And today's news story to make you despair for humanity comes from Sheffield...

[Sam_The_Man]

To make this thread slightly less sickening I will post pictures of cute fluffy kittens every two paragraphs or so. It won't give you any more faith in humanity but hey, at least there's a superior species out there.

(Source: The Times, 24/11/04)

Couple who left children to starve are jailed
By Ben Hoyle

A COUPLE abandonned their five children to starve in bedrooms smeared with excrement while they enjoyed a life of comfort downstairs, surrounded by DVDs and computer games.

The plight of the children was discovered in June when Sarah Whittaker, 24, their mother, phoned for an ambulance because one of her one-year-old twins was “lifeless”.

Paramedics found that the boy was skeletal, grey and “within hours of death”. He was passing live maggots into his nappy which were later identified as the larvae of the common housefly. Police, social services and the NSPCC were called in.

Both twins weighed just over 8.8lbs (4kg), or about 40 per cent of the weight expected for a one-year-old.

The other children — a boy aged 3 and two girls, now aged 8 and 4 — were also malnourished. Their bedroom floors, walls and windows were smeared with faeces.

The three-year-old boy had been locked in his room. Police found him huddled in a corner wearing soiled underpants.

Whittaker and David Askew, 24, the father of the children, were jailed for seven years yesterday after they admitted five counts of cruelty. Sentencing the pair at Sheffield Crown Court, Judge Alan Goldsack, QC, told them: “Behind the closed doors of your home your children were being slowly starved to death.

“Most people will simply be unable to understand how anyone can allow vulnerable children to suffer in the way you caused your children to suffer.”

All five children are now in foster care.

Mass suicide for the good of the world will be at 10. Coffee and biscuits will be served at 11.

I particularly like (NB: no I don't) how this woman phoned for an ambulance after starving her four children practically to death. Did I mention :tdown:?

 

[[Ci]Mazza]

Nice to hear all the news from the homeland while i'm away.

 

[SlayerDragon]

There weren't even any kittens to help.

 

[NeoNite]

You've got to register to timesonline to read this article, I see...

Took me a little while to find this story, I usually don't read that site...

Anyway..

****ing sickening.

 

[Airmoran]

He was passing live maggots into his nappy which were later identified as the larvae of the common housefly.

Something about that line just doesn't fly.

Assuming the mother's the maternal mother of all 5 kids, she would've been at most 16 when she had her first child. And for whatever brilliant reason, looks like she doesn't believe in condoms.
Ack.

<- votes for manditory birth control.

 

[Sam_The_Man]

You've got to register to timesonline to read this article, I see...

I think that's only if you're outside the UK. I've never had any problem with it.

 

[the recruit]

tis truly sickening how this can happen in our supposeded civillised western country. to think that others may be in the same sitituation is sickening and dishartening to anyone with any sense of deceney.

imo shoot them

(the perants that is, and soz for the spelling)

 

[NiftyBoy]

For your troubles, Coin.

 

[seagreenbeetle]

he was only jailed for seven years?! i bet the mom got off easier. crimes agenst children like this are the worst kind; are inexcusible. that was torture.
in cases like these i think that the punishments should fit the crimes.

 

[Dave the Insane]

pics don't work

 

[SharKTanK]

Assuming the mother's the maternal mother of all 5 kids, she would've been at most 16 when she had her first child. And for whatever brilliant reason, looks like she doesn't believe in condoms.
Ack.

Welcome to the modern world. :tdown:

My mother's a midwife, and while this is high on the list of shocking stories I've been told, she deals with 16 year old mothers (and even kids as young as 13 ) on pretty much a daily basis.

What I really dread to think about is the fact that this is not a unique case, and that a lot of these sick people are smart enough not to phone for "help".
While I'm all for making sure they (the parents) never have any kids again, It won't help the one's that have gone through this.
Wonder if they were fostered by different families...

 

[the recruit]

thanks for the link, but im still using ye old IE... i know, i know, but i kinda like its quirks and annoyances and fequent crashes... im downloading firefox as we type.

on topic: both got the same sentence iirc, 7 years. the children, if able to foster, will probably have formed such a strong bond as to be unseperable anyway, and its highly likly that all will be re-homed together, or at least in pairs.

 

[missPoopShoot]

How's about a call for sterilisation of the offenders? I believe these idiots have forfeited the right to create any more lives.

 

[the recruit]

state sterilisation of the criminal classes....

now thats what i call one mother of a moral issue...

but for these....things. yep. do it. now.

 

[seagreenbeetle]

How's about a call for sterilisation of the offenders? I believe these idiots have forfeited the right to create any more lives.

hmm. last year (or even six months ago) i would have disagreed.
now, though, i think it sterilization is a viable option, it would make the ability to bear children more preciouse. but who do we put in charge to control/decide these cases? who decides when it is 'right' to sterilize someone for a crime they have commited? a person who is just as moral as you or i? i worry more over who is given a power like that.

 

[TossMonkey]

Sterilisation eh? You might as well say heil hitler. Rather have them able to bear children but not care for them, immediate adoption. Besides if you want to remove them from the gene pool then capitol punishment should be brought back, might as well be a hanging and for extra fun make it televised.

 

[O.S.T]

but who do we put in charge to control/decide these cases?

me.

VOTE O.S.T '08

 

[Sam_The_Man]

Sterilisation eh? You might as well say heil hitler.

And it's zero to Godwin in three seconds! A new record!

(not that I don't agree with the sentiment)

Rather have them able to bear children but not care for them, immediate adoption. Besides if you want to remove them from the gene pool then capitol punishment should be brought back, might as well be a hanging and for extra fun make it televised.

Every Saturday night with Ant and Dec. To complete the 21st century 'reality' experience you could have several condemned going head-to-head in a to-the-death challenge: last one to stop breathing gets a pardon and their own short-lived column in the Daily Express.

 

[missPoopShoot]

Besides if you want to remove them from the gene pool then capitol punishment should be brought back, might as well be a hanging and for extra fun make it televised.

Who's removing them from the gene pool? They've already created life and ****ed up so bad they've been put in front of a jury of their peers and found unfit to care for children. Why run the risk of them having more children to abuse? Why create the extra hassle of keeping an eye on them so they don't breed (or at least when they do, you just whisk their kids away from them)?

but who do we put in charge to control/decide these cases? who decides when it is 'right' to sterilize someone for a crime they have commited? a person who is just as moral as you or i? i worry more over who is given a power like that.

I'd only ever advocate sterilising people if they had acted like the couple in this article. I want to make this very clear, I would never advocate sterilising anyone other than those who had been found to be negligent in the most extreme way. They'd be found guilty by a jury the same way as people who have murdered someone are sentenced to death (where the death penalty applies). I personally think the logic follows. Life for a life. Child abuse, ability to create life revoked. And I'm not saying I advocate the death penalty either.

 

[Metakill]

but who do we put in charge to control/decide these cases? who decides when it is 'right' to sterilize someone for a crime they have commited? a person who is just as moral as you or i? i worry more over who is given a power like that.

How about a judge and jury?