Parents Killing Children

Crossing the Invisible Line

Janice Sim

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317084099
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

Parents Killing Children: Crossing the Invisible Line explores hidden forms of violence within the family. This socio-legal study addresses the interactions between the family and the state, focusing on six parent perpetrators and the ways in which child endangerment is concealed within society.

Drawing on symbolic interactionism, mythology and a modelling of case study data, this book puts forward a unique conceptualisation of representation and risk, both on familial and state levels. The failure of the state to intervene and neutralise volatile perpetrators also sheds light on the socio-legal status of children – society's most vulnerable – and the book concludes by discussing means by which the underlying social conditions and maladies symptomatic of child abuse and killing should be addressed.

1
Introducing the six filicide cases

Introduction

The following stories are written in a way that draws out socio-criminological themes pertaining to theoretical conceptualisations of: masking as a dramaturgical device (discussed in Chapter 2); the criminological theory of labelling (discussed in Chapter 5); representations (perpetrator, judicial and media) (discussed in Chapters 4 and 5); and parental ownership in the social and symbolic sense (discussed in Chapters 2, 3 and 6). The six stories are based on written accounts of events and written statements of persons whose identities have been changed.

The thread that runs through the themes is symbolic interactionist theory, which links these social processes through a focus on symbolic and social indications in which people make meaning of each other, themselves, and their family and environment.¹ These interactions are between the individual actor and his or her family and community members; between the parent and the child; and between the family and the state. Using case study methodology, the ‘story’ can be presented from multiple perspectives, and this reflects the social processes and meaning-making within it. Of particular significance is its ability to tease out these complex interactions illustrating the perspectival nature of representation, which informs the modelling and theorising of representation in Chapters 4 and 5. Some of these complex interactions also provide insight into the ‘hidden’ expressions of violence towards the child and the conditions of dysfunctionality affecting child safety in the family. Additionally, this method allows the reader to grasp the decision-making processes associated with the actors in the case, which is crucial when looking at the broader role of state agents and their interactions with the family.

The stories are written in a way that retains the first-person narrative to preserve the voice of the individual as far as possible. Some narratives may contradict each other. Where there is a dispute with regard to the corroboration of certain facts, the disputed statement or incident is referenced as conflicting. This is difficult and challenging, as ‘truth’ in its limited sense in the context of these stories is largely a legal, subjective and objectively indefinable concept; this difficulty is pointed out in Chapters 3 and 4 in the discussion on representation. The veracity of each person’s account is presented with the intention of showing that ‘truth’ and ‘fact’ are not the same. In the subjective sense, each person’s account is taken to represent the truth of his or her belief.

The stories are told from evolving perspectives. Family members, and sometimes the perpetrators themselves, give inside contextual insight into the unfolding conflict. Representations from the court where the presiding judge’s comments pertain to perpetrator motive and sentencing lend an objective ‘flair’ to the story. The media’s representation is included where its reconstruction and interpretation of the killing and of the perpetrator are relevant to the interpretation of shared symbols and the processes of social life. The media is also seen as a pivotal social force in giving ‘voice’ to the perpetrator, the community and, sometimes, the deceased. Government and coronial reports are sometimes provided where they explain the agency’s position in respect of their alleged failures to protect the child. Each of these stories ends with my concluding remarks, which draw out the themes in the book. The themes discussed in the following chapters, and through which the stories are presented, are: masking, dysfunctional intervention, patriarchal ownership, judicial and media narratives, symbolic violence, meaning-making, representation and risk. The stories have been pared down, with many of the accounts given by the perpetrators and family members stripped of raw emotions, which were very powerful because they were first-hand experiences of the conflict. Nevertheless, they have been written in such a way as to give primacy to the leading voices in the stories and to stay true, as far as possible, to their original content.

