The tragedy of Baby P (please, no jokes, folks)

mic wrote:@ Igor - Personally, I think it's a stretch to identify murder with what was essentially negligence at worse. If a child of mine died as the result of an NHS screw-up I would definitely expect adequate compensation, but not for the incompetents to be charged with murder (unless it were proven to be intentional) and certainly not to face some spurious death penalty - especially at the hands of mob justice.

And neither would I. What I was saying was that for a charge of murder, there must be an act that caused the forbidden result (death), and a guilty mind. The act in this case would be the omission; no intervention when a duty of care was owed. The guilty mind doesn't necessarily imply intention or malice - if death was a virtual certainty, and with this knowledge and aforethought, the accused still went ahead with whatever they were doing, then that is murder.

So, if social workers et al could foresee the death of the child, in which it being a virtual certainty, yet still failed to uphold their duty of care, then they could be charged with murder, I think. If they didn't have a contract with the child, that is to say, if they were a next door neighbour, then they couldn't.

I think anyway. That's two and a bit months of A Level Law talking, before I had the good sense to drop it. I'd be happy to be corrected.

EDIT: There was a particular case in the past, where a mother withheld food from her child until it died. She was charged with murder, but the lodger was acquitted - he had no duty of care over the child, and thus had no legal obligation to intervene. I forget what the case name was.

Isn't Silva basically saying that whilst he has his opinion on whoever, it would be against his principles to openly condone violence against that person? Seems reasonable enough to me.

Karlprof wrote:Isn't Silva basically saying that whilst he has his opinion on whoever, it would be against his principles to openly condone violence against that person? Seems reasonable enough to me.

No. He's said it would be against the law to have violence- not his principals.

He's said several times they're "undeserving" of protection, rights, fair trials etc, they're "beyond reform".

The entire format of his position has been "I don't want to hurt them, but I'd be ok if they got hurt" (again go and read his reply to godzilla/massimo, it's "what's coming to them")

He's also defended several times those calling for them to be killed/hurt, and insulted anyone that said the three deserve the same rights/protection/etc as anyone else. (See his first response to Godzilla/massimo)

And let's not even get into his attempts to put himself up on some kind of pedestal. Ironically he's doing exactly the same as what he accuses everyone else of doing - making himself feel good by "rubbishing" others.

We gonna talk about this then?

An independent report into the Baby P case has issued a "damning" and "devastating" verdict, Children's Secretary Ed Balls said.

Sharon Shoesmith, head of children's services at Haringey Council, has been removed from her post, he confirmed.

Haringey Council leader, George Meehan, and cabinet member for children and young people, Liz Santry, resigned ahead of the report.

Baby P died from abuse, despite being seen by professionals 60 times.

He was also on the child protection register.

The role of health services', social workers' and police roles were looked into by the report.

The boy's mother, her boyfriend and a lodger were convicted for causing his death.

Broken ribs

Mr Balls ordered the investigation two weeks ago after saying it was clear mistakes had been made, and that those responsible would be held accountable.

The inspectors have been examining why the toddler was not taken into care despite numerous injuries including broken ribs and eventually a broken back.

Sharon Shoesmith, the council head of children's services, has faced public anger over her department's handling of the Baby P case.

I also read that a place in a foster home had been found and arranged for Baby P, yet he was removed and placed back with his 'parents'.

Also, the police who wanted him taken into care, clashed with social services.

Christprof wrote:Isn't Silva basically saying that whilst he has his opinion on whoever, it would be against his principles to openly condone violence against that person? Seems reasonable enough to me.

That's what it is.


The law is a man made creation anyway. Everything is man made. Exile would be a great punishment, but again, it'd be hard to make sure it wasn't dished out unfairly. Everyone is protected in our law, but the real people who lose out are more often than not the innocent.

In the end, it's all man made, so my law would be no way under or above what the current law is.


And yes, I've said they are undeserving of protection Lots of criminals are, but I'm not going to take the step to take it away from them. My real issue is that extreme liberal human rights cry babies saying I'm the same as these killers because I'd like them to suffer a similar fate to what they did to the baby. Of course I'm not, as much as I'd like it to happen there's still a part of me that knows if we open those gates, then we're in for some real trouble in the future when it comes to innocent folks. There is a massive difference between the type of criminal I'd be Hexx were I to dish out the same fate they gave to the baby, and the type of criminal they are for dishing out that fate to the baby. The law recognises this, that's why there's different punishments in terms of years dished out, premeditation, crimes of passion, they're all argued out in a FAIR court. F**k off to anyone who says that folks that wish the three to get what the dished out are the same as the original three who tortured a baby. That's not me putting myself up on a pedestal at all. It's just ignorant folks who think they're so righteous to categorise anyone who thinks these three just aren't being punished enough.

