantanamo, perhaps?

@the a&e charge nurse: points about survivors naturally acknowledged.

“Or on the other hand, maybe I was right first time. To demonise means ‘to represent as diabolically evil’ and that is literally what happens. But ,… whatever.”

I guess it turns on the ambiguity of the word “literally”.

If you meant by literally “the act of committing something to literature” (i.e. writing it down), then yes, in representing the boys as diabolically evil through the printed word, then the media did literally demonise them.

But if you meant – as I suspect you did – literally in the sense of “it is actually happening”, then to “literally demonise” is still oxymoronic because “demonsise” contains within its meaning “to represent” whereas “literally” means “actually happening”…

Yes, I am just doing this to annoy you, Monkeyfish. Like everything else I do in my life, it’s all designed just to annoy you. You. You. Everything is about you. And your anger.

“Yes, I am just doing this to annoy you, Monkeyfish. Like everything else I do in my life, it’s all designed just to annoy you.”

I’m glad you’ve finally found the strength to admit you’ve got a problem. It’s the first step..in fact, the vital step…without it you can never begin to reform

Hope you noticed, by the way, I haven’t actually had a personal dig about you’re background in the last couple of posts…

It’s not you anyway…you’re just a cipher for all those moralising liberals out there which, for all I know,you may even regard as a compliment…I just think it’s a bit rich trying to trump other people’s views by first laying down what you regard as a cast iron moral argument and assuming it renders you impervious to criticism or at least rendering that criticism cynical and motivated by petty self interest…(we’re talking the immigration thread here)…when those doing the criticisng are expected to make sacrifices to which you are immune. However, I won’t get all ‘abusive’ on ya…I’ll just leave you with a quote

“A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite”

Oscar Wilde

Time for the all-purpose leader once more :

The natural horror felt at (insert appalling crime here) should not blind us to the fact that (crime is actually falling/it is all Thatcher’s fault/such crimes have always been with us).

If we surrender to (the tabloid agenda/the Daily Mail hysteria/knee-jerk populism/the politics of the soundbite) and take the easy option of (jailing more of our young people/bringing back the birch/bringing back hanging/walling off the cities then bombing them/demonising our young people) we run the very real risk of (actually achieving something/alienating a generation/an invasion of killer bees).

There is only one answer. An enormous increase in the funding of (Sure Start schemes/outreach workers/emotional intelligence mentors/youth projects/anti-racist 5-a-day smoking cessation co-ordinators).

@ 19 The point I was making is that it’s supreme arrogance to assume that anyone can undo years of abuse, why should they be able to ?
No particular course of action follows from that conclusion other than that it takes away the explanation that all criminals are simply passive victims of their surroundings and thus abrogated of any personal responsibility.
The poster was suggesting that they could somewhow be repaired (which if it were true I would agree with to an extent) but my contention is that they, nor anyone else can be “repaired” and that his argument is therefore bullshit,

#24

Whereas any remotely rational observer of the (irretrievably broken society/ socialist dystopia/ dumbed down asbo-emporium/ namby pamby liberal playgroup nation) knows in their marrow that (hangin’s too good for them/ they should bring back conscription/ thing’s ain’t been the same since the workhouses went/ it’s the only language they understand/ women’s place is in the kitchen).

After all, I was one of sixteen kids and we lived in an upturned bucket but we didn’t (sit around all day watching Jeremy Kyle smoking killer skunkweed/ beat up one legged war heroes/ get pregnant at the age of eight/ put our elbows on the table).

Bring back the 50’s that what I say… God save the queen, Listen with Mother and Sunday every day of the week. Kid’s these days don’t know they’re born, if I had my way I’d shoot the lot of them…maybe just kneecap the good ones if they talk proper and show a bit of respect.

Or maybe…there’s an alternative to the eternal shit-slinging, question-begging “debate” between raving, Mail-reading, right-wing buffoons and milquetoast, relativist, “understand a little more”, self-hating liberals….drumroll…Socialism…not the vaguely left-liberal, pale, social constructivist, Freudian, Guardianista, middle-class imitation…but the genuine “buck stops here”, “go on then Mr Brain-Drain merchant banker..shut the door behind you” social equality type…worth a try…no?

