Child Homicides – an uncomfortable truth
(Pressing the button above will show the original articles, with the figures and graphs intact.)
USA National Incidence Study Child Abuse and Neglect NIS-4
mother-hazard-father-hazard
Are unmanaged conflicts of interest hazardous to our children and our wealth?

Posted on November 13, 2010 by rwhiston

News this week that Birmingham’s children’s social services have been adjudged as “inadequate” should come as no surprise. For ten years, Birmingham and a host of other authorities such as Haringey, have hung on by their figures tips and have survived despite incompetency and an absence of proficiency.

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Mr. Loughton’s style is said to be to spend a lot of time speaking face-to-face with key figures and frontline practitioners – which can only be a good attribute.

In terms of policy he has made it clear that there is a “need to go through everything in the department’s budget to make sure it is justified”, which, bearing in mind the Victoria Climbie and Baby P affairs – and all the in-between fiascos – mount up to a formidable task for any new government and any new minister.

This brings us to a juncture that should concern many, and one that it is not spoken of, namely, what if the organisations the minister is speaking to are not representative ?

What if they are working to their own agenda ? How will he know their information can be trusted and their proficiency unassailable ?

The recent arrest of female paedophiles, Vanessa George and Angela Allen (2009) [1] and the opening of the trial and the opening of the trial of Rekha Kumari-Baker, who killed her two daughters [2] (filicide) are the sort of cases both society and children organisations have yet to come to terms with. (See Appendix A for a list of homicide terms).
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To see the graphs, see the original article – press the button at the top of this article.
Note how “mothers’ are the dominant slayer of children followed by “other men” from which we have to deduce a transient non-permanent male associate. It is fathers who almost fail to register at all as slayer of children and only become visible in the “Total’ column for all ages.

Whichever way and method child murders are recorded – be it percentages, per 100,000 or concrete numbers – the indisputable fact is that most are slain by mothers.

It is not as if British statistics have been singularly remiss in failing to point this out, the statistical services of other countries (e.g. Canada, Australia), have been equally slow or even reluctant to highlight this problem (not least because it should inform judges when they consider awarding custody of children after a divorce).

StatsCan, in particular, has long been criticised by many individual researchers over a number of years for in-built bias and “glossing over” but the real surprise was Australian child homicide data.
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New Zealand is also realising the inconvenient truth that mothers are just as equally likely – some would say more likely – as fathers to kill their children.[6]

New child homicide findings by Victoria University researcher Ms. Liz Moore suggest the child homicide offending is split between males and females.
[Look carefully – NZ Herald fails to distinguish between stepfathers and biological fathers!!!! NZ has the same ratio of mother to father homicides, as USA and UK and Australia.]
She examined the post mortem results of 69 children, who were among the more than 200 murdered between 1980 and 2003. Of the 69 murdered children, 42 were boys, and the majority lived within nuclear families with both their biological parents. Ms Moore said 30 of the children were killed alongside one or all of their brothers/sisters and most of the offenders acted alone.
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In an observation that is at the same time exasperating but which may at last focus the attention of all the political parties Lord Laming notes that father have a vital role to play in keeping children save from abuse. [8]

That cannot be in dispute but it will not help policy shaper to have spousal and biological fathers lumped together with “fathers’ who are mere cohabitees or this month’s boyfriend.

Time and again – and the Baby P and Khyra Ishaq cases are classic instances
– if a father had been allowed proper parental participation or access, by Social Services, or CAFCASS, a death or severe abuse could have been averted.
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The NZ CYFsAct requires social workers to consider placing children with their father, among a list of possible family carers. Some social workers honour this clause, some just apply for dispensation on the basis that they were too busy to even try to contact the father, or that they did not have contacts, because they hadn’t read the file…
Axe murderers left in the dust……………….