I would be fine if they got hurt. Seriously I would. I don't think you'd shed a tear Hexx. This society we live in is all man made, the way I'd run society would be no more of a totalitarian society than we live right now. The only difference being you like what this society offers in terms of punishment, but I think otherwise.


I know why we protect criminals. But in this one occassion, in Fritzls case, in the case of the British version of Fritzl, I find it hard to really want to protect them, but I'm not going to open the flood gates at all so that politicians in the future can start framing eradicating innocents that oppose them. I know fully well. But I'm not the same as them just because of my opinion on them and their punishment.

Incredible that Shoesmith didn't resign. Utterly, completely shameful. She was clearly hoping to ride the gravy train to a big payoff. Hopefully she won't get it, or there will be hell to pay.

$ilva $anta wrote:...My real issue is that extreme liberal human rights cry babies saying I'm the same as these killers because I'd like them to suffer a similar fate to what they did to the baby... There is a massive difference between the type of criminal I'd be Hexx were I to dish out the same fate they gave to the baby, and the type of criminal they are for dishing out that fate to the baby...

The baby was murdered, so in order to have the same punishment inflicted upon them, the parents would have to be murdered too - which clearly isn't going to happen unless the law is taken into hand.

There's no point saying you want them to die unless you would personally be willing to do it (with or without mob support). You would still be a murderer and so would anyone else that directly allowed it to happen.

Drunken_Master wrote:...Also, the police who wanted him taken into care, clashed with social services.

Link, please?

mic wrote:

$ilva $anta wrote:...My real issue is that extreme liberal human rights cry babies saying I'm the same as these killers because I'd like them to suffer a similar fate to what they did to the baby... There is a massive difference between the type of criminal I'd be Hexx were I to dish out the same fate they gave to the baby, and the type of criminal they are for dishing out that fate to the baby...

The baby was murdered, so in order to have the same punishment inflicted upon them, the parents would have to be murdered too - which clearly isn't going to happen unless the law is taken into hand.

There's no point saying you want them to die unless you would personally be willing to do it (with or without mob support). You would still be a murderer and so would anyone else that directly allowed it to happen.


Link, please?

When things go to court you think they just say "murder, life sentence, get em out of here!"

No. Sentences are not just affected by a simple categorisation of a crime into a broad category. Two murderers from two different crimes cannot be said to be the same. One may have murdered for money, and one murdered for fear of his life and for fear of his family being murdered.


These three allowed a baby to die, murdered the baby in fact, but because of a technicality they are going to be done for allowing the baby to die. They're still murderers, but in the eyes of the man made law, they are let off from being categorised as murderers for now, and are going to get done for allowing a baby to die. Their motivations? They tortured a baby for their own sick perverse pleasure. Now someone who murders these three, or kills them will not be doing it get the same perverse pleasure, their victim is not a defenceless baby and their reasoning is totally different.


So no, baby killing murderers and adult killing murderers killing for revenge and a different sense of justice are two different things and I do not wish to be categorised as being the same as these three because I wish there was a way for them to be punished in an eye for an eye situation without compromising the future of innocent civilians, which is why I'm not out campaigning for them to be murdered or for the social services folks to be killed or have them all resigned or fired.



There's no point in saying that I'd wish them dead? Fair enough, then stop categorising anyone who thinks that injustice will be served by our justice system are the same as these three murderers. It's my personal opinion that they are undeserving of any protection, but for the greater good I cannot take away their protection and in this justice system, I'd be unwilling to take it away unless I had control of everything.

I don't see what's so wishy-washy liberal (damned those elitists) about saying an "eye for an eye" policy is a bad thing.

To put this in another context, and using Karlprof's nice summary as a basis, your opinion seems to be that it's fine to be prejudiced, perfectly fine, but it's wrong to turn that into discrimination. It doesn't matter that you hate 20 year old, female, black, disabled, Polish Muslims because you're doing nothing more than thinking that. And if you're told that it's still not quite great that you want to harbour these views, the people doing so are "Liberal crybabies."

