Fred & Rosemary West

[Fanari_Lloyd]

I'd've copped a battering either for going off with strangers or making things up or both.

Yes, a no-win situation, really.

The Moors Murders must have frightened a lot of parents. They were just before I was born but I was told so often and so seriously as a child never to go off with strange people because of them and it scared me so much I only felt safe wandering around the fields and woods. Once when the little village school bus broke down they got someone from the garage to drive me home. I didn’t know the man and I was sure, those two miles home he was going to murder me! I was about 5. I certainly absorbed the warnings.

 

[escargot]

ha! you're right I remember them as a child. It was Sutcliffe in my 20s....

There's always another outrage coming along, isn't there?

Watching a TV documentary about the 2000 murder of young Sarah Payne recently I saw her mother starting making a speech about stopping abductions happening. I couldn't help thinking that only two years later the Soham girls suffered the same fate.

 

[Fanari_Lloyd]

Watching a TV documentary about the 2000 murder of young Sarah Payne recently I saw her mother starting making a speech about stopping abductions happening. I couldn't help thinking that only two years later the Soham girls suffered the same fate.

I’m not sure about the poor Soham girls, but that poor Sarah Payne seemed to be such an opportunistic crime. If she hadn’t been out of sight of her siblings, hadn’t gone onto the road, if that predator hadn’t been driving there at that time. Ugh…if, if, if. Those kinds of predators are always around, horribly, and although in an ideal world it wouldn’t be necessary, vulnerable kids and young people do have to be cautious. I always like seeing kids playing outside in summer, making up games and having adventures, even if they get a bit loud. I used to, and it was always fun. Children need that, but they also need to be really aware.

 

[escargot]

I’m not sure about the poor Soham girls, but that poor Sarah Payne seemed to be such an opportunistic crime. If she hadn’t been out of sight of her siblings, hadn’t gone onto the road, if that predator hadn’t been driving there at that time. Ugh…if, if, if. Those kinds of predators are always around, horribly, and although in an ideal world it wouldn’t be necessary, vulnerable kids and young people do have to be cautious. I always like seeing kids playing outside in summer, making up games and having adventures, even if they get a bit loud. I used to, and it was always fun. Children need that, but they also need to be really aware.

On the contrary, Whiting had been casing places to abduct a girl from for some time. The only opportunistic aspect was that, as you say, Sarah happened to be alone when he was out on his prowl. He would have taken any girl.

 

[Mikefule]

I’m not sure about the poor Soham girls, but that poor Sarah Payne seemed to be such an opportunistic crime. If she hadn’t been out of sight of her siblings, hadn’t gone onto the road, if that predator hadn’t been driving there at that time. Ugh…if, if, if. Those kinds of predators are always around, horribly, and although in an ideal world it wouldn’t be necessary, vulnerable kids and young people do have to be cautious. I always like seeing kids playing outside in summer, making up games and having adventures, even if they get a bit loud. I used to, and it was always fun. Children need that, but they also need to be really aware.

I am not up to date with the figures, but last time I looked into this, in the UK, there were 2.5 children per week killed by parents or carers, and 6 a year killed by strangers. At that time, there were 9 road deaths a day.

I am not in any way belittling the horror of abduction and murder, but am trying to place the risk in context. The perceived risk is far higher than the actual risk.

Of course, to some extent, this is a self-fulfilling thing: if society urges us to keep children indoors and not let them roam free, something is more likely to happen to them indoors, and less likely to happen when they are roaming free.

I had negligent parents and roamed free and solitary through much of my childhood, with my parents knowing little or nothing about where I was at any time. I was twice approached by men who said things that I barely understood, but which I now recognise as a sort of clumsy opportunistic grooming. On both occasions, I was able to "make my excuses and leave" before anything happened.

Compared to these two lucky escapes, I had a lot more danger to face at home on a regular basis, although not of a sexual nature. Also, I personally know two people in my age group who were sexually abused by family members, and I had one female school friend who was stabbed by a lad from the same year group at the same school, and was therefore known to her. Stranger abductions/murders are very much the exception, and yet they are the thing we are taught to fear the most.

 

[Fanari_Lloyd]

Stranger abductions/murders are very much the exception, and yet they are the thing we are taught to fear the most.

Yes, that’s very true. I remember my sister asking me to walk her children home from school after the Sarah Payne killing if she was busy and the side exit from the school was opposite her house, literally over a path, not even a road. It took about six paces from the gate to her front door and often they’d come home on their own. Not then. And judging by the amount of mums and dads waiting she wasn’t the only one who was worried. Often you’d see those children wandering home on their own, but not then.

Usually, unless it’s horrific cases like Baby P, violence at home/injuries at home gets much less news coverage than the headliners of abduction and murder unfortunately.