Germany has instigated a similar system whereby there is a flap on the outside wall of many hospitals which opens to reveal an insulated box. The mother can place her baby into this warm environment and leave with no questions asked, whilst an alarm alerts staff to the fact that a baby has been left inside.
Mothers can reclaim their infant within the next eight weeks without fear of legal reprisals, after which the baby is put up for adoption. Germany currently has at least 80 hatches and Pakistan has over 300, saving many newborn lives.
France’s system is even better for the tell-no-one mother, as it is legal for a woman to give birth anonymously in hospital and leave her baby there.
HORMONAL HELP
Unfortunately, even babies which were originally planned for and brought into a stable marriage can be at risk from a mother who is suffering from post-natal depression or who has an episode of post-natal psychosis. These women often tell doctors, spouses and friends that they hate the baby, but are told that it’s just the baby blues, that they’ll be fine. As a society, we need to listen to these deeply-distressed women and encourage them to seek medical intervention – be it chemical, therapeutic or a combination of the two – before the situation becomes critical. A clinically-depressed woman shouldn’t be left alone with her infant as she is potentially a danger to both the child and herself.
THE ‘STOP AT TWO’ CAMPAIGN
Whilst many women can cope with one or two children, their emotional resources become stretched at three or four. Andrea Yates, a deeply religious woman living in Texas, had four children in quick succession – whom she named after saints – after which she had a nervous breakdown. In hospital, she told her doctors that every child was a gift from God and that He would care for them. (A 10-second look at any Third World country, where millions of babies die of starvation, would have disabused her of this belief.) Two months after her therapy ended, the registered nurse became pregnant again and, on 30 November 2000 gave birth to her fifth child, Mary. By the following spring she was re-hospitalised for depression but allowed home to be cared for by her husband and mother-in-law. That June, she drowned all five of her children – ranging from seven years to six months – in the bath.
Her plight is echoed elsewhere in this book, where mothers coped with a first and perhaps a second child, but went to pieces when overburdened with caring for a third or subsequent child.
In July 2008, a group of leading doctors, concerned about Britain’s increasing overcrowding problem, suggested that couples should restrict themselves to a maximum of two children. Noting that we are now more overcrowded than China – and that England is the fourth most densely populated country in the world – the Optimum Population Trust’s policy director, Rosamund McDougall, said ‘With the UK population growing by more than 350,000 a year, it’s hard to understand why it’s so controversial to suggest we need solutions to our over-population crisis.’
At the time of writing in 2009, Britain’s population was just over 60 million and the country was struggling to provide enough accommodation, social services and energy supplies. That number is projected to swell to 77 million by 2050 – but if people restricted themselves to two children, the number would fall to 55 million and our resources would become less stretched.
RETHINK THE WELFARE SYSTEM
Unless we are willing to remove babies from grossly inadequate parents within the first month of life, they are destined to suffer. Some of these parents, part of Britain’s growing subclass, see each child in terms of further cash for themselves. Karen Matthews, found guilty in December 2008 of kidnap and false imprisonment for financial gain of her own daughter, Shannon, had seven children to five different fathers and lived entirely off the state. One of these fathers said that she was only interested in the child benefit which she spent on partying and cigarettes. The children were repeatedly abused and neglected and Shannon had been on the at-risk register. Her 12-year-old brother was so unhappy that he had started to run away from home.
In November 2008, an incestuous Sheffield father went to jail for 20 years for impregnating his two daughters a total of 19 times between the late 1980s and early 2000s, because he wanted the various housing and welfare handouts, including child benefit of £31.25 a week per child. (Because of congenital abnormalities in the foetuses, the young women had multiple miscarriages and abortions and only seven children survived, still enough to net him thousands of pounds in benefits, and allowing him to spend his days in the pub and his nights watching TV.)
Baby P’s mother also netted a considerable sum for her four children, allowing her to spend her days gambling online, smoking and drinking vodka. As is typically the case in such subclass families, the children benefited little from the money and were hungry, dirty and afraid.
A study by Libertad Gonzalez, The Effect of Benefit on Single Motherhood in Europe, showed that as benefits rise, so does single motherhood. The fathers, equally feckless, have often moved on before the child is even born. These children are disproportionately likely to end up in special needs schools, or to require child psychology services, at further cost to society. Our welfare state, intended as a back-up in times of need, has increasingly become a meal ticket for life for Britain’s workshy, and their children suffer and sometimes even die at their hands.