And that's where Godzilla comes into it. Nowhere did he say anything about whatever you're going on about $ilva, he was highlighting the hypocrisy of a mob that will lambast an individual for committing a particularly bad crime while advocating the same to be done as punishment. I'm not sure I'd want to rape and torture a rapist and torturer, but that's the feel of the argument these reactionary goons put forward. Furthermore, it is all about the moans of a society that to some extent may not help cure the symptoms without extraneous encouragement, but will be all too glad to be mad and sad when the disease eventually takes its hold and kills its host. (What an awful analogy ) You know, just forget about the cause, it doesn't matter. It's time to take action when the effect has come and gone.

It's sometimes unreasonable to expect everyone to become activists in particular fields, so as to do something productive with their desires of escalating retribution, but stories like this are, by and large, just excuses for people to go around calling everyone banana splits and wishing death upon them without any sense of perspective. All rationality goes out of the window when you want to have a piss and moan. And I don't say this without knowing that it's natural for people to do this - I do it myself and when we hear the news we want to offer our opinion - but you have to wade through an ungodly amount of crap to get to the stuff worth reading or listening to. This paragraph's just a clarification of my own hypocrisy because I'll happily admit I'm all too comfortable with moaning at other people to do things.

I'm not sure how a discussion of the synthesis of ethics and law ties into anything in this thread either. It's all rather tangential.

$ilva $anta wrote:...When things go to court you think they just say "murder, life sentence, get em out of here!"...

No, I didn't think that. Is that what I said?

$ilva $anta wrote:...These three allowed a baby to die, murdered the baby in fact, but because of a technicality they are going to be done for allowing the baby to die...

I must be out of touch... link, please?

$ilva $anta wrote:...I do not wish to be categorised as being the same as these three... stop categorising anyone who thinks that injustice will be served by our justice system are the same as these three murderers...

Okay - you're not quite the same (and I don't think anyone was accusing you of theoretically having abused a baby to death). However, if you ever followed up on your bravado you would still be a murderer. Not one of those murderers, no - but a murderer nonetheless.

Edit - formatting.

Murderer nonetheless. But not the same. Thank you for acknowledging it.


And what bravado? I'm not saying I will kill them or anything What am I going to follow up on? Again, an unfair assumption.

And you were implying in the beginning by saying that a murderer is just a murderer which is why I said in court things aren't straight forward. A lot of factors are looked at.



You aren't out of touch, all I've been reading in the papers so far, is that they are being done for allowing a baby to die, not for actually killing a baby. The baby died of the wounds. They will get done for torturing and abusing, but depending on how good their defense is, they will probably not get done for murder as they'll say they never inflicted with intent to kill, only to torture. They may get manslaughter instead.

Cuban Mistletoe Crisis wrote:...I'm not sure how a discussion of the synthesis of ethics and law ties into anything in this thread either...

Still, thanks for sharing - spot on.

Drunken_Master wrote: the police who wanted him taken into care, clashed with social services.

This happens all too often. I have first hand experience of social services failing in a big way. They just dont care and it often falls onto the police to take the action they wont. I have dealt with a few issues where i had to remove children from an address. This is the most distressing thing i have seen. I have been to fatal car crashes, drug overdoses, hangings, nasty murder scenes etc. but going into a house and seeing children living in what can only be described as gooseberry fool!

I went to one where the mother was an alcoholic and suffered diabetic comas. Her 5 year old son rang the police saying "help mummy wont wake up". I arrived at the house to find the 5 yr old looking after a 6 month old baby. The house was absolute gooseberry fool, you couldnt see the floor. My heart broke when i saw the 5yr old trying to carry the baby and sort out a bottle for it. I was talking to the lad and he said "I sometimes go to the neighbours" i asked why and he replied "I cant eat here as there is nothing clean".

Naturally we took the kid away, to his grandparents who had no idea how bad things had gotten. Social services just werent interested. I spent hours on the phone to various people who kept passing me to someone else who then passed me on again. The bottom line from them was simply "ok so the kid is no longer in danger at the grandparents, let us know if anything else happens". I was furious.

Not to mention that social services only work mon to fri 9-5. Try getting help at 10pm on a saturday night, forget it!!

