Mick Hartley

This is just awful. From Anna Moore at the Guardian:

October marks the 10th anniversary of the murder of Claire Throssell’s two sons, Jack and Paul, by their father. He had lured them to the attic with sweets and a new train set, then barricaded the house and started 14 fires. He’d locked all the doors, secured the patio doors with a heavy bike lock and used chairs and mattresses as extra barriers to slow down firefighters.

Jack and Paul, aged 12 and nine, hadn’t wanted to visit their father, Darren Sykes. He had previously hit both them and their mum. He’d made them eat until they were sick. He used to call them “mummy’s boys”. Paul had explained all this to a worker at Cafcass (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) in a formal interview. Throssell had said in an evidence statement that, when angry, Sykes was capable of hurting or killing the boys, that he had told her he intended to take his own life and that he could understand fathers killing their children. Still, contact was awarded to him.

Ten years on – or, in her own words, “10 years into my life sentence” – Throssell cannot believe how little has been learned. “I’ve had sleepless nights knowing that the judge who made the contact order was still on the bench and the Cafcass worker who interviewed Paul has never been held accountable,” she says.

“I don’t live now, I exist,” she continues, “and the only reason I exist is to make a difference. There are days I wake up disappointed I’m alive, but then I remember that I made a vow to get my children’s voices heard. We need a true overhaul of the family courts – and if I can’t get that, why am I still here?”  […]

Paul was interviewed by a Cafcass officer for the section 7 report and described life with his dad, listing the many reasons he didn’t want to see him. The Cafcass officer then met with Sykes. The serious case review following the boys’ deaths found that Sykes became “agitated and uncomfortable” in that meeting and barred the door to prevent the officer leaving – her notes stated that she wanted extra support when with him in future. “If that Cafcass officer couldn’t handle seeing him alone, how the hell did she think a nine- and 12-year-old would? She had the power to overrule the contact order there and then,” says Throssell. “But she didn’t.” CCTV images have shown that, on leaving that meeting, Sykes went out and bought five cans of petrol. Two days later, during the next contact visit, he killed his sons and himself.

Violent controlling men being appeased; women's concerns ignored. Again and again and again.