Tales from a broken down country

Otherwise, the news is dominated by recession and complicated family relationships, for the want of a better phrase. We had a senior policeman killing himself as a reaction to his apparently difficult personal circumstances ( he had one or two mistresses plus a wife and family). Then we had a nine year old girl go missing up north in West Yorkshire, found again on Friday, at the house of the uncle of her mother’s current boyfriend, after a search of over three weeks. The mother is 32, looking older, and her boyfriend is 22, looking younger than his age. The mother has five or six children all by different fathers. The uncle who abducted the girl had split up from his wife and was not allowed access to his two children so he abducted them and was banned from seeing his children ever again, or at least until they were adult. The police found the uncle and the girl after they called on the flat downstairs and were told by the people living there that they were a bit suspicious about the fact that they could hear a child’s voice upstairs in the house of a single man. Now, this investigation had received a lot of publicity. If they were suspicious, why did they not contact the police and save them three very expensive weeks of their time? The girl has been placed with foster parents and has been allowed to watch DVD’s and play with a kitten. She has also seen her mother for a few minutes. Finally, we have another mother who has nine children, also by different fathers, whilst living on benefit. She decided she would take most of these children, who are of school age to India for six months holiday. They went to Goa before she decided to leave her 15 year old daughter there and take the other ones traveling with her. The 15 year old ended up getting murdered after first being plied with drugs and probably raped. Terrible, but the question is asked about how responsible is such a mother to leave a 15 year old daughter in a strange place in the hands of a man ten years older than her, knowing that Goa is dangerous and full of drugs…