So im disgusted by what has happened to baby P, but not suprised. I just hope this whole mess can be of benefit to the hundreds of kids out there right now who need help!

Cuban Mistletoe Crisis wrote:I don't see what's so wishy-washy liberal (damned those elitists) about saying an "eye for an eye" policy is a bad thing.

To put this in another context, and using Karlprof's nice summary as a basis, your opinion seems to be that it's fine to be prejudiced, perfectly fine, but it's wrong to turn that into discrimination. It doesn't matter that you hate 20 year old, female, black, disabled, Polish Muslims because you're doing nothing more than thinking that. And if you're told that it's still not quite great that you want to harbour these views, the people doing so are "Liberal crybabies."

And that's where Godzilla comes into it. Nowhere did he say anything about whatever you're going on about $ilva, he was highlighting the hypocrisy of a mob that will lambast an individual for committing a particularly bad crime while advocating the same to be done as punishment. I'm not sure I'd want to rape and torture a rapist and torturer, but that's the feel of the argument these reactionary goons put forward. Furthermore, it is all about the moans of a society that to some extent may not help cure the symptoms without extraneous encouragement, but will be all too glad to be mad and sad when the disease eventually takes its hold and kills its host. (What an awful analogy ) You know, just forget about the cause, it doesn't matter. It's time to take action when the effect has come and gone.

It's sometimes unreasonable to expect everyone to become activists in particular fields, so as to do something productive with their desires of escalating retribution, but stories like this are, by and large, just excuses for people to go around calling everyone banana splits and wishing death upon them without any sense of perspective. All rationality goes out of the window when you want to have a piss and moan. And I don't say this without knowing that it's natural for people to do this - I do it myself and when we hear the news we want to offer our opinion - but you have to wade through an ungodly amount of crap to get to the stuff worth reading or listening to. This paragraph's just a clarification of my own hypocrisy because I'll happily admit I'm all too comfortable with moaning at other people to do things.

I'm not sure how a discussion of the synthesis of ethics and law ties into anything in this thread either. It's all rather tangential.

Again there's a difference between harbouring ill intent on racial grounds and then harbouring ill intent on the grounds that the person is just downright evil.

I'm aware of the hypocrisy, but the hypocrisy is on both sides. Even the judges in court will want to have the three hanged or murdered but they'll stick to their guns that they will not want it to happen in order to protect the future innocents.

I'd compare it to greenpeace wankers screwing our country over in terms of the energy crisis we'll have to deal with. Their view is that any time a piece of grass is trodden on, they have the right to protest. We're now in a pickle because of it, if we'd been allowed to develop our infrastructure we would have come to a point where we could refine it and become more 'greener'. Now we have to decommission several power plants and retrofit others while new ones that will need building will take quite awhile.

$ilva $anta wrote:Murderer nonetheless. But not the same. Thank you for acknowledging it...

S'ight... but being a murderer isn't exactly a good thing, is it - unless you're planning ahead for your street-rep on the inside...?

$ilva $anta wrote:...And what bravado? I'm not saying I will kill them or anything What am I going to follow up on? Again, an unfair assumption...

"It's alright as long as somebody else does it?" - is that it?

$ilva $anta wrote:...And you were implying in the beginning by saying that a murderer is just a murderer which is why I said in court things aren't straight forward. A lot of factors are looked at...

Yes, lots of factors... but what gives you the right to decide which is better or worse? Is it the vantage point?

If the courts do indeed decide that the three were not, in fact, to be charged with murder, than wouldn't you (as the baby's non-child-abusing-but-plenty-self-righteous-murderering-avenger), be even worse than they? Since, as you point out, life-taking is categorised by our legal system, doesn't murder always carry a higher sentence than manslaughter?

Again there's a difference between harbouring ill intent on racial grounds and then harbouring ill intent on the grounds that the person is just downright evil.

I argue the two are incomparable. 'Downright evil' isn't a defining characteristic by any stretch of the imagination, is it? As has been mentioned before, it's a term created to engender the harshest feelings of hate and anger in people; to make them think the evil person is no better than Satan or some other lucky figure (like Hitler). It doesn't mean anything when used in the normal context, it just makes everyone who hears it jump to the same dreadful conclusion.

