2 days ago
'Nobody checked' - dad said he told social workers he felt like 'killing his son'
THE FATHER of a badly behaved 14-year-old Carlisle boy told magistrates that social workers failed to act when he disclosed feeling "like he was going to kill" the teenager.
The man made the comment as he sat at his son's side during a hearing before the city's Rickergate Youth Court.
The teenager had just pleaded guilty to two offences – using threatening and abusive behaviour and a common assault, which involved him throwing a stick towards a staff member near the Tesco Filling Station on Warwick Road.
It happened on March 23 after the teenager had visited the store with a friend. The boy was exchanging banter with staff, but it got out of hand, the court heard.
The defendant went outside and jumped on to a digger machine, prompting staff to intervene.
'He was challenged and began to throw things around,' said prosecutor Graeme Tindall. It at this point that the boy threw the stick, though it was accepted that the boy had not intended it to hit the woman involved.
The teenager said he felt the adults at the scene were staring at him.
Lead magistrate Rosie Moffatt then questioned both the teenager and his father in an attempt to establish why he had committed the offences:
The father told the court: 'He'll be back.
'He's getting into bother all the time. He's at the police station tomorrow and he's waiting on another offence which is getting investigated and no doubt will get charged with that, so you'll probably see him again.
'I try but it doesn't make a blind bit of difference. You can only teach people who want to be taught; and, at the moment, he knows better than anyone else.
'All these professionals who are involved, they haven't done anything, though Youth Justice try but the social workers involved, there are loads involved. I felt like I was going to kill him one day and I said that on the phone.
'Two weeks later nobody had contacted us.'
Asked further about this, the father said: 'I'm not going to [kill him]; I felt like it, but don't worry, I'm not going to kill him. But if I'm saying that to some of these professionals involved, but none of them came to check on me.'
Ms Moffatt said she understood that the prosecution was a burden for him, but pointed out that many youths arrive in court without the support he was giving to his son.
The boy's father said the fines given to his son were 'difficult to handle' and suggested that court orders handed out for previous offences were a 'slap on the wrist,' and 'not punishment.' 'I'm getting punished more than he is,' he said.
Told that the aim of youth justice is to steer defendant's away from a life of crime, the man added: 'It doesn't matter how many people are involved, if he doesn't want to turn his life around, he's not going to.
'There's only so much I can take.'
When the teenager said he did not know what to say, his father told him: 'Behave.'
The magistrates revoked the boy's current referral order and replaced with a new 12-month order, which will include supervision and activity days. Ms Moffatt urged the boy to engage with the order and to make his family proud of him.
Magistrates waived prosecution costs but said the boy's father will have to pay the £26 victim surcharge.
