A man deliberately shoots his young (believed to be 6 – 8 years old) daughter.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/11/girl-shot-by-man-believed-father-east-sussex

How on earth could anyone deliberately do such a thing? I simply cannot comprehend it.

tragic.

Like most incidents like this, it will probably be down to mental illness.

Implication on the news this morning was it was a custody dispute?

How on earth could anyone deliberately do such a thing? I simply cannot comprehend it.

I guess the utter hopelessness of being a father in a divorce and the hugely biassed legal system on top of the rest of the stress of the divorce, coupled with other issues could lead to this sort of thing.

I guess the utter hopelessness of being a father in a divorce and the hugely biassed legal system on top of the rest of the stress of the divorce, coupled with other issues could lead to this sort of thing.

Yeah I assumed it must be something like that. But still, your own flesh and blood? You would think there is some mental trip wire that stops people from doing such things, but as said above, mental illness will probably play a part.

Some years ago I was struggling with severe depression which had lasted for years. Suicide was an almost constant thought. It was invariably accompanied by a devastating mental image of how my older son would react to finding out his dad had killed himself. That thought was equally compelling as the desire to end everything. I got professional help before I moved from the thinking about suicide stage to the planning/perpetration stage , and I’m fine now. I don’t know what happened in this case, but I can see how an overwhelming urge to die plus the thought of leaving a child/children fatherless can lead to this sort of tragedy happening. It goes without saying that it’s inexcusable, but it merits an effort to understand what was going on in his head.

Why didn’t he shoot the mother?

But that’s the thing, for someone that has never suffered from mental illness nor had first-hand experience of knowing someone that has, comprehending it is hard to do.

Why didn’t he shoot the mother?

I assume he wanted to hurt her so decided that killing her daughter would be the best way to make her suffer for a lifetime. 🙁

People don’t act irrationally, they act rationally in their frame of reference. You just have to try and imagine a view of the world where killing your daughter is the right thing to do. It suggests he wasn’t in a very happy place inside his head.

I assume he wanted to hurt her so decided that killing her daughter would be the best way to make her suffer for a lifetime.

My hypothesis would be the same as Kenny’s coupled with him not careing about her anymore so she wasn’t a factor in his reasoning?

Theres a certain mindset or character trait amongst people that can make them very possessive and protective – when things go wrong for them – wanting to end it all wrong – then they imagine the people around them couldn’t cope without them being there so what appears to be an act of aggression is really being carried out as what feels like an act of mercy by the perpetrator.

The most complete example would be Shropshire Mansion Blaze – a guy who built the world around his family pretty much and once that was under threat came to imagine that non of it could exist without him so everything – family, pets, possessions had to go if he was going to go. It doesn’t mean he was angry with any of those people or things, he just imagined that the pressures of the outside world that were driving him to want to end it all would ingulf them when he was gone.

I read about this in the metro this morning. As a dad of 6&4 year olds and as someone who has had head issues in the past, whilst not fully being able to comprehend the situation I can sort of see where the constant stress of not understanding what the hell is going on in your head can lead to someone thinking this is the right thing to do.

Very, very sad situation. I’m very glad i have a loving and understanding family to turn to if i need to talk about stuff.

Sod Scotland, Sod oil wars, Sod religion, this is the shit that really matters!

It would be the thought of the effect on my son that would prevent me from doing myself any harm.

I was supposed to be going on holiday skiing with a friend of a friend, couples and kids type thing.
Only it got called off when the husband came home one night to discover the wife had killed the two children and tried to kill herself.
Found not guilty of murder, and the husband has stuck with her as he believes she in no way did it ‘knowingly’ (possibly the wrong word, but I hope I convey the right message).
I’ve tried to understand for the last 2 years, but still can’t get my head around it.

That has just sent shivers down my spine.

A family friend gassed herself and her two young kids in their car to avoid a custody dispute. She must have been desperate, lonely and confused. The effect on her parents, even 20 years on, is devastating.

A former colleague killed himself when it wad found that he had defrauded tbe company. He was also my mentor, so I thought I knew him pretty well, but had no idea. When his wife had to come to the office to collect the box of his personal effects she sent their nine year old son in to collect them. I got sent down to hand them over.

“Did you know my dad?” he asked me.

I told him that I had known his dad, and that I had liked him as he was kind, and clever and funny. I’ve always hoped that it helped that poor kid somehow. It was true as well.

After the lad hat struggled out with the box having refused my help, this (at the time) wannabe hard as nails bodybuilding martial artist had to hide in the toilets till I’d finished crying for my friend and his sons lost childhood.

there’s been a drama on Womans hour on R4 for the past week about this subject.

There’s not many 99% of the people who do it are men with no previous criminal record who are involved in custody disputes.

Can’t imagine being that angry with my wife that I’d kill my children to deny her access to them.

Was one with 5 children in the states a day or so back;

http://www.straitstimes.com/news/world/united-states/story/us-man-accused-killing-his-5-children-aged-1-8-and-burying-them-garba

@MoreCash

That is desperately sad 🙁

Probably not the story to post in a quiet moment in an open plan office. Probably safe for me to look up now….. 😐

Maybe his frame of reference was that he thought the world was a horrible place, and he wanted to spare his beloved daughter from it. Maybe… who knows what he was thinking?

Can’t imagine being that angry with my wife that I’d kill my children to deny her access to them.

I think I agree with other comments, that he probably had insufficient feelings for his wife to consider killing her but was somehow imagining he was protecting the child.

Having seen the family courts in “action” (or rather the family court’s inaction) from a relatively close point I can imagine someone feeling that the whole system was against them (so, again, not necessarily the wife as a focus)