I don't take offence to the use of this (in case some smart arse quotes me in the Stalin government thread about the use of the word 'grooming') but by god... it's surprisingly easy to pin anyone into a corner and make judgments about their own character when they try and argue against the use of 'evil'. Which goes back to the whole 'liberal human rights pansies' crap.

downright evil

Is a very vague term, what constitutes evil? Killing another? Ruining someone's life?

The word "evil" is used by the press and others to excuse someone, it's not liberal it's simply an easy way to explain away something horrible that makes us question what sort of world we live in.

If we label another evil it is to say that our society is fine but there are a very small number of "evil" people who are beyond saving.

Calling those that tortured Baby P evil is wrong, they were human, they made choices, they have the same rights and options as we do. And yet they chose to do something horrible. Calling them evil suggests that they were damned from birth to be "evil".

The fact remains that when a case like this hits many want to see an eye for an eye. Well the abuser of Baby P got sick pleasure from the pain and suffering of another, we cannot damn him one day and then the next call for him to be tortured and killed.... because if we do, what does that make us?

Torturing a baby....can't be called evil now? A baby has a clean slate no? And these three know of their choices, no that torture is wrong, but it's now wrong to classify that as evil? We need to redefine the meaning of wrong and evil while we're at it. Don't even go into the argument that they thought it was right, if they thought it was right, they wouldn't have tried to hide it at all. They'd be declared mentally insane, but they're clearly sane.


Those were evil actions. They weren't evil from birth, but being human and having choices does not excuse a person from being evil when they make the choice to murder and torture and take pleasure in it.


Many want an eye for an eye, but many don't call for it and many of these people who work in the law profession will want an eye for an eye but will not call for it because they know that it's open to abuse. If there was a fair way of delivering an eye for eye perfectly with no ramifications or it being open to abuse, it'd be great. There's little room for forgiveness in a case like this. It's not like they stole to stay alive, in that case an eye for an eye would be weird. Which is why those of us who still see the justice system dishing out injustice at times will still stick to the justice system despite what we feel should have been done because it is there to protect the innocent.

One of the early things you learn in law, while studying the law and what criminal lawyers always tell the youngsters is that the Justice system isn't always fair and injustice does occur, it is not a perfect system. It's man made.


And yes mic, being a murderer isn't exactly a good thing, I don't want to be a murderer :s It's not alright if someone else does it, but the god loving heathens seem to think god is fit enough to deliver judgement, if that cock were fit enough to deliver judgement we'd not be in a predicament like this. Judgement in the afterlife, what a load of pish.


If I could bring about a punishment into law, exile would be the one. Forget hanging. Exile would cut loose the benefits that ties the really bad criminals to our system. Exile should be a good punishment.

And regarding the courts deciding that legally it isn't murder, then why would that make me worse than them? I'm not wanting to murder anyone, I think it'd be great if they could suffer the same fate without putting blood on an innocent persons hand but remember the law is man made, and my actions would be the action of a man. The legal justice system is not without faults and again it's a technicality that elevates them from being classified as murderers when they quite clearly are, they'll be done for manslaughter but again just because the law says it is, doesn't mean the law is always right. Injustice is always present in our law. It's unfair but the judges always strive to improve the system. The law is a man made creation and when it comes to classifying between manslaughter and murder, it's just a judgement in this case. If they get done for manslaughter, well done to them and their lawyers then. If they get done for murder, then it still doesn't make a difference because they were torturing a baby with intent to cause harm and it led to a death, the knew what they were doing, they could see the extent of the harm they were inflicting and they took pleasure in it. The mother even thinks that she can be home for christmas. In the end it's all man made, so it's one opinion against another and the law is not infallible.

I would not take the mother's claims of being home by Christmas as anything more than tabloids quoting something to get readers angry. (Daily Mail I'm looking at you)

With regards to exile, where would we send them? And further more, what happens to them when they get there, I mean do we just wash our hands of them, for to do nothing is to allow murder etc to go on.

If we found a big island and sent all evil folk there, we would be sending evil women off to be raped and evil but physically weak men to be beaten or murdered.

I'm not saying that these people are not "evil" but what I am saying is that the very use of the word explains away there actions. It's a justification, much like the word terrorist. He was a terrorist so of course he could kill women and children.... if you look at as he was a man with a mother, father and a family.... then it's far harder to understand.

The word evil damns someone, I personally like to believe that everyone can change, “hate the sin but love the sinner”.