FIONA PILKINGTON - SOCIETY WITH A BROKEN MORAL COMPASS

The tragic story of the suicide of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter Francesca shocked the nation this week. Media attention returned to the events of that fateful day, following an inquest earlier this week when a coroners inquest ruled that police inaction had contributed to their deaths.

Years of torment from young neighbors led the despairing single mother to kill herself and her disabled daughter. Fiona Pilkington, 38, and her 18-year-old daughter, Francecca Hardwick, died when Ms Pilkington set fire to their car in Leicestershire in October 2007.

The ringleaders of a gang of children that terrorised Fiona and her daughter continue to be a menace in the area, the court heard. The children, who have virtually no parental control, are said to remain the root cause of antisocial behaviour on the street where they tormented Fiona and her severely disabled daughter, Francecca, for almost ten years. Fiona Pilkington suffered more than a decade of abuse from a gang of youths who terrorized her family by urinating on her house, taunting her developmentally challenged daughter and beating her severely dyslexic son. The family lived for more than 10 years under siege. A 16-strong gang of yobs regularly pelted Fiona’s house with eggs, they set fences on fire, pushed fireworks through the front door and taunted Francecca.

Most of us will never understand the mentality of feral yobs who stalk our streets. Though we’ve seen enough examples of lawlessness to know these knuckle-trailing neanderthals exist in increasing numbers and have utter disregard for the norms of a polite, civilised society.

Undoubtedly, the Leicestershire force will remain under the spotlight as a result of the crtiticism levelled against them. Time will reveal the degree of responsibility they must accept for the tragic events.

Superintendent Steve Harrod told the inquiry how low-level anti-social behaviour is now a local council’s responsibility. And the objective of British justice is to avoid criminalising young people.

COMMENT

Not so many years ago low-lives looking for trouble would have been hauled before courts or had the living daylights scared out of them by coppers determined to keep their beat problem-free. Now yobs tear up Asbos and mock authority. They consider the law a joke and who can blame them? While vile thugs circled Fiona’s family like wolves baying for blood her local force stand accused of doing nothing.

If the police were negligent in their duty, then those responsble should be identified and the appropriate action taken to prevent further similar occurrences involving vulnerable members of society.

The root cause of the problem though is symptomatic of policing in the UK in 2009. In exploring why the police might have failed in their duty it is essential to look beyond the front line officers who attended or dealt with calls.

The current state of the police is not the fault of good officers who want to do a proper job but are hamstrung by the burdens of paperwork and successive Government legislation, the latest being the excessive number of new offences brought in during the last twelve years by this Government.

Due to politically motivated control, bureaucracy and cost, the entire criminal justice system is corrupted from the top downwards starting with the treasury who hold the purse strings, and the Home Office who are allegedly in charge of policing.

Literally thousands of articles and posts echoing these sentiments have proliferated online forums during recent years. They can't all be wrong. There is something radically amiss with police priorities and modus operandi but, much more pertinently, they and the politicians are fully aware of it. There are plenty policemen and women imbued with moral integrity and sound motives. There are many police blogs where officers attempt to convey this very message to the public they serve.

Whichever Government is in charge, there needs to be an urgent and comprehensive review of policing in the UK and fast.

The sad case of Fiona Pilkington and her family are symptoms of a society whose moral compass is badly broken. It can be fixed but the repair work required needs to be more than the cosmetic surface level damage. A previous post from this site talked of the spoiled society, where some sectors of the younger generation are badly in need of a firm hand with a return to back to basics discipline and control. click here to read the article

If the Government are to start the task of fixing our society, then surely there is no better place to start than here. By instilling some firm handed forgotten disciplines within the "spoiled sector" of our youth, there will at least be a glimmer of hope that the UK may once again be a pleasant, less threatening place to live.


The Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Limited

THE SPOILED YOUNGER GENERATION IS SPOILING OUR SOCIETY

Dr Aric Sigman

Thanks to http://200weeks.police999.com/ for inspiring this post.

In a book published this week called "The Spoiled Generation" psychologist Dr Aric Sigman explores the erosion of discipline, respect and civility in the youth of the UK and the negaive effect it is having on society.

Dr Sigman accurately captures the growing sense of unease felt by a large percentage of the UK public. He said “Children of the spoilt generation are used to having their demands met by their parents and others in authority, and that in turn makes them unprepared for the realities of adult life. This has consequences in every area of society, from the classroom to the workplace, the streets to the criminal courts and rehabilitation clinics".

He suggests that children & young people’s rights must be curtailed and a firm hand is urgently needed if they are to be properly guided into adulthood.

Dr Sigman, a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, continued: “Authority is a basic health requirement in children’s lives. But, while children have become increasingly ‘empowered’ in terms of legislation and rights, far from being protected, they are actually suffering in ways that could never have been foreseen.”

The police see the consequences of the "Spoiled Generation" every day on the street of the UK. - Britain now has the highest rates of child depression, child-on-child murder, underage pregnancy, obesity, violent and anti-social behaviour and pre-teen alcoholism since records began. A 44% rise in assaults on police by children is surely a symptom of a much greater disease that will follow if not treated fast.

Respect for law and order and authority is fading rapidly as parents and schools fail in their duty to their children. The criminal justice system including the police are then just one of the groups of agencies that deal with the fall out. The empowering of children, however well intended, has served to undermine the authority of parents, teachers, police officers and other authority figures.

If the Government are to start the task of fixing our society, then surely there is no better place to start than  here. By instilling some firm handed forgotten disciplines within the "spoiled sector" of our youth, there will at least be a glimmer of hope that the UK may once again be a pleasant place to live.   

If it is down to our politicians to start the ball rolling, we'll not hold our breath.

Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Limited