[25] “The point I was making is that it’s supreme arrogance to assume that anyone can undo years of abuse” – but further abuse of already damaged children by the state is not the answer either.

Right, going to just walk into the hornet’s nest.

“Mind you I suspect the parents of the Edlington boys were abused themselves – I cannot envisage a time when the cycle of depravity will be ever be broken – perhaps the new mayor of Doncaster can sort it out?”

Well, what about for them not to have kids? Martin Narey is on about taking babies into care at birth. But we all know that those who grew up in care have a shite time of things. What, then, about abortion? If this mother had said when pregnant “Look, this is a bad idea. I’m not a parent. I can’t do it” would right-whingers have demanded that she eb compelled to give birth?

You look at something like Freakonomics, it’s all laid out there. No, it isn’t a pleasant thing to consider but it’s hardly enjoyable to think about the conditions a lot of kids lived in. I am from a quite badly off background on an estate, but having a stable & loving family helped to overcome the financial disadvantages I had & my natural ability got me through the education barrier (though I am actually, at 24, earning less than my parents).

It is always a mixture of people & you can’t just sit there slagging off every single parent, everyone on benefits, every immigrant, etc. But some people are just going to be shit parents & shouldn’t have kids. I don’t think care or adoption can do that much given that there aren’t so many would-be adoptive parents & inherited low intelligence will inevitably take its toll on those who are born with it.

In Laban’s world, it wouldn’t be psychos torturing and butchering people, it’d be the state.

Aye- I am reminded of why I fucking dislike social conservatives.

asquith

#… inherited low intelligence will inevitably take its toll on those who are born with it.#

Those fuckin’ useless Epsilons…should be stacking shelves and collecting shopping trolleys like God intended….bloody welfare state.

Why deny it?

We will have fewer & fewer unskilled job vacancies in the decades to come, so we’d better prepare for it now.

Besides, I have no objection to the principle of a welfare state & am not even an especially radical opponent of the way it exists, because the sort of “reforms” suggested by Purnell etc (which I am against) would harm too many people.

But to simply be glib about unfit parents knocking out babies left, right & centre isn’t going to help anyone.

I propose that the parents of all those deemed to be at risk should have to submit them for medical observation on a regular basis, so that the likes of Baby P’s “guardians” would no longer be able to inflict injuries on their wards & go unnoticed. There are too many horror stories of people intimidating social workers who visit them, so it should be at a neutral venue. Also, advice & any practical help could be provided.

But have you never asked yourself what the fuck some people are doing having them in the first place? We pay their benefits, & we all have a fairly obvious interest in preventing child abuse, so it is doubly our business.

If you say social and economic factors are the cause, then all families on such low incomes should produce such children.

Of course not, not everyone faced with similar circumstances will react in the same way. But what you can safely say is that certain circumstances increase the probability of certain outcomes.

I think that’s called projection, Larry.

#26 “Socialism…not the vaguely left-liberal, pale, social constructivist, Freudian, Guardianista, middle-class imitation…but the genuine “buck stops here”, “go on then Mr Brain-Drain merchant banker..shut the door behind you” social equality type…worth a try…no?”

Absolutely. Clem for PM !

The trouble is that the Welfare State was designed for Attlee’s people, 1947 Brits. I don’t think he, Ernie Bevin or even Nye Bevan would be terribly chuffed at how it’s turned out.

What is the greatest abomination, ‘vetting’ all prospective parents (perhaps producing a sort of parental driving license once they have demonstrated a few of the basics), or accepting that a percentage will continue to abuse their children, sometimes in the most horrible way imaginable?

It seems that little can be done to prevent the next tragedy until it is either too late (as Matt Munro implies -18) or the child suffers the same fate as Baby P.

The kind of deprivation typified in places like Edlington is all too common I’m afraid – certainly there are some parts of London I would not feel safe in at 2 o’clock in the morning, hell even Tesco won’t go there.
http://www.davidlammy.co.uk/da/94233

Time for a musical interlude – perhaps it will lighten the gloom?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChWs1d5kots

I think that’s called projection, Larry.

