Nasty boys

The story of “Baby P”, the child who died following sustained torture and abuse at the hands of the people who were supposed to love and care for him most, has re-entered the news headlines following the disclosure of their identities. A short life, filled with agony, in the company of two violent men and a selfish woman. I doubt that anyone who has heard about the torturing to death of angelic little Peter Connelly can have felt anything but anger and sadness about it. The official disclosure of the names of those responsible for the dreadful cruelty that he endured have not lessened these emotions but they have given us some insight into how the situation unfolded. It is clear that the events that led to it had their roots in abuse and neglect that took place decades ago.

The aspect of this story that lingers in my mind is the phenomenon of violent young men, in this case a pair of brothers, whose anger and aggression to those around them seems to have been left to fester and evolve into the kind of behaviour that I do not recall encountering years ago. There was a time when you would almost expect it of people brought up in the way that Steven Barker and his sibling Jason Evans were. However I have begun to see it all around me and it isn‘t restricted to boys from “sink” estates. Nice boys do it too.

A few years ago I was in a superstore and an incident that most of the other people there would have missed made me look again at a woman who was shopping with two lanky teenage boys who I presume were her sons. Nothing unusual about that on a Saturday. What made them stand out was that one of these boys had moved in a way that had made it seem as though he was about to strike her to the extent that she flinched. And then carried on as though nothing had happened. The meanness of the gesture struck me, particularly as he was grinning. I was left with the impression that he had done this many times before and was delighted that he had managed to make her jump. Years later I still regret that I did not ask her if I could help because I suspect that what I saw in those few seconds in a public place may have been the tip of the iceberg. There may have been a very good explanation for it, he may have had behavioural difficulties or even Tourette Syndrome which means that the sufferer cannot always control their actions, but my instinct was that this was a display of power. I wondered where Dad was and whether he would have allowed this to happen. Perhaps they had picked it up from Dad.

The aggressive “pretend I’m going to hit you” gesture is something that I have seen a number of times in TV footage of binge drinkers, where police are dealing with troublesome crowds outside bars. Women in these situations seem to accept these actions as part of a night out. I can remember when it would have led to the person behaving in this way being punished by her partner or other males because it was no way to treat a woman. Why do women think that being shown a lack of respect is funny? It’s nothing to giggle about. Are they so desperate to keep that relationship that mock violence is to be tolerated?

More recently I was asked to intervene and protect a young woman who approached me in Ealing Broadway one evening. She had crossed the road to speak to me and a man who was standing nearby because she had been on the receiving end of loud and angry abuse from two young men at a bus stop. I had noticed shouting and that the object of this very negative attention had been a woman but even I was shocked at how terrified she was. It seems that she had found a mobile phone on the ground and had not been convinced when one of these men had told her it was his so she had handed it in to the police station nearby. The time spent waiting to prove his ownership had not improved his mood and he had been taking it out on her verbally ever since. She was clearly afraid that the abuse would become physical as she appeared to know these brothers by reputation.

We told them to shut up and that she had done the responsible thing and eventually they backed off. It wasn’t that difficult. In fact they seemed quite keen to explain their side of the story, proving only that she was in the right. The small amount of moral authority that we exercised that night was enough to put them in their place. Two girls who stood on the sidelines but appeared to be with them looked on silently but seemed troubled. I wondered if they would have to act as shock absorbers for the rest of the evening, having witnessed the diminishing of the power of their men folk. Afterwards I wished that I had asked them if their male companions always spoke to women like that, if they thought that they would eventually treat the mothers of their children in the same way.

I wonder if, had someone been firm with Barker and Owen much earlier in their lives when they threw their weight around, they would have been denied the permission they appear to have been granted to torture to death a 17 month old child. If, in the weeks before they tried to force their elderly grandmother to change her will in their favour by shutting her into a wardrobe, they had been seriously scared by her neighbours into leaving her alone and would therefore have been directed away from the path they took. This isn’t just about punishing bad behaviour, it’s about the attitude of young people to those they are in relationships with. It’s about providing them with a template for their future.

Since that moment in the supermarket I have wondered how many middle class women endure what I saw everyday out of the sight of their neighbours and are too ashamed to ask for support in handling their boys. It could be argued that they are in a far more difficult position than a woman in a violent relationship with a sexual partner as they are supposed to be in a nurturing role. It is possible to walk away from a husband/boyfriend but how can you walk out on your child? Or ask them to leave?

Tracey Connelly traded responsibility for her son for a relationship with a violent sadistic man and his equally nasty brother. Perhaps she felt that this was as good as it was going to get. I suspect she isn’t the only woman who has this attitude. Unfortunately her little boy didn’t have a say in the matter.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/11/baby-p-death
Timeline: The short life of Baby P

www.guardian.co.uk/world/deadlineusa/2009/mar/16/rihanna-usa
Survey: Half of Boston teens blame Rihanna for Chris Brown beating

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jun/27/parental-abuse-domestic-violence?showallcomments=true
The day my daughter hit me

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2003_07_tue_01.shtml
Woman’s Hour: Hitting home

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2002_13_tue_03.shtml
Woman’s Hour: Fighting boys

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2004_10_thu_01.shtml
Woman’s Hour: Explaining sexual violence to boys