This is a terrible tragedy where a very young life was extinguished after some extremely cruel treatment by a least one person who should have loved and protected him, and another extremely despicable bitch who I would love to get hold of!
What worries me though, and touching on what some have already touched on, is there are far too many cases like this that are live at the moment across the country. Not a modern social ill, has happened for centuries, but I know of four cases around here that social services are actively involved in, and another three where the child(ren) have already been removed from the parents. I know of these cases by just listening to my relatives and contacts, and the official action being taken.
My daughter even felt strongly enough to report about a 7 year and 12 year old children in very real danger from the mother and the latest in a whole string of bad partners, that many of us have known about for months. We are talking about real child cruelty, with the 7 year old recently asking my daughter "doesn't my mother love me anymore?", on the lines of what "Arthur" was recorded as saying. My daughter and I have tried to help the situation, but the cruelty continues. However, Social Services have yet to react, as they didn't in another past case until much, much later.
The truth is they are over whelmed by these cases, and as TB intimated it is due to so many parents not being fit to have children, and the mother or father becoming single as the partner decides the responsibility of parenting is too much and scarpers, only for some "unsuitable person" to take their place with cruelty following. In all the four cases I currently know about this is the case.
Forced sterilization is an answer in any autocratic / dictator state, and maybe it should be here. It would save many children yet to be born from going through the misery of what Arthur went through and save huge amounts of public money being spent to try and rectify, which no one can, these cases, instead of going to far more deserving cases in the social care system.