Recounting the ‘voice’

The recounting of the voice is the central focus of this chapter, because of the book’s interest in representation. Each person’s account is written in such a way as to provide different points of representation, such as from the perspectives of the perpetrator(s), the child (deceased) and external observers, including family members and social workers. The purpose of focusing on the ‘voice’ is to be ‘true’ to the data by representing it as closely as possible; this became an exercise of retelling the accounts as ‘stories’. The retelling of the ‘stories’ then revealed the significance of certain contextual features that impact on representation, as discussed in Chapters 4 and 5. These features include emotional proximity, physical space, distance and time. These features are the same cultural and social framings that shape the representation around the style of the ‘story’. For example, storytelling by the perpetrators, family members and community workers reveals different aspects of representation. Risk, for instance, takes the final form of risk of harm reports. Objective representations as to fact, for instance, are represented by government reports and the ‘voice’ of the judicial narrative. In these stories, the reader may well notice that the child is rarely heard, seen or represented prior to the killing. In some brief instances their lives are represented in the coronial, judicial and media narratives, but their voices are rarely heard. This key observation, although not within the analytical themes, is discussed in depth in Chapter 7, which looks at the issue of children’s rights and representation.

One obvious conclusion is that representations, such as the perpetrator representation of self and events or a risk of harm to the child representation, are shaped, and given meaning, through the eyes of the observer. This sets the stage for discussions on the nature of representation in the chapters to follow. The broader message to take away from the stories you are about to read is this: these are very tragic stories of children whose deaths could have been, very possibly, prevented by an intervention. Children are society’s most vulnerable and they deserve to be heard, seen and protected. The fact that the children’s voices are silent and their presences nearly invisible is a reflection of a reality for some, in which children’s lives matter little.

Horace Faulkner

Summary: Horace Faulkner’s story is about the repercussions, and nature, of vengeful domestic violence. At the heart of this violence were three young children, one girl aged 7 and two boys aged 5 and 4, who were the victims of an acrimonious separation and child residence (custody) fight between father and mother. The children were eventually drugged and drowned by their father, who, following their failed struggle for life, arranged a ritualistic setting – a scene of shock and horror – aimed to create maximum impact and to send a message to their mother. Horace’s anger towards his ex-wife is physically manifested through the deaths of the children, and his treatment of the children ties in with the theme of ownership of children. Horace believed he had the right and power to dispose of his children when presented with the possibility of the children having a stepfather. Aligned with the theme of ownership is the displacement of Horace’s anger onto the children, who became pawns for the expiation of his own suffering.

In spite of the family’s record of domestic violence with various support agencies, there were no real concerns for the safety and well-being of the children because Horace had always appeared as a loving, doting and protective father. Paradoxically, it was Horace’s desire to save the children from his broken marriage that gave him a reason to wear the mask of the altruistic loving parent in order to murder them. This particular representation, as the loving parent, masked the risk of violence to the children and concealed from the public gaze the true nature of the dysfunction in the home, and in Horace himself.

Background

Since childhood Horace had been a disturbed individual. His parents separated when he was young. He became traumatised by various incidents, leading him to attempt suicide several times during his early adult years. After Horace met his wife, Melissa, at work, they got married and had three children. When the marriage failed, the contentious separation and child residence proceedings aggravated Horace’s unstable disposition. When Horace heard that Melissa was seeing someone else, and after his attempts at reconciliation failed, Horace took the children’s lives by drugging and drowning them when Melissa left them in his care at his unit one afternoon. He then attempted suicide. He was found by his mother, Annette, who had become increasingly concerned about his state of mind following his phone call to her the night before. Horace was arrested and charged with three counts of murder. His defence of substantial mental impairment was rejected by the jury. He was sentenced to 32 years in jail.

The scene of death

He had deliberately set out to create a horrifying spectacle for her benefit. It was to be a scene from her worst nightmare and one that she would neve...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Table of cases
• Table of legal instruments
• Preface
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Introducing the six filicide cases
• 2 Symbolic representation: forms of filicidal violence
• 3 Mythical representations: from myth to law
• 4 Modelling representation
• 5 Theorising representation
• 6 Masculine representations: loving fathers? Failed representations leading to risk
• 7 Risky representations
• Appendix: fieldwork templates
• Bibliography
• Index