Unasked and Unanswered Question?
May God receive these three children into His loving arms while their parents are left asking how the evil He permits fits with His Divine Providence.
Bebe King, aged six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, aged nine.
Perhaps not the right time for these questions.
Given all their previous contact with numerous agencies over years, one is forced to ask what the parents needed to help them contend with and help this young, autistic teenager; an isolated child with evident growing mental health problems. What support were they offered? Did they resist? Did they mistakenly try to cover for their son's emerging murderous intentions? If so, why? Were they alienated from the range of agencies they met with; mistakenly believing they could contain him without outside assistance? From an earlier incident where the father apparently intervened and prevented an earlier attack, it seems he had some awareness of the risk his son posed. The police were called to his home by them on three occasions in 2022. What stopped the parents alerting authorities again? Did they know about the weapons he had collected? Did they exercise any measure of control over his computer activities?
Watching the reports today, nobody has asked these questions .... why not?
What can be said? There are a lot of questions that need a lot of answers and, of course, won't get them. The government has already decided that social media and online shopping are to blame.
ReplyDeleteMention of his parents has been conspicuous by its absence. What's going on there?
As with the subjects of the last few posts, it's hard to see God at work in any of this.
I'm unsure about the point that HJ is making here. Reading the biography of the perpetrator (via Wikipedia which is admittedly not infallible), it seems that his father was pro-active on several occasions trying to stop his son's dangerous behaviour. Also, regarding whatever weapons he collected, it appears that he committed his crime with a kitchen knife. The lad was on the autism spectrum, so another avenue of enquiry might be to investigate why there is such a massive increase in this condition these days.
ReplyDeleteBecause nowadays if you are neuro divergent, you can't simply be different, you have to be labelled and medicalised. And at the end of the autism spectrum, you'd be hard pushed to find anyone who wouldn't be labelled as on the spectrum.
DeleteYou also get a whole range of benefits, like PiP,s and additional support at places like university. In many cases it's a gravy train that good middle class parents want their kids on .
Just thinking aloud, Anon. Here's the comment I made of CW.
Delete"Axel Rudakubana, is a teenager with an "autism spectrum disorder" diagnosis. He was, it seems, motivated by an unhealthy obsession with extreme violence, not terrorism (as currently defined). The first serious indication Rudakubana was capable of inflicting harm date back to when he was 13 years old. He isn't a Muslim; he isn't an immigrant to the UK; nor was he motivated by religious ideology. Some, without evidence, are claiming he was motivated by misogyny.
I was surprised his lawyers didn't make more of his extensively documented mental health history which increased as he entered adolescence.
My question: Did the focus by agencies on terrorism via the 'Prevent' system, mean his escalating and very obvious obsession with violence, combined with social isolation, and hatred of his school peers, whom he accused of racist bullying, mean his primary presenting issues were overlooked? His parents were left to cope with him alone when it was clear he was beyond their control."
So, I really don't know.
@Jack - if he isn't a Muslim or motivated by religious ideology, do you think it's a coincidence that he travelled all the way specifically to attack little girls at a Taylor Swift inspired event, not long after there was a huge uproar by 'Swifties for Palestine' over Swift's refusal to pick a side in the Israel/Hamas conflict, and at the same time as the ISIS-inspired plan to attack her concert in Vienna was foiled, and the young girl wearing a Taylor Swift T-shirt was 'randomly' stabbed in the streets in broad daylight while visiting London?
DeleteWell, as both the Vienna attack and Ioan Pintaru's assault both took place after the Stockport murders, it seems Rudakubana wasn't influenced by these events. Wass the girl Pintaru attacked wearing a Taylor Swift T-shirt? Was he influenced by "Swifties for Palestine"? Who knows what triggered him?
DeleteUnusually for the Guardian, I found this piece insightful:
Deletehttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/24/axel-rudakubana-murder-stop-save-lives
I'm not saying he was inspired by Vienna, I'm suggesting that all three attacks were inspired by retaliation for Swift's refusal to take a stand on the conflict, since they all have a common target. The 'Swifties for Palestine' movement took off in May 2024. According to Reuters, Austrian authorities indicated that at least one of the Vienna attackers 'had pledged allegiance to ISIS-K, a resurgent wing of IS, on Telegram [a messaging service] in June,' indicating at least some online coordination.
