I’m quite accustomed by now to being governed by a legislature that doesn’t draught and scrutinise most of the laws it passes, and which refuses to enforce most of the few good ones evenly and consistently, and which breaks the inconvenient ones at will.
I’m aware that my life and the lives of those whom I love are being defended by brave people who have not been equipped with enough of what they need to do that very simple job. I’m angry about it and I won’t stop criticizing the paymasters, but I can eat a meal while blogging about that anger.
I don’t expect that the children of most of my friends will receive an education anywhere near as deep and as long lasting as I was privileged to receive from the State and I’ll go on bewailing the fact, and get to sleep easily enough afterwards.
Not everything is political.
Some bad things just happen, and it’s difficult to imagine how anything like a free society could prevent a few deranged individuals from committing certain terrible crimes. Some things are simply sad, and there’s nothing to be done to prevent them.
A minority of mothers have killed their children throughout history.
Madness; either permanent or made by the extra demands of parenthood during times immeasurably harder than our own, have led wretched women to batter, smother, strangle, drown, expose or stab their offspring as long, almost, as records exist - and even before.
In some cases it seems that dire necessity and collective security might have inspired (or rather tempted) some women to kill their children. Sometimes even, it was a sacrifice: a bribe to the cruel heavens to buy some value higher than the value of a child’s life.
Each death is a tragedy: a tiny person gone and a whole wide world and a potentially long life of experience lost forever.
Here’s one.
Wirral mum admits killing her four-year-old daughter
A MERSEYSIDE mum today admitted killing her four-year-old daughter.
Little Chloe Fletcher was found dead in her Wallasey home after a phone call to police in the early hours of Wednesday, April 29.
Today at
Andrew Menary, prosecuting, said at the time she was “suffering from serious mental illness”.
Fletcher’s “not guilty” plea to murder was accepted by the prosecution.
Neil Flewitt, defending Fletcher, said his client was aware she could face a term of imprisonment.
Fletcher called police on the night of the killing from a phone box close to her
When officers arrived they spoke to the defendant before she directed them upstairs.
In a bedroom they found Chloe on a bed with a soft toy by her side.
She was pale and cold to the touch and had three bruises on her forehead
She was fully dressed but was also wearing a dressing gown.
The bathroom door was open, the light on and the bath full of water.
A post-mortem confirmed the cause of death as drowning.
Judge Henry Globe QC, Recorder of
Neighbours described Chloe as a “cute girl, with beautiful blonde curls.”
Floral tributes and cuddly toys were left outside the red semi-detached home where she lived with her mother after news of her death began to spread.
Chloe had recently started at nearby Oakdale nursery where owner
In the aftermath of Chloe’s death Wirral council confirmed the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) had commissioned a “Serious Case Review”, to investigate the agencies involved.
The council admitted Chloe was “known to a number of agencies”.
There’s just one thing that this recently rebuked self-proclaimed social commentator might add to this awful story.
“…The council admitted Chloe was “known to a number of agencies”.
Often, madness and depression do not appear overnight and they are rarely invisible to trained professionals. It is probable that health visitors and others from “a number of agencies” had at least seen the pitiful and pitiless Laura Fletcher before Chloe’s death. To what extent might her malign state of mind have been visible?
On the one hand, our taxes and our patience and forbearance are called upon to finance and tolerate a huge and sometimes intrusive bureaucracy of ‘child protection,’ and we’re told it needs massive funding to work properly.
On the other hand, it appears you can intercept and deal with potential child abusers for the simple sum of £30.
And yet again, on the quiet, “Chloe was “known to a number of agencies”.
Lessons, no doubt will be learned, and maybe they’ll discover that Laura Fletcher ‘just snapped.’ Is it likely that they’ll find just who it was decided not to learn the lessons of Victoria Climbié, Baby P, and all? They’ll likely as not blame the ‘systems’ and put some new ones ‘in place’.
I’ll bet it’s not an individual.
Individuals are silly.
Individuals pay taxes.
Individuals fill in forms for the system.
Individuals do what they’re told.
Individuals don’t burn down public buildings full of people who didn’t do their jobs.
Individuals dream.
