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Real lives: What ��ưs a parent to kill?

Updated: 10:40 BST, 22 November 2010

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It's the most heinous �ᡤ�Ⱥ� of all ? yet in just two weeks this summer a cluster of ��㡿��s of filicide ��⤹�롤��ͤ�� the headlines. Mary Greene looks into these �Ƕ�� /��s in the UK to try to make sense of the seemingly inexplicable?

From left: Christy Ruddell, two, whose mother has been ��ȯ�ʤ��ˡ��ʡʤ��ˡ��d with his ��; Bethany Caudwell-Kennerley, three, whose mother was ��̳�ꡤ��ֽ�d for life for ��͡�� her

A mother walks into a police �ء��֤��, her wrists ��d, carrying the lifeless ��Ρ�� of her two-year-old son who has been strangled and stabbed. (She was later ��ȯ�ʤ��ˡ��ʡʤ��ˡ��d with his ��.) A father, �Ҥ٤�d as ��an all-��Ϣ�β�ġ��ġ�� good person��, kills his six-year-old diabetic son with an insulin overdose before ��͡�� himself. He has recently parted from the boy��s mother and ��s losing his ��餷. Another ��loving�� mother is ��Ƚ��d after smothering her angelic-looking three-year-old daughter with her favourite Piglet pyjama ��㡿�� then ��ߤ롿��Ƥ�ing to �� her own wrists. It transpires that she has misled her estranged husband into believing he was her child��s father, and was ľ�̤��ing a �ݸ��α �臘��襤.

Perhaps most horrifying is the fact that these stories of vindictiveness, jealousy and despair appeared in newspapers over a ��ӽФ��ȿ� two-week period this summer. Behind the headlines in each ��㡿�� is a ʴ��ˤ��d family tormented by questions that will haunt the ��¸��s for the �Ĥ꡿�ٷơʤ�� of their lives, yet the background to filicide ? a word hardly ever used, perhaps because society �ߤʤ�s the �ᡤ�Ⱥ� it �Ҥ٤�s to be literally unspeakable ? is nearly always horribly mundane, some commonplace story of the family break-up endemic in life today.

For most parents in the painful throes of �Ƕ�� ʬΥ, the �� desperate bitterness will �� . Yet seemingly more and more often the �� ܤ꡿�ܤ� is brooded upon until it boils over into a �ᡤ�Ⱥ� of unbearable sadness and wickedness: the annihilation of a child��s life by a parent��a �� that runs so contrary to human nature that we recoil from the thought of it. How could a father �Ѥ�� to hear his children��s terrified ��򤢤��s? What deranged logic or warped love could ��ư a mother to kill her own child?

Even for professionals who �� the grim �ƶ�, these ��㡿��s are shocking.
Dr Keith Ashcroft is an investigative psychologist, based in Manchester, who has �Ϲͤ��롿��θ��d scene-of-�ᡤ�Ⱥ� ��ʤ��ˡ��¬s of ��ˡ�¿�� family ��s, often also ȼ��ؤ��ing the �� ? ��ߤ롿��Ƥ�d or successful ? of the ��-parent. ��I��ve broken into a ��ø�� sweat looking at these photographs,�� he says. ��They are �� horrendous. Yet the �� ʸ��ǧ��s te nd to be unbelievably ��-of-fact and unemotional.��?

The background to these horrifying ��s is nearly always horribly mundane

Last Christmas ? all too often the season of ill will and family �� ? Andrew Copland, 56, a painter and decorator from Aldershot, Hampshire, ȯ�� dead his four-year-old daughter Maisie, ��Ƿ⡤��ȳ�ʤɤ��Ϳ��d �ͷ� ��s on his partner from which she died the next day, then ȯ�� himself fatally through the Ĺ��Ψ��. Maisie and her mum had arrived on an �ܶ� visit minutes earlier. Copland was �Ҥ٤�d as an ��ɾ�Τ�� woman hater��, known to have a violent temper and an obsession with guns.

But there is another ��ơ��d of father who can be Ͷȯ��롿��d to kill, the sort invariably �Ҥ٤�d by his baffled �ٿ�s as a decent family man who lives only for his children. And therein lies the �� factor, Dr Ashcroft explains: a family so dysfunctionally �ζ᤯��-knit that when a father ? and it is usually the father, �ˤ⤫��餺 a cluster of �Ƕ�� ͡��s by mothers ? decides that life is no longer ��͡ʤ�� living, his warped logic and distorted sense of himself as protector and provider ��ס��׵᤹�� that he take his children and partner with him.