DeleteThe Southport attack happened on 29 July. The foiled Austrian attack was planned for early August. The Leicester Square stabbing occurred on August 12. The victim of the latter had travelled from Australia specifically to see Swift in concert, before apparently being randomly singled out and attacked in exactly the same way. If that's all coincidence, it stretches credulity. I imagine it would be highly likely that she had been wearing Swift merchandise of some kind, she certainly is in follow-up articles.
It's worth also remembering, as we've seen in Afghanistan, that radical Islam bans music, girls singing and dancing, and that the Manchester Arena attack targeted a similar demographic in similar circumstances. Rudakubana may not be religious, perhaps, but he's a remarkable fit with AQ/ISIS's ideology.
The Guardian article rightly points out how many opportunities were missed to stop him. I think we have to be careful in denying him agency in the search for a cause (although I notice that a steady stream of anti-Western indoctrination through the school system is missing from the analysis). Some people, however, are just bad. The violent, murderous antihero of Burgess' A Clockwork Orange muses the question of whether right and wrong are inherent or learned, and concludes, 'What I do I do because I like to do'.
Given his obsession with genocide and murder, I'll concede Gaza may have played a role if he'd been absorbing violent images from there via his computer and made some bizarre connection with Taylor Swift.
DeleteYou raise a more complex set of questions about the interplay between outside evil forces (demonic) and societal influences, the dynamic between 'nature' and 'nurture', and the exercise of free will in all of this.
One could reframe Matthew 19:11-12 to give it wider applicability. Are people born "bad" (certain genes), made "bad" by the world (losing the ability of reason to discover and follow foundational ‘first principles’ of God’s natural moral law), or do they make a deliberate choice to ignore the moral precepts and freely choose the "bad"?
Yes, it's a very thorny area. One answer is the Calvinist idea that the reprobates are intrinsically rotten. But I think that's too easy.
DeleteIf people are born bad (genetically), then they can't be blamed, in a moral sense, for their actions, any more than we can morally blame a fox for breaking into the hen house. And punishment becomes largely meaningless, since they cannot be rehabilitated and retribution is pointless; thus its simply a matter of locking someone up for public protection, if their crime is of such a nature. Similarly, if badness is a product of societal influences, its again illogical to punish the person (hence the progressive's softness on criminals).
On the other hand, if everyone carries the image of God, as I think they do, then we are all essentially 'good', but the image of God is distorted by sin and the world and we become like a dirty jewel that needs cleaning so that its brilliance can be restored (cf. Jn. 13:10). I believe that each of us, deep down, knows that something is missing and needs restoring (which is a near universal religious message). The desire to find that missing piece is what the secular world calls the pursuit of happiness, which is the great driver behind materialism and even, I think, criminality. I think that even criminals are, in an utterly misguided and perverted (in the true sense of the word) way, doing what they think will make them happy. But they are like someone looking for a pint of milk in the garden shed - it doesn't matter how hard or long they search, they won't find fulfilment because they're looking in the wrong place (perhaps why addictive behaviour tends to get more extreme). True 'happiness' is only possible when 'my heart finds rest in You'.
Assuming mental illness isn't involved, I think that some people are born into circumstances or with personality traits that make moving towards 'the good'; that is, God, more difficult. But I also believe that people who follow their own delinquent desires are not, in their mind, rejecting moral principles as much as substituting them for their own. I don't think, in other words, that people who do evil believe they are doing evil in the way an outsider views it. Most wrongdoers have a rationale for their actions, even if that rationale is grossly morally flawed. It then makes sense for punishment to also have, at least in theory, a rehabilitative function; to correct that view (and bring about contrition).
In fact, retribution by itself has always been considered sufficient justification for capital punishment within Catholicism, although admittedly, it's not something that was ever pushed hard by the Church. Presumably, the same thinking would apply to imprisonment.
DeleteThe death penalty, though, is surely retributive only insomuch as it compensates the harm done (the lex talonis of an eye for an eye etc., which is itself a negative law limiting retribution, rather than prescribing it.) Anything beyond that must tip into plain vengeance, which is reserved to the Lord. I imagine this is the reasoning behind the current Pope's views on it.
DeleteI don't think that the Church would sanction punishment merely for the sake of punishment - if it is applied, the death penalty shouldn't be a drawn out affair torturing someone to death over a period of days for the satisfaction of their victims, for instance. Nor would the Church sanction the death penalty for littering, for example, because retributive justice isn't justice if it goes beyond compensation for the harms done.