In 2007, UNICEF published a report which analysed 40 indicators of child well-being in 21 developed countries between 2000 and 2003. Britain came bottom of the league when it came to child welfare, with broken families identified as putting children at risk. The report said ‘The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children – their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialisation and their sense of being loved, valued and included in the families and societies into which they are born.’
ZERO TOLERANCE
Ten per cent of British children are born into homes in which they are abused, either physically, sexually or emotionally. If we are serious about protecting children, we must ban corporal punishment. This has already been achieved in Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden and Ukraine. But Britain and America still take a punitive stance, despite numerous studies linking such punishment with depression, alcoholism and later criminality.
Many children are being hit at nine months old by their parents, who haven’t read up on the option of positive parenting. When the slaps don’t have the desired effect, these parents tend to hit harder, with occasionally fatal results.
British law on this subject is significantly confused, with it being left to the courts to determine, retrospectively, what ‘reasonable’ punishment is.
THE VENGEFUL SPOUSE
It’s difficult to protect children on an hourly basis from a former spouse who is intent on revenge, especially when a court has given him or her private access visits. It’s far easier to avoid creating children with an unstable partner by examining their past history, current behaviour and personality traits. Are they pushing for an especially speedy marriage? This suggests a level of insecurity which may cause problems in the future. Have they a history of physically attacking their partners or even their own parents? Why did their previous love affairs end?
Have they a history of suicide attempts or self-harming? For now, they may be turning their anger inwards – but if they turn it outwards, you or any future children may be targeted.
In March 2002, a government amendment to the Adoption & Children Bill, said that domestic violence should be taken into account when court orders were made granting parents access to their children. The move came about after 15 children were killed by non-custodial parents who had a history of violence.
But, clearly, some cases are still falling through the cracks, as Viviane Gamor was given unsupervised access to her children – after shaving off half of her baby’s hair and attacking her half-sister with a knife – despite thei
r father begging the legal system and social services to maintain supervision. Gamor, who features in chapter three, killed both of her children during their third unsupervised visit.
A SURE START IN LIFE
Many parents benefit from regular short breaks from their children – and three or four year olds who adapt to nursery tend to find starting school less stressful than children who have been at home full time with only their mothers for company. At the time of writing, all three-and four-year-olds are entitled to twelve and a half hours of free education per week in a Sure Start Centre for 38 weeks of the year. Sure Start centres also offer antenatal checks, healthcare advice and parenting classes as well as information about training opportunities and work.
For details of free nursery places under the Sure Start scheme, visit www.gov.uk and search for Sure Start.
CONCLUSION
By bringing babies into schools and showing how much work they really entail – and by encouraging young women to have aspirations beyond motherhood – we can lessen the number of tell-no-one babies which are conceived and murdered. Hospital hatches, where girls can leave their newborns without fear of reprisals, would also cut down on such unnecessary deaths.
Many hormonally-triggered murders could also be prevented if GPs, psychiatrists and the general public were better educated about the signs of post-natal depression. We have to start supporting mothers who have the courage to admit that they aren’t coping, rather than blandly reassuring them that they will be fine.
We should also be more open to the idea that, if the mother has addiction problems or mental health issues, the father may make the better custodial parent. At present, a man has only a 3 per cent chance of getting custody of his child.
But if we are really serious about child care then we have to make it illegal for parents to hit their offspring: our current legalised violence inhibits child protection and breeches children’s fundamental human rights. As Professor Paulo Pinheiro, independent expert for the UN Secretary General’s study on violence against young people has said: ‘We cannot draw lines and try and define acceptable ways of hitting children. There can be no compromise, any more than we compromise in challenging all violence against women.’ By modernising the law on assault to give children the same protection as adults, we would take a huge step towards becoming a peaceful and loving society.
APPENDIX
RESOURCES
Preventing teenage pregnancies:
www.likeitis.org Part of Marie Stopes International, this site offers sexual health information for young people
Ending pressure on women to have children:
www.nokidding.net International online group for the happily childfree
Avoiding cot death:
www.fsid.org.uk Internet home of the Foundation for Sudden Infant Death, the UK’s leading baby charity. Their free booklet, Reduce the Risk of Cot Death, can be ordered online or by telephoning 020 7222 8001. Alternatively, send a cover note requesting the free booklet to them at FSID, Artillery House, 11 – 19 Artillery Row, London SW1P 1RT.
For the helpline phone 020 7233 2090.
Advice on positive discipline:
www.childrenareunbeatable.org.uk To join the campaign for a zero-tolerance approach to parents hitting children, contact: Children Are Unbeatable, 94 White Lion Street, London N1 9PF.
