Edlington mother of evil pair must not receive compensation
THAT there is even a possibility of the mother of the perpetrators of the dreadful Edlington attacks obtaining damages from the public purse shows there is a moral crisis in Britain, and that the deficiency of the law is one of its prime causes.
After the convictions on Friday, there was plenty of talk about the parents of the two boys who carried out these vicious assaults being prosecuted for child cruelty or neglect. Yet now we learn that, rather than facing up to her responsibilities, the mother of the offenders is anxious to attain victim status and get financial compensation.
She reportedly views herself as ill-used because social workers were too slow to remove her delinquent sons from her own inadequate care. Bitter experience tells us that the Human Rights Act will figure large in any civil case she seeks to bring and that legal aid will be made available to assist her.
The inability of the law to punish the guilty or protect the innocent is leading to a crisis in public confidence. Parents should not be able to sidestep responsibility for the deviant behaviour of their children, let alone pin the blame for it on the wider community. It is the victims’ families who deserve compensation. The cruel and negligent parents of the perpetrators deserve only contempt.