Psychologists call it ��enmeshment�� ? an �㤷�� over-��Ϳ that can blur ��s between parent and child, so that the annihilation of the whole family seems like an ��ĥ of their own ��. ��These men either live their lives through their families or believe they own them,�� says Dr Ashcroft. ��So when they decide to take their own lives, they feel ��븢��Ϳ��d to take the lives of their children, too.�� Today��s patterns of ��Ū�� parenting, where adults tend to be over-ȼ��ؤ��d in their children��s lives, can ��뤹�� a �� where such unhealthy emotions �˱ɤ��.

��Most people �Ҥ٤� these people as good family men because they don��t really know them: they��re socially ��Ω��d,�� says Kevin Browne, p rofessor of ˡ�� psychology at Nottingham University. ��To ��s, they always appear to be together as a family. The men are locked into their �� as father, a �� they feel they would lose if the family broke up.�� The catalyst is any outside �� to family ��ľ�� ? estrangement from a partner, loss of a �� or �� of �� ѵ�. ��Rather than lose his wife and children, the father would prefer them all to be dead, �ޤ�ing himself.��

Chris Hall, six, was killed by his father

If such �ĵԤ� ��s were �԰١�ˡ�᡿��ư��s of insane, unpremeditated impulse they might be easier to comprehend. But it is a grim, difficult �Ż� to kill a whole family, �׵᤹��ing ��ʤ�� planning. In August 2008 Christopher Foster, a former multimillionaire, ȯ�� his wife Jill and 15-year-old daughter Kirstie and then �Ϥ�롤�� ۤ��롿ˤ�С��ͷ� to his idyllic country home in Shropshire. At the time of his death, he was ��4.5 million in �� and knew that the �ʶ��˼��Դ�s were on their way. His own CCTV �ʱǲ�Ρ˥ե��ȿ� that ��Ĥ�d the �� s the ��s were carried out calmly and deliberately.
He ȯ�� the dogs and horses, pumped oil into the �ϳ� of the house, ��d the driveway with a horse box, and lay �餫��Ƥ�� on the bed beside his wife��s ��Ρ�� until smoke overcame him.

�ˤ�� Dr Ashcroft, ��These people �ײ�ʤ�� in extreme �ܺ١ʤ˽Ҥ٤��. It��s rarely an impulsive �԰١�ˡ�᡿��ư��.�� For men like this, suicidal fantasies are �ܰ餹��d over time as a possible escape �羡��. ��It wou ld be a notion in the �ٱ礹�� of their mind, growing like a seed, for months, years, as they get more depressed.��

Although the �ޥ�� ׷� is ��ʤ�� when these �� 㡿��s ��, ��s agree
that such offences are still rare. �ˤ⤫��餺 all the changes in modern life that might seem to ��ä�� the �� factors ? Υ��s, �ݸ��α �臘��襤s, �� Ĵ��롿��ȥ쥹, text messages that ǳ�� s of infidelity ? instances of filicide have remained ��ˡ��ʤ� constant for ��ǯ��s. (Home Office ��ʪ��ѡ��s show that in the UK 28 children Ϸǯ�� under 16 were killed by a parent in 2008-9.) The ��, however, is that emotive �˥塼��ƻ may inadvertently encourage more ��͡��s, �ٹ𤹤�s Dr Ashcroft. ��For someone who is �� depressed, it��s a precedent: ��It��s happened before��so I��ll do it.�� That��s ��⤷��ʤ� the explanation when these things happen in clusters ? they may ��d off each other.��

Tragically, that seems to have been the ��㡿�� in Oswestry, Shropshire, when Hugh McFall, a �¶Ȳ� ľ�̤��ing �� ѵ�, bludgeoned his wife and 18-year-old daughter to death in February this year. He left a ��ʸ��ǧ�� ? ��I love you more than anything I have ever loved. I couldn��t let you �줷��. Daddy. xx�� ? and then he hanged himself. His computer showed that he had �ܶ�d news �˥塼��ƻ of the ��ϰϤˤ錄�ä� publicised Foster family �� in the same small town only 16 months ��.???

