Total revulsion

There was little reaction from anyone on here - DM readers or not!

Yes, that surprised me
You have to be sorry for the defence barristers - they were on a hiding to nothing trying to make Philpott out to be a good father.

Well, not having seen these images, I have not reacted. And I am certainly not going to go looking.
Why is the thread "ridiculous" absent? Because it has wandered away from my original post? Isn't that what threads do though?
Just as some posters will inevitably bring the subject round to tenants in common and house ownership versus care home fees, others will bring in the Daily Mail. Doesn't mean we have to join in. With no experience of either I couldn't comment.

It's a thread on a forum not a debate in Parliament and therefore as all good conversations go ,it wandered. I certainly have no intention of looking at a multiple execution just because someone mentions it. I don't want it in my memory bank. If people read the DM or don't read it's their choice. . I read the Times but don't expect others to read it if I mention something I've seen there

There are some news items mentioned that I choose not to look at or have conversations about and others that I want to discuss or debate. It's my prerogative, and the day I log in to Gransnet feeling I have to engage in any particular subject that has been posted is the day I'll stop bothering.

When the converse is also true - the feeling that there are some threads that I dare not express an opinion on, is just as depressing.

Yes, indeed, Jane - I don't think you are at all alone there!

If you feel you daren't express an opinion, jane and ana how do you think I felt to be told that the thread I had started to express my opinion on this dreadful case, was "pointless". That sounded like a put-down to say the least.
However, I am not that easily put down.

I take your point, gracesmum, but often posters don't look at who started the thread when they voice their views - so not personal.

m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/03/dont-get-mad-about-use-of-philpotts-tarnish-poor

All as bad as each other

I b----y despair.

We have all seen threads digress but this is now taking the biscuit. This should not be about newspapers, politics or anybody point scoring over subjects, usually the DM or Sun, they repeat over and over again.

I am now with Petallus, this thread feels uncomfortable given the heart breaking subject and it has taken a turn for the worse. 6 children died for goodness sake. I find it amazing there is a possibility this thread could turn into defending the sensitivity of 'murderers' because they have been demonised in the media in a fashion that offends some GN's.

This tragic case of 6 children dying simultaneously is horrendous and that is why it is rightly newsworthy. The family circumstances are sordid and that adds more news value to the story but sadly every day children die or are brutally abused by parents/carers.

My despair is also directed at Jeremy Kyle and the Ann Widdicombe type shows that are voyeuristic in style and attract participants and viewers that are vulnerable in all kinds of ways. I make no excuse for Phillpot but his noteriety and power was fuelled by those programmes. It is not enough for the media(press /TV) to say it is what people want..

Like the 'soaps' where the characters lurch from crisis to crisis the JK show makes it appear 'normal' to be dysfunctional. It really saddens me but I have no idea how to begin to challenge it.

You are so right Nanaej. These programmes are disgusting and sadly, they feed into that sense of self righteousness that is felt by so many 'Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men'.

AW is not a stupid woman. She knows exactly what she is doing by taking part in a programme like that.

As for 'defending the sensitivity of murderers' where did that come from?

Philpott has extensive previous and is clearly a wicked and violent man. I fully expect that he will get the life sentence which he deserves. It would also seem that he has groomed very young and troubled girls from disfuctional families. It seems odd that no agency felt able to intervene, but then, we don't know the background.

But NONE of this justified the DM linking his actions with all those who have to claim assistance from the state (to which 97% will have contributed in tax and NI in any event) because they are poor.

I do not see anybody defending murderers' sensitivity either. If you can possibly take any more on the depths to which these people sank, read Allison Pearson in today's Telegraph (can't do the link) and just stop and think where were Social Services? Where were the teachers? Where were the neighbours or the other people with whom they must have come into contact, in this appalling case?
Let's not be distracted by the gutter press from looking at the true facts and both forming and voicing, if we so choose. oour own opinion. Maybe society keeps quiet too often.

I can not believe this family were unknown to Social services. When I was working as a teacher in Brum we often had to nag and nag an overworked social services to get them to take us seriously. Some of the cases were pretty grim and some finally lead to the children being removed...not enough sadly.

Glad they had a woman judge today and they have been charged appropriately.

I think it is very sad for anyone to comment that a thread is pointless or rediculous or any other patronising statement. Is it intended to imply some sort of superiority? If you don't like a thread, please just leave it with or without comment, it is not necessary to be unpleasant.

If at school the children were clean & tidy, well behaved, making at least OK progress what are schools to do?

What about the other family who left with the "mistress"? Are social services looking at them? I saw the news where the perpetrators were driven off with people screaming at the van. What drives people to go and scream at a van?

stansgran I am concerned for that family too and I hope they are being looked after. I also hope we never find out about the help they are getting and that the media leave them alone. I suspect they are out there trying to track down all his other 11 children.

Difficult to understand such mentality unless they were actually related to the children who died. I didn't see it. Perhaps they were the mothers of all his other children??? Now I am going to be told off again for flippancy

It is okay to comment in pretty much any way at all on any thread so far as I understand as long as no one is being aggressive, abusive or insulting to other individuals. I am just bored to death with the same smug and ill-informed comments about people on welfare coming up time and time and time and time and time and time again from the same posters on whole loads of different threads. That, in my view is deeply patronising. I didn't think this was one was appropriate for doing the same old same old same old. I see it as self-indulgent and ridiculous. I am allowed to see it that way. Okay?

I think I might have screamed at the van if I had been in the area.

I think the Anne Widdecombe programme could have served to alert social services. Although I guess, to all intents and purposes, the children themselves were being cared for satisfactorily.

Not fair to lump Anne Widdecombe together with Jeremy Kyle.