Not really, Laban, it’s called having spent too much time reading your blog:

“I thought that the Taleban were as good a government as Afghanistan could reasonably expect, modern Puritans…. Sure, their views on women and homosexuals wouldn’t go down well in Islington, but by their lights they were a pretty good bunch.”

Your views on law & order go some distance beyond simple hanging ‘n’ flogging.

Interesting though – most social conservatives pine for the 1950s, but you long for the middle ages.

“The trouble is that the Welfare State was designed for Attlee’s people, 1947 Brits. I don’t think he, Ernie Bevin or even Nye Bevan would be terribly chuffed at how it’s turned out.”

Yes, because at that time any man who was physically capable of working could earn a decent living at an honest job, so people didn’t live on benefits or commit crimes. And what’s changed since then? Have we all somehow become genetically deformed, or are we still reeling from Thatcher’s assault on working-class life, faithfully followed by her henchmen ever since 1990?

Instead of attacking immigrants, homosexuals and whatever, why not put the blame where it belongs? Because you’re too fucking scared of confronting the fact that your right-wing libertarianism fails. On every measure Thatcherism has failed.

Manufacturing and mining replaced by a “service economy” of people selling each other fucking tat- no longer.
Encouragement of city banker scum- “encourage the risk takers”, “celebrate high salaries”- what the fuck became of that then?
Right to buy- which Tories wanked over endlessly- now means people can’t get a council house or afford a property of their own.

Every one of your showpiece policies has fucked up.

The problem with the 70s was that the system rested on state bureaucracy rather than workers’ control. But now, that the government has been forced to nationalise industries, why not manage them properly so we don’t blunder into the same trap? Brown, turncoat Tory that he is, is just making the world safe for his pals rather than benefiting the working class. But I say that one-term Cameron, if he has any sense, won’t want to become Prime Minister because it will finally become undeniable that the system he supports doesn’t fucking work, and he and his heroine will see it dismantled.

@37 and Larry Teabag:

Excellent take down my good man.

Apparently the decline in the number of health visitors who visited all pregnant mthers and those who have just given birth, has only made identifying problem cases even more difficult.

I think that’s correct Charlie2 [40] – some have 1,000 children on their list.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7621602.stm

But if we look at risk factors (perm any combination from social isolation, dreadful housing, drug/alcohol problems, violent partner, history of crime, etc) then we are talking about a very sizable cohort of families, especially in places like Edlington – that’s one of the main problems in my opinion.

If we lower the risk threshold what would we do with all of the kids forcibly removed from abusive parents?
On the other hand the evidence for the state acting as pseudo-parents hardly inspires confidence.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/04/time_to_bring_back_childrens_h.html

More adoption before the age of 1, parenting classes for parents and state boarding schools may help to reduce the problems.

38 spot-on
Despite it now becoming a cliche, many of today’s social and economic problems can be laid at Thatcher’s door;- the welfare system was closely aligned to economic policy and was quite liberal (classical liberalism), it drew on the same philosophy as The New Poor Law of 1834, – it was a disincentive to be idle.But operating within a policy of full employment, it wasn’t necessary to be unemployed as the many available jobs provided a family income (I am aware that women were discriminated against. but this is another debate)
Thatcher’s change of economic policy towards monetarism shoud have caused a radical change in the welfare state, although this is what she promised and her government made a few piece-meal attempts, she ended-up bottling-out.
What we have left is a culture of materialism to appease all of those greedy individuals, no trickle-down, there is a widening gap between the richest and the poorest, and a whole generation of white working-class males. who would have traditionally found skilled/unskilled jobs or even apprenticeships, instead they have temporary, piss-poor jobs in McDonalds or some other service job (more than 30percent of those workers claim tax-credits), but you have to be a parent to receive those. There is a growing drugs culture within that generation, no doubt to kill the pain of anomie, marginalization and a lack of direction.
Of course, not all children end-up doing what these two young boys did, no doubt a brutal father and a mother who fed them cannibas, also contributed to it.
post 32 – will, however, represent the views of the’ majority’, (no doubt the Major of Doncaster will already have noted much of this)
As I have said before, when you hear the word ’sterilization’, be very very afraid.

