Acid attack on a child

I think acid attacks need their own category of crime.
Its repulsive, and aims to strip the victims identity away along with their skin.
Its on the increase too.

knickas, is it definite the family are Afghan?

His father is one of the men charged ??

I really can't say I'm surprised about that, sadly.

Looking at the names of the accused, father not named, they seem more likely to be Roma, also suggested, than Afghani.

Not sure why it matters where these people are from. If they are the perpetrators they have behaved in a dreadful way, contrary to common decency and the law of the land. There are evil doers within every nationality / race/ religion/ belief group/ class/ economic group etc
By focusing on the nationality of the wrong doer media can inadvertently give rise to racism and fire up the ectremists in society.

there are no extremists here.

It's no good using cultural differences to excuse what was done, I read the acid was meant for the mother, well that's ok then - not.

I couldn’t care less what nationality, race or religion they are. For a father to cause his 3-year old son to be targeted is despicable.

I totally agree with you OldMeg !

The fact that he “can’t be named for legal reasons” is somewhat questionable.

No one has used cultural differences to excuse the attack and no one has excused the attack,

The father can’t be named because it may be the child’s name too.

But for a father to do this horrific deed to his own child should not buy him annonimity. The poor child will know soon enough tha it was his own father that did this to him. and

That (not tha) it was his own father that did this to him.....

He got anonymity because identifying him by name would mean the child and mother could also be identified and their anonymity is essential for their security.

I quite agree that nationality is irrelevant, but there had been some discussion on the issue so it seemed relevant to present any evidence that corrected the implied assumption that the perpetrators were driven by religious and cultural norms (Afghani) alien to us and 'other'

His annonimity didn’t help the poor little mite before he was attached though did it? Poor lamb. There is no excuse for such a vile attack and I hope the perpetrators whatever their race or religion receive the maximum sentence possible. If deportation is possible than that should most definitely be top of the list.

The father isn't being protected by anonymity, the mother and her 3 children are. They may still be at risk from members of the father's friendship or family circle. The family were already in a safe house when this attack occurred. That means the level of risk was considered very high by police and other agencies.
No one is excusing this behaviour and I'm sure the maximum sentence will be applied.

The fact that they were “already in a safe house” is the point I was making Iam64 it didn’t do much good did it ? Someone obviously knew where they were.

There really must be something sadly missing in the minds of anyone who could do this to their own flesh and blood, their own family.

There are times when families in safe houses make contact with someone from their past, I am not accusing anyone in this family of doing so but it is possible.

Perhaps even someone the mother thought she could trust betrayed her. So sad.

I read that one of the children from this family was recognised on a school photo, and that was how the family was tracked down.

It seems that the acid was aimed at the mother, not the child, the child just got the acid because it missed the mother and fell onto the child in the push chair.

The kind of person who can do this sort of a thing is a nasty vicious brute totally regardless of their background, national, ethnic, socio-demographic, gender, age, or any thing else you can think of

Totally agree Monica but you forgot to add terminally stupid as it could have been anticipated that a thrown liquid would splatter all over the place.

I am glad you agree with my point that focussing on ethnicity is not important.
Annieb I said 'in the media' ..extremists read papers/watch TV and I am not sure how one can ever be sure who is on a forum!

PECS, yes I realise your concerns.