'oh parents, where art thou?'
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It was on Sex Crime Investigations on Channel 4 the other night. A woman
returned home late one evening and opened the patio door to let her cat
out. She found a man crouching under her kitchen window. She tried to
slam the door, but he was too fast for her. He ordered her to lie down
and be quiet or she'd get hurt. He then indecently assaulted her, by asking
her to masturbate him with her toes.
A few weeks later he struck again in a neighbouring area. The police were
soon on his trail, as he'd left fingerprints. He'd offended before. He
turned out to be 16, not in his 20s as the first woman had thought.
As the hunt for him progressed, a thought occurred to me. Where were this
young man's parents?
Details were sketchy. What emerged was that his mother had apparently
set up house in an 'incestuous relationship' with the boy's uncle. She
already had two other children by him and was not pleased to see the police
on her doorstep. He didn't live there, he lived with his dad, she screamed.
He wasn't her responsibility. Not once did she ask what he had done or
if he was all right.
His father had three other children from yet another relationship living
under his roof. It became clear that the reason the youth was able to
roam the streets late at night looking for victims to satisfy his fetish,
was that no one cared where he spent his time.
More disturbingly, why had he developed such a sexual predilection so
young?
Earlier that same week, another documentary had explored the new wave of gun-related crime and its possible link to 'popular urban youth music culture'.