Fathers tend to commit these ��s more often than mothers, not only because women are ��ä��ʤ� likely to be violent, but because when couples Υ�� ݸ��α of children usually goes to the mother, giving rise to feelings of jealousy and ��ܡʤ�� in the father if �ܶ� is made difficult. For those who kill, their ��Ū�� is to ��Ĥ�� their former partner. Cab driver Ashok Kalyanjee, who stabbed his sons Paul, six, and Jay, two, in 2008, before setting himself on ��ۤ��롿ˤ�С��ͷ� (a failed ��ߤ롿��Ƥ� to commit ��), first telephoned his estranged wife to taunt her: ��You��ll �� everything that you have done to me in life.� �

For some women the ��͡�� may be an extreme �� to feeling hopeless about their lives and
the ̤��

And in Australia Robert Farquharson was ��̳�ꡤ��ֽ�d in 2007 for ��ing his three sons by ��ưing them into a ��¢�� on Father��s Day to spite their mother. (His retrial this summer again ��Ω�� him ͭ��.) ��s said that after swimming from his ��夹��d car he had the ��delicious reward�� of telling his ex-wife about their deaths.

��They��re not insane,�� says Professor Browne of such fathers. ��They��re ��ü�� jealous, but jealousy is not a mental illness. These are men who have to be in ��ۡʤ��ˡ��
and have very paranoid attachments.�� ܺ��Ĵ��s into such ��㡿��s look for that history of ˽�ϡ��㤷��, alcohol dependency, mood swings, �ط� ��s and the need for ��ۡʤ��ˡ�� and �ϡ��Ϥˤ�� within the family.

As for the �Ƕ�� ͡��s carried out by mothers ? still sub judice and so far unexplained ? it is ��̤� agreed that the ��¿�� of women who kill their children are profoundly mentally ill, or �줷��ing from ��ü�� rare postnatal depressive psychosis. Dr Gerard �ݼ�ʶ��s, a psychologist for East Anglia��s ˡ�� psychiatric service, ��Ǥ��s a mother who killed three children and herself while experiencing ��Ū�� delusions. ��She believed the children were ��ͭ��d by devils and demons and that she was ��ʤ��ing them; for that individual, it seems �� ʳءˤ�. There��s a strange, ��Ÿ��d, perverted love: ��I��m going to save the children. They��ll go to an afterlife, even if I won��t because of what I��ve done.�� ?

For other women, he says, the ��͡�� may be an extreme �� to �Էʵ� or a feeling of hopelessness about their lives and the ̤��; perhaps something is wrong with the child and the woman can��t �ٴ��ʾޤʤɤ�˳�� e, such as ��ӽФ��ȿ� mother Satpal Mahal-Singh who has been ��ȯ�ʤ��ˡ��ʡʤ��ˡ��d with ��ing her �� autistic son earlier this year. ��I have heard rationalisations after the event when a mother has ��Ĥ�d, only to �줷�� awful ��å� when she realises what she has done,�� he explains.

For ��¸��s of these family ��s, there is little professional help. Nobody will forget the stricken, disbelieving ľ�̤�� of American oil ϫƯ�� Pasquale Riggi, whose estranged wife Theresa has now been ��ȯ�ʤ��ˡ��ʡʤ��ˡ��d with the �� of their daughter, five, and eight-year-old twin boys, ��Ω�� dead in an Edinburgh flat in August. Rose Dixon, Ĺ��Ƴ�� (n)��(a)��ϤΤ�� of Samm (Support After �� and �Ἲ�׻�), says that very few ��å� counsellors have the experience of ��ing with such extreme ��㡿��s: ��The services ��ѤǤ�� to people after �� are almost ��ԡ�̵-existent. Yet �Ϲͤ��롿��θ��s show that 93 per cent of those �ʻब��å��d by �� 줷�� ϰ̡�Ǥ̿��-traumatic ��Ĵ��롿��ȥ쥹.�� When a parent is the ��, ��Ĥ�ing family members may be tormented not only by grief, but by divided ��s. ��Some will take the ��ȿ�ԡ��Ⱥ�ԡ�s ̣�� and say he was ill, he needed help and was ��ʤ��d to the �³�,�� says Dixon.

��Ǻ, �Էʵ�, feelings of powerlessness and loss of ��ۡʤ��ˡ��: these �ö�Ū�� emotions are undoubtedly predictors of ˽�ϡ��㤷��, and are ��դ줿 after family break-up. ��That��s part of the �� for family members left behind, often racked with �Ⱥ� as they look at things retrospectively,�� says Dr �ݼ�ʶ��s. ��They may have known something was wrong and been �ؿ�d, but we can��t ͽ�󤹤� people��s ��ư��Ʈs. There are always going to be some people ? fortunately, very few ? who will commit that extreme �԰١�ˡ�᡿��ư��.��

And that��s what��s so terrifying. The seemingly ��Ƥ�d father, whose family means the whole world to him, might �� ͭǽ�� of the most heinous �ᡤ�Ⱥ� of all.