To order a Parenting Pack of six leaflets (including Keeping Your Cool, Listening to Children and Encouraging Better Behaviour) send an A4 stamped addressed envelope with five first class stamps to ‘Parenting Pack’, NSPCC, Weston House, 42 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3NH.
Or download them on www.nspcc.org.uk/
html/Home/Informationresources/forparentscarers.htm
For a single copy of the leaflet The No Smacking Guide To Good Behaviour by Penelope Leach, send a C5 stamped addressed envelope with one second class stamp to APPROACH Ltd, 94 White Lion Street, London N1 9PF.
For a single copy of the A4 poster Think Before You Smack, send an A4 envelope with a second class stamp (remembering that A4 envelopes need a ‘large size’ second class stamp) to APPROACH at the above address.
Early child education:
To find out if there is a Sure Start Children’s Centre in your area, telephone the Families Information Service on 0800 2 346 346.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
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FILMOGRAPHY
Father To 15 – Wife And Girlfriend pregnant again! Jeremy Kyle show, aired ITV1 2006
Mick Philpott’s sister: ‘he deserves to die’ ITV2 news channel 2013
The Man Who Would Stop At Nothing: The Mick Philpott Trial Broadcast ITV1 2013
Dateline: Inside The Murder Trial Of Neil Entwistle (online transcript) by Dennis Murphy, aired Dateline NBC on 27 June 2008
Honour Kills produced by BBC Manchester, aired BBC3 in October 2007
Tonight programme: My Greek Tragedy (John Hogan case) aired ITV1 on 21 January 2008
MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS
Babies’ Bodies Found In Box by Jan Disley, Daily Mirror, 13 May 2008
Bipolar Disorder and Childbirth: The Importance of Recognising the Risk by Ian Jones & Nick Craddock, The British Journal of Psychiatry, 2005
Catalogue of Cruelty by David Batty, Guardian, 27 January 2003
City Executive Alberto Izaga charged with murder of daughter, 2 by Helen Nugent, The Times, 13 September 2007
Couple Behead Their Three Children, True Detective Spring Special, 2008
Couple Found Guilty Over Toddler Abuse Death, Guardian, 3 August 2007
Couple who starved and killed girl, 2, are jailed by Tania Branigan & Audrey Gillan, Guardian, 21 September 2002
Drugs Kill Baby As Mum Smokes by John Coles, Sun, 27 June 2008
Drunk father ‘smothered sick son in mercy killing’ by Arifa Akbar, Independent, 1 May 2005
Executive Gets Life Term For Killing of His Family, New York Times, 7 February 1993
Face Of A Monster by Marion Scott, Sunday Mail, 23 November 2008
Father Killed Son, 4, After Wife Jilted Him by Paul Jeeves, Daily Express, 26 February 2008
How a little boy’s sad death has left a family in shreds by Phil Mills, Argus, 14 December, 2005
Husband guilty of family murder by James Bone, The Times, 26 June 2008
Iraq Girl Murdered By Dad For Loving A British Squaddie by Victoria Ward, Daily Mirror, 28 April 2008
It’s Horrible To Think That It’s Happening Again by Maria Colwell’s brother, Argus, 24 March 2000
Lauren Wright Case: Tragic tale of a child unwanted from day of her birth by Terri Judd, Independent, 2 October, 2001
Mick Philpott accomplice Paul Mosley a ‘wimp’ that was ‘blackmailed’ says sister Angela, Daily Mirror, 7 April 2013
Mick Philpott is moved to Hannibal Lecter cell for admitting he fears fellow inmates will try to ‘rip him apart’ by Ben Glaze, Daily Mirror, 7 April 2013
Mother Jailed After Bristol Child’s Drug Death, Bristol Evening Post, 27 June 2008
Mother who killed her own baby by throwing him to the ground walks free from court, Daily Mail, 14 July 2008
Oh No, Not Again! by Gary Fox, Master Detective, July 2006
Should Parents Stop At Two Children? by Damien Fletcher, Daily Mirror, 25 July 2008
Philpott Sister’s Torment by Antonella Lazzeri, Sun, 19 April 2013
Should We Condemn The Mum Who Drowned Her Daughter? by Claire Bates, Bella issue 41, October 2008
The 26-year secret by Mark Randall, True Detective Spring Special, 2008
Tiffany Hirst: the toddler left to die alone and unloved by Lucy Bannerman, The Times, 13 June 2008
Timeline of the Christopher Foster Mansion Murders by Gordon Rayner, Daily Telegraph, 3 September 2008
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