Claire Throssell has been central to the campaign to repeal parental contact laws following the deaths of her two sons at the hands of their
A serious case review following her sons’ death said that Sykes’s actions could not have been predicted – a finding that Throssell disputes.
“I told the courts that he’d kill them,” she said. “I told them what would happen. I couldn’t predict how, but I knew he would do it, and I was just minimised, ignored and invisible.”
A Cafcass (children and family court advisory and support service) officer had met with Paul at school, and he had told her his father would make him sit at the table and eat peas until he was sick.
Sykes was granted five hours of unsupervised contact, against the boys’ wishes. They did not feel safe with him, and would spray themselves with her perfume before they left, Throssell said.
“I defy any judge to see children crying and physically holding onto you, physically shaking, and saying they don’t want to see their dad,” she said, “and see how they felt as a parent, having to say to them, ‘You’ve got to go.’”
“As parents, we’re supposed to protect our children, not send them into danger,” she added.
After returning from visits, she said “it’d take at least a day to regulate them again and make them feel safe, get them to smile again, because there were lots of tears.”
“Yes, they weren’t staying overnight, yes, they weren’t there at meal times, but they were still being abused, still being hurt, and he was taking away their childhood piece by piece by piece, and I couldn’t do anything about it.”
After her sons’ death, Throssell was left with nothing; she had spent all of her savings on legal fees fighting to try to keep her children safe. At their funeral, she wore her sister’s shoes, stuffed with newspaper, because they were two sizes too big; she couldn’t afford to buy a pair of her own.
Sykes had cancelled their home insurance before setting the fires, and had written to the bank saying she was responsible for the £50,000 mortgage; the house was eventually rebuilt by community volunteers.
How many custody battles are actually domestic violence and child abuse cases?
When a mom alleges that dad abuses her or the children, the odds of her getting full custody goes down, not up, because the automatic assumption is that the mother is lying.
This mother was court ordered to give the father of her children visitation rights. He locked them in the attic, set the house on fire, and then killed himself.
The fucking. Gall. To not just kill the children and himself.
But to deliberately cancel her house insurance to make sure she couldn’t repair the house after the fire and then take his name off the mortgage to make her fully financially liable in case he what, survived?
Calculated, deliberate evil. You know this man tortured this woman during their relationship.
