Sorry for typo in thread title, was very angry when posting this, read the article and you'll see why!

www.insidehousing.co.uk/care/child-starv...elay/6524052.article

I've not seen anything else in the news about this. It's mainly been focussed on all things Saville related. Allowing this to happen in the UK is disgusting, it's not like this is a 3rd world country where it's normal to let people starve.

how can you starve in the western world? institutionalization, depending on govt. to help, what if it doesnt. its like a rich devil uncle helping out. you can have money, you can have food, and you can have none.

I think it's wicked that an asylum seeker's child starved to death like this in the UK.

Wicked doesn't even begin to cover it. Why could NOBODY see that youngster withering away!?!

I want to know how many more people are in that boat. And what's the idea of them having to literally become homeless before they can offer local authorities can offer help. How dangerous is that, for a family to be forced out onto the street here, for any length of time! That can not be allowed to happen.

Here are a couple of addresses for anyone who, like myself, would like to write to them about this BS!

Home Office
Direct communications unit
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

DWP Ministers at:
Department for Work and Pensions
Caxton House
Tothill Street
London
SW1H 9DA

Government is great, government will help you....after its got anything left to pay the banks.

I know I am probably gonna get bashed in the head or stoned for this, but...
It's not all the governments fault. I also lay blame on establishments, who probably saw this child on the streets with their family. And also people, who probably saw this child on the streets with their family. Any single one of the restaurants or markets could have handed them food. Any single person walking by could have handed them food. None of them did apparently... especially restaurants because they always throw out perfectly good food, they could have done different and turned around and gave it to homeless people (this child included).

No stoning from me, Stars.

The government should never have let them be in that predicament, but I agree with you. I don't know how visible they were, but who with an ounce of compassion walks past a destitute kid and turns a blind eye!

When I was at school, I worked p/t in a hotel kitchen, and every single scrap of left-overs was sold to local pig farmers. The only time they gave food away, was when the local coppers turned up out of the blue for a visit, which they did regularly.

And yep, I was banging the drum a couple of weeks ago about the likes of Gregg's bakers binning stuff. I spoke with my daughter about that again since, & she said that although they'd introduced that policy to stop staff helping themselves, not long prior to that, there was a case of someone having received a free pasty from their left-overs & suing them for food poisoning.

When I waited tables years ago, I was probably 17-18 at the time... I saw so much food go to waste it was almost sickening, also met a lot of people who weren't thankful for what they had. But I distinctly remember, and probably always will, this one older couple who came in once a week (either Saturday or Sunday) with their grandchild and sometimes a friend of their grandchild...the cook and I were on the same page, so I'd make sure I was waiting their table if I had to swap a table with another waitress and I'd always put on the order specifically who it was and how many children they had with them. They didn't have money, not a lot anyway, and the cook always made enough for 3-4 servings and I always charged them for one. I wouldn't accept their tip either, I'd put it towards their bill and give them some line about it being a special or something so they got change back, or I'd put my tips towards their bill and tell them the same thing. But the point is, little things like that, if everyone did it would make a huge difference in starvation and peoples lives... and I can see restaurants being able to feed 20-50 people a day, or more depending on how big of a place they are.
I also worked at a place, while I never saw it happen, I heard about it and I can see it happening because I've known the owner for 18 years. When he see's a child, whether parents got money or not he's handing them suckers. If he see's someone who looks hungry, he's been known to go back in his market, get food off the shelves and take it to them. Again, if market owners, small business owners did that, they could make a dent in helping to feed people... all that food is not going to be sold, a lot of it is going to go to waste on the shelves.
It's not entirely the governments problem, or fault, to take care of people...there are billions upon billions of people in this world, if just one out of every 1000 took the time to give a shit and help someone else things wouldn't be the way they are.

Sorry, I got to rambling there...

I agree SC.

There is mountains of food thrown away every year in the UK. Enough to feed us all twice over...
The situation is even worse in the USA where enough food to feed Africa is thrown away...makes me sick tbh when I hear bullshit like there's not enough to go around or how there's not enough 'money' ffs :/

And its illegal to go 'stealing' food from supermarket bins eh?

From what I know, yes, you can't go dumpster diving at markets (super or small)... neither can you do it at cafe's/restaurants.

The thing about this case is that the family in question were asylum seekers, so they were vulnerable, had just come to a foreign country.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:
A shocking thing about human behaviour is that the moe people who witness vunerability and need, the smaller the chance that somebody will help.

Apathy kills more than cruelty

And why is this story not front page news? I found the link on the F word site in their weekly round up on their blog. Incidentally, there are other interesting stories on inside housing about how benefit changes will affect people.

Unfortunately it is not just asylum seekers - it is anyone who is vulnerable. Soup runs are being banned from city centres, Funding of many charities and not for profit organisations is being cut off - Cabs are closing down all over the country and contracts are instead being handed over to profit making organisations - People who would usually volunteer in retirement are having to work longer and those hoping to do volunteering whilst seeking paid employment are finding the job center forcing them to do unpaid work for corporations or go on redundant 'skills' courses instead.


the number of people in fuel poverty or skipping meals to ensure their kids eat has increased massively and with more food and fuel price increases it will only get worse.

There is this misconception that asylum seekers and immigrants come here and are lavished with benefits and that simply is not the case - asylum seekers in particular are often incredibly vulnerable and have to live in awful accommodation barred from working and reliant on vouchers to buy the necessities in a strange country where people are mistrustful and resentful towards them - in some cases for years whilst their case is being decided upon.

Ahh but let us all lament that Princess Kate got her tits put all over the Newspapers.

And not on Naional Geographic

A very subtle, but good point there Mikey.


@Thoreau, great post

Am I missing something? Was the kid in a care home at the time or with an adult?

They say the measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable and all that.

The benefit changes that are upcoming are going to plunge people even further into poverty - particularly those who are vulnerable - Various lobby group such as shelter and cpag and cabs have challenged them and even gone to court and lost their cases. I have watched over the years as huge strides were made to give more rights to the most vulnerable only to see them being taken away again.

In my time I have volunteered since I was 14 for local and national homeless charities - helped set up court desks that offer free advocacy for those being chased for debt and housing problems and been homeless myself. I have watched kids from care homes end up street homeless due to the utterly inadequate support offered them then die from the drugs they took in order to just get through their miserable existence. I have advised people who have been at risk of losing their home over as little as £100 arrears due to the extortionate charges banks are allowed to levy and their powers to apply for a charging order - I have advised people who have been paying off their debt as agreed by the court and still have banks asking for possession. Watched as people have been housed by the local authority in places that they will never be able to afford to stay in if they got work - build lives and then ended up in debt when returning to work. Watched as housing stock was sold off - protected tenancies were removed to be replaced with shorthold tenancies which leave people vulnerable to having to move on every 6 months with the huge cost that incurs.

Watched as our kids chances to get apprenticeships were removed and university was encouraged leaving kids with debts up to 6 times the cost of their parents first mortgage.

We set up our most vulnerable to fail and then blame them for being a 'drain' - there are those who exploit or defraud but they are not the majority despite what the media or 'right wingers' would like us to think.

oioioi wrote:
They were asylum seekers, and people fucked it up for them, so they had no money etc.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:
Aye, but it says in the OP his mother died in an unrelated incident. Was this before or after the kid died? What I'm getting at is did the kid die because of an adults shame, ie. too shameful to beg to keep the kid alive?