[43] steveB – are you saying that even the most rudimentary family values are entirely dependent on economics?

I have heard it said that a certain kind of dignity, and dare I say happiness, can be found amongst some of the poorest communities on the planet (rural Africa, India, etc).
It may just be bullshit, of course – perhaps child tortures are common to all societies?

45
There is quite a lot of literature out there which shows how civil society breaks down in times of economic need.
But, the main point of my argument is that working-class boys cannot participate within the dominant materialist culture (anomie), in rural Africa and India all are poor.- relative poverty versus absolute poverty.
But if we want to look at poverty in the UK, thousands of children were abandoned in Victorian London because their family could not afford to keep them, hence the emergence of Barnardos’ Homes. The idealized representation of family and family values in the 19th century tended to be aimed at a middle-class audience.

38 david brough. The unions and the left failed to see the change in technology and the rise of Japan as a manufacturing nation in the 60s. If the strikes in the shipyards had not been so extensive ( The Clyde), the rise of Japan as a ship building nation in the 60s may not have occurred. The left failed to realise the future lay with high value manufacturing requiring a skilled working class.
Jack Hones and the TGWU did not want a skilled work force as two thirds of the TUC was unskilled and semiskilled people. A skilled workforce would have seen the demise of the semi and unskilled unions and the rise in power of the EETPU, AEU and other skilled unions. The advance in technology means electrical and electronic and precision manufacturing skills become far more important. If one looks at buildings , in the 60s the majority of the costs would have been the phsical structure; as lifts , climate control and compter systems become more important , the electrical and mechanical aspects of the building services become far more important. The hod carrier becomes obsolete and and the craftsmen/technicians installing electro-mechanical equipment become vital.

Many of the strikes were demarcation strikes between various unions trying to obtain dominance over each other. One of the reasons why the chemical industry had relatively few strikes was that it required a much more highly skilled workforce , a mistake could lead to a fire and/or an explosion.

From the time of the agricultural and industrial revolutions , new technologies have replaced the need for much unskilled and semi-skilled labour which the left have failed to realise. It would be interesting to know which members of the left have been accurate in assessing the advances in technology and rise in new industrial ised countries and the impact on patterns of employment in this country. Did any of the left warn about the threat of Japan to the UK’s shipbuilding and car production industries in he 60s? If they failed in this, then they should stop talking about Thatcher and start developing the technology which will employ the working class in well paid and secure jobs in high value manufacturing.

46 In the 1950s and 1960s Japanese industry benefitted from enormous inward investment from the USA plus a huge government subsidy, they were definately one country which gained from unequal international development. Moreover, they also then gained from economy of scale, consequently, the mass production of technology and cars to serve an internal market helped lower (massivly) the cost of goods to export. Also Japan protected its’ markets for many years. Another factor was that Japan was banned from creating weapons while the UK entered into a cold war with Russia and made huge commitments to NATO
Industrialization did indeed create new technology and perhaps the unfortunate aspect of industrialization in the UK is that we were able to get a clear run at it unfettered by competition (all of our competitors were locked in revolutionary turmoil), this probably created a culture of over-confidence.
Finally, WW2 almost bankrupted us, it cost over a thrrd of our gold reserves,, and investment in steel, ship-building and manufacturing was minimal, several writers have noted that we won the war and lost the peace.
Nonetheless, the UK managed to build-up state ownership of many industries and a massive number of social housing, Thatcher sold all of this and instead of attempting to modernise existing industries she destroyed them.

Only those who dare whisper the word ‘eugenics’ would suggest castrating daddy and ripping the fallopians out of mummy.

CRIME PREVENTION #101

Hand these boys over to sadistic gay pedos.

Film the encounter, complete with sound-track.

Show the film in all schools.

Ought to work!

Fuck off, Maggot.

when you hear the word ’sterilization’ be very very afraid.

Maggot=binky methinks.

Oh dear.

Funnily enough, I think that sterilisation is a damn good idea. Not permanent, but if you offer 20 quid for a shot of depo-provera every 3 months or so, you’d see the rate of unwanted pregnancies drop.