If people are genetically bad (which is an argument I reject), and the conditions of public protection and rehabilitation don't apply to imprisoning them, then purely retributive incarceration seems to me to serve no purpose other than simply locking someone up to satisfy a desire for revenge, because there's no compensation to extract from someone who has, as it were, no moral agency. It would be like locking my printer in a cupboard for a week because it screwed up printing a document.
I see that Calvin Robinson has had his licence revoked by the Anglican Catholic Church after ignoring his bishop's warnings not to engage in 'online trolling'.
ReplyDeleteI'm not hugely surprised. A priestly vocation is hard to balance with a media career, and one cannot serve two masters, and he has perhaps let his own profile go to his head.
He changes churches as often as his socks, so it wont be too long before he joins another.
DeleteYes, and they all seem to have been small splinter-group churches.
DeleteSome people seem not to understand that a religious vocation means that one gives one's entire life to God and the church in a particular way that is different from that which is expected of a lay person. A priest, in particular, is an icon of Christ at all times, and a career as a provocateur is incompatible with the priestly calling. Reading between the lines, his bishop seems to have given him a similar warning (and, incidentally, why do people join episcopal churches if they only obey their bishop when it suits them?)
The tragedy here is that the pro-life rally he spoke at has now become all about him.
This is an interesting snippet about some of the Hebrew behind Ps. 23 (22)
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/2gAN7WPJocU
Neanderthal Éirannach here,
DeleteThat’s very interesting, the word does seem to refer to an encircling entrenchment as its basic meaning.
I am reminded of how a French mathematician stated that a straight line is the shortest path between two points, but Thomas Carlyle translated it a the shortest distance between two points, and this has stack in the English language ever since.
Meant “stuck”, I’m using my IPad, I get backache sitting at my desktop computer.
DeleteYes, things do get lost in translation. Being led in circles has very different connotations in English!
DeleteI find the encircling meaning of the word interesting. Rather than life being one path to a destination, it suggests something more cyclical, which I think better reflects the way we tend to move away from God and come back over and over again, and tread the same paths repeatedly (hopefully with more wisdom on each lap!). It also seems to sum up the whole biblical message, which ends where is begins, back with God in Paradise.
It's also interesting that the cyclical nature of life (birth, death, rebirth) is embedded not just in nature but seems to crop up in a lot of ancient thought and symbology - the ouroboros, for example, or the ensō symbolising spiritual completeness - which points to this being one of the universal truths that St. Paul speaks about (Rom 1:20, Acts 14:17), being partially discernible from Creation but fully revealed in Christ.
"What we call the beginning is often the end
DeleteAnd to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from."
(T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”)
Hm! End, begin, all the same.
DeleteAughra, The Dark Crystal.
Remember Jonty Bravery. The autistic 19 year-old who threw a French teenager from a balcony of the Tate Gallery. Both he and Rudakabana were very unwell in their minds, with the risk they posed being underestimated. Severe autism impairs empathy. They are disabled.
ReplyDeleteBut perhaps also they are demon possessed. Scripture could not be more clear that this is a real thing. Some people invite evil in, as Cain did, and allow it to master them.
Jonty Bravery's apparently had an "antisocial personality disorder" alongside his autism. We have a need for labels to define and attempt to understand what is "evil" behaviour. It's always a mix of nature, nurture and demonic forces. We've left behind the Christian perspective of the "the world, the flesh, and the devil".
DeletePersonally I'm becoming increasingly certain that in 10 years, autism will be no more. Replaced with a miriad of different names and diagnosis.
DeleteIf it is a mix of nature, nurture and demonic forces, where is the room for personal responsibility and morality? If (almost) everything we do is determined by genetics or outside forces, 'good' or 'evil' has no more moral weight than whether computer code is functional or buggy.
DeleteScripture is also clear that we are set a choice between blessing and curse and are called upon to 'choose life'. Christ's treatment of the possessed is not the same as his treatment of those, like the Scribes and Pharisees, who know what they should be doing, but don't. Similarly, we don't treat mentally unwell people in law the same as mentally fit people, even when they commit dreadful acts. But can someone who does such things ever be said to be truly mentally well?
@ Clive - I wonder how many of those are actual 'conditions', and how many are simply the result of needing to label human behaviour that departs from the accepted 'norm'? Working in the creative field, I know many people who've been diagnosed with various degrees of autism, who are no more dangerous than you or I (assuming I've had enough chocolate, that is).
As Viktor Frankle writes:
Delete"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
God give us the grace to use that space properly. For some, this "space" will smaller than for others, Is there sufficient awareness and internal consent? Therein lies moral culpability.
Lain, my thoughts exactly. I am struggling to think of a single child who was in Timothy's primary school class who hasn't been diagnosed with something. Be it autism or ADHD.
ReplyDeleteThere is clear autism in my family, which elements tried to hide, but nowadays, there is almost competition amongst the mothers to get their kids diagnosed.
And for what it's worth, this wish for a diagnosis seems to be triggered by normal teenage awkward behaviour. Instead of just accepting teenagers can be a pain in the arse, the mothers can't accept this and demand a diagnosis.
I've yet to hear of a child not being diagnosed.
The financial incentives help as well.
It was beginning to get like that when I was at school, lots of children were diagnosed with something. It was almost like a badge of honour, especially since the teachers went easy on them, and I'm sure some kids who were otherwise ignored tried to get 'a diagnosis' because it made them feel special. Then that creates a self fulfilling prophecy.
DeleteI think many of these conditions, if they even exist, are over diagnosed. It seems trendy now for parents to have a child who has at least one mental health disorder and an allergy. I suspect that there's also a link between the benefits available for children with X diagnoses and its prevalence. I've also rarely met a child with ADHD who has functioning parents...
This labelling stays with someone for life, which I think is unhealthy, disempowering and medicalises what, as you've said, is often just teenage or adolescent awkwardness, disproportionately affecting boys, who tend to be more openly restless and difficult than girls at that age. I'm glad that my parents never dragged me to a doctor on the rare occasions I mildly acted out.
I agree with most of that, but not the bit about boys being more openly restless and difficult than girls. Almost without exception, parents I know with both boys and girls say the girls are the more difficult. Honestly.
DeleteWith regards the medication, there are children with diagnosed autism who are.
To all intense and purposes, perfectly normal. Their is no obvious autism in their behaviour.
However there is a PIP to obtain.
I annoys the hell out of me.
You literally have kids described by their family as autistic, without the inconvenience or cost of getting a proper diagnosis.
But the they have a friend who has expertise in these things.
In other words, their eldest has had a diagnosis, so that gives them the right to talk as if expert on the subject.
To clarify, I'm referring to the friends eldest.
DeleteAnd from my experience they are not shy in showing off their expertise.
"On the rare occasions I mildly acted out." British understatement from your Anglican father, I take it?
DeleteThe fashionable "neurodiversity paradigm" - and the financial incentives it brings - can lead to a trivialisation of autism, ADHD, dyslexia and dyspraxia. The autism spectrum is now so all-encompassing that experts are starting to question the validity of the term itself:
See: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/26/autism-neurodiversity-severe
After studying the meta-analyses of autism data, Dr Laurent Mottron, a professor at Université de Montréal, concluded that: “The objective difference between people with autism and the general population will disappear in less than 10 years. The definition of autism may get too vague to be meaningful.”
@ Clive - I would accept that - just maybe - girls are more complicated to raise than boys, but boys account for the overwhelming majority of ADHD diagnoses, and of those diagnosed, boys are much more likely to be prescribed drugs such as Ritalin. I think that's because, typically, boys (mis)behave in more physical ways - e.g., fidgeting, running around, being loud, fighting - in the places where they get noticed, like school.
DeleteGirls, on the other hand, tend to have internalised problems, such as lack of self esteem, becoming distant, 'zoning out', doing badly on homework, ignoring tasks, becoming sloppy with timekeeping etc., which are less noticeable, particularity in environments that they share with boys. The boys' behaviour gets the attention, and thus the diagnoses, because it's more obvious.
I think there's generally a problem with over medication and lazy diagnosis in our healthcare system. Child is restless? Must be ADHD, have a pill. Feeling sad? Must be depression, have a pill.
@ Jack - an overstatement, if anything. I was a model child 😇 (at least for the first week or so).
I think you underestimate the impact of puberty and hormones in girls!
DeleteI
I do have some expertise in that area! 😂
DeleteI see this with fresh eyes now my granddaughter Lucy is 11 years of age. She's a sensitive, somewhat introspective girl. With the changes in her body, she is becoming more self conscience. Her interests are art, nature, and astronomy. Alongside all of this, her 'moods' tend to be expressed manifested in somewhat silent withdrawal, and passive-aggressive ways, rather than her being openly defiant. She a lovely young woman on the threshold of adolescence and young adulthood.
DeleteThe nonsense of indiscriminate diagnosis of "autistic spectrum' struck me when one of her teachers 'thought' she might be "on the spectrum." You can imagine my response!
"Teacher, leave them kids alone!"
@Lain, in all seriousness, it is interesting the number of mother's I know who complain about their daughter's and their behaviour, especially if they also have a son. I suspect it has little to do with their actual behaviour, more to do with the loss of control.
DeleteCertainly my wife had that problem, albeit it was about our son. She hates being challenged.
HJ, you can't nowadays just be different. There must be something wrong. Parents love it. As do teachers.
Delete@ Jack - Lucy has my sympathies, I remember those feelings well (and the fact that girls tend to experience more discomfort and confusion with bodily changes that are more radical and harder to conceal than boys seems to contribute to girls being over represented in the 'trans' movement in schools). That really sums up what I was getting at - boys' behaviour tends to be externalised, while girls tend to turn inwards. There are exceptions, of course.
Delete@ Clive - that's an interesting insight (although I wonder if it's cultural, too, I've never had a sense that my mother feels that her control has diminished!). Did you experience something similar as a father with a son growing to adulthood?
I'm a very different person to my wife. In a strange way I was happy when he pushed back against us. But then, and you have to believe me, when I say this, I'm not a controling person. One of the results of this, is that we have a close relationship.
DeleteThe wife however was much stricter and consequently their relationship was more fractious. And yes she decided that our son must have autism.
DeleteHowever after all is said and done, they are still close, if a little prickly.
I wonder if fathers instinctually view their role as preparing their son to go out into the world, whereas mothers have an instinct to gather their children close to home, which probably entails being a bit more controlling.
DeleteI get the impression that it's easier for fathers than mothers to see their sons grow up. I also get the feeling that it's harder for fathers to see daughters grow up than sons. When I was in my teens, the fathers of my female friends were far more (over) protective than the fathers of my male friends.
Well my son started university 2 years ago. I still miss him. He came for a surprise visit recently and I burst into tears when I saw him.
DeleteFathers also feel an ache when their kids children leave.
Lain - compare Peter (direct, expressive, reactive) to Mary (pondered things in her heart).
DeleteAny parent of a teenage daughter has to be anxious for their wellbeing in this world. The same should apply to sons, they are in mortal danger in some areas. Balancing freedom and responsibility with risk is difficult. All parents go through "separation anxiety."
@ Clive - my father also bursts into tears when I suddenly appear on the doorstep 😊
Delete@ Jack - yes, the world is getting more dangerous much more quickly. Although I suppose I was lucky to get away lightly with some of the things I did, which were pretty stupid looking back.
I think parents are, understandably, a lot more restrictive on what they allow their children to do now, but I don't see a very healthy generation in those currently coming to maturity. Lockdowns, 24/7 media hysteria and replacing real interactions with online ones has done a lot of harm.
Absolutely right on this one: "media hysteria and replacing real interactions with online ones has done a lot of harm." I think the modern term is "brain rot".
Delete@Lain, there is truth in what you say, but thankfully it's not the whole truth. A lot of them coming to maturity are still adventurous, curious, kind, polite and unwilling to take bullshit from anyone. They go on years out and spend it touring Australia or Thailand etc. they do the DofE.
ReplyDeleteMany work part time at university to help keep their debts down. My son organised a trip with some friends to Japan last year, with no help financial or practical from their parents. He's going back again this year.
Why Japan, I have no idea! 😎.
Personally I think his generation has been let down by society and politicians. Lockdowns, £60k plus, debts when they leave university. Housing that whether rented or purchased is unaffordable.
No, there are still some good ones, fortunately. And they're coming into adulthood in a very difficult world among peers with an incredibly high rate of mental unwellness. And there's just as many phone zombies in my generation, who grew up never knowing a world without the internet.
DeleteI agree that this generation has been let down (I'd probably use a word that would send me to confession). They've been the bottom of the list of politicians for years (boys especially), and way too many people go to uni who don't need to, and get saddled with a load of debt (I try to ignore mine). I barely scraped onto the housing ladder myself, and that was only because I'm lucky enough to have had help. I don't know how the younger generation will ever afford a home unless things change dramatically.
Your son is obviously a man of culture! 👍🇯🇵