The Disraeli Room
Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults – it is Everybody’s Responsibility
The shocking case of Michael Gilbert
Michael Gilbert apparently said 'I love you lot, you are my family' about the people who tormented him for ten years. He died in January 2009, aged 26, from injuries inflicted upon him by those he loved. The perpetrators, a family in Luton, were sentenced last week and the judge has excused the jurors from being called to jury service ever again as they had to sit through a terrible amount of horrific evidence.
Michael Gilbert, a very vulnerable adult, had been tortured and treated like a slave for a decade. The perpetrators’ motivation, their evilness, their lack of empathy and the reasons for why these events happened will undoubtedly fill lots of pages. However, I would like to concentrate on two aspects.
Firstly, there have been a number of witnesses such as friends and other regular visitors to the family’s house. None of them did the right thing. No one called the police to try to stop the abuse from happening. Maybe they lacked empathy, maybe they couldn’t be bothered. I think they should go to prison too, as they let this happen. The neighbours were terrified of this anti-social family. They did do the right thing and called the police on numerous occasions to alert them to anti-social behaviour and constant noise. However, the only solution the council found was to force the family out of the neighbourhood and move them on to a new place, where they also ended up harassing everyone. In short, the community had no power to deal with the neighbour from hell and both the police and council could only force them to move rather than try and break up this dysfunctional family. And this family unit should really have been broken up. It makes no sense whatsoever to move them as a unit to different places where they can continue to assault another set of poor neighbours. All off them should have been given something similar to a restraining order to make sure they cannot contact each other, or at least make sure they do not live together in the same town. Each of them on their own might have been less willing to torment others as peer pressure can be a powerful thing.
Secondly, what about Michael Gilbert’s birth family? He had met one of the perpetrators when he was 15 years old and was living in a care home. Although he did try to escape from the strong hold the family had over him over a period of ten years, he did not succeed. They always found him and maybe he did feel that he loved them and that they are his family. But could any alternative have been worse than this? Michael Gilbert must have thought so. His birth family has clearly failed him, why else would he be in a care home aged 15. His birth mother focuses her anger on the other family’s mother and is quoted as saying “You raise your kids to be the best they can be, not cold-blooded murderers. That mother could have done anything to help Michael and never did." The latter is certainly true, she should and could have done something to prevent this happening in her house. But maybe Michael’s mother could also apply these words to herself. She could have done something, finding him would have been a start. Although, to be fair, she (nor anybody else for that matter) could have expect this to happen in 21st century Britain.
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The Disraeli Room is ResPublica’s blog, dedicated to radical, progressive ideas and analysis. ResPublica’s experts, fellows and friends of all political stripes from the worlds of policy making, social innovation and entrepreneurship meet here to swap ideas, debate and provoke.
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Comments (6)
What exactly is the point of this article? Unhelpful, judgemental nonsense.
One of its point is that the community (those who witnessed this) has failed to intervene. Might be helpful if you would explain why you find this nonsense.
The Michael Gilbert case has been a horrifying of the disgraceful things that human beings are capable of.
Sandra, you are right to highlight how many social services, police officers and neighbours came into contact with this family, complained about their actions and did nothing. This is a problem that poses questions about how we should interact with our neighbours, which is something we can debate here.
Firstly, would an intervening community of witnesses be an acceptable resolution or would it take us closer to a suspicious, spying McCarthyist society? Do we want, in modern terminology, the Nanny State meeting The Big Society: The Big Nanny Society?
Secondly, the problem of taking a one-off case as representative of a wider social problem is that it extends a perception of fear. Would a wide-reaching community response really make us feel safer, or simply more distrustful of our neighbours?
I'm happy to hear that the community tried on several occasions to put an end to this families destructive behavior. I'm afraid I disagree with your first impetus, though. Breaking up the family unit may in some cases be the correct thing to do but that simply cannot be the prerogative of the local officials. The family faces enough heat as it is, especially by the social services here in the US.
The answer may lay in encouraging greater community interaction. The neighbors, as we saw, could do very little in the way of helping. They could only call in local officials who did not have the opportunity to know the nature of that family as the neighbors did.
And it seems like the neighbors weren't even aware of the significant abuse going on within the homes but were mainly upset by the noise and aggressive anti-social behavior. What if that community were actually community, that is, what if they spent time together and enjoyed a degree of autonomy from the 'higher ups?' Such a situation may create greater feelings of responsibility and therefore more impetus for action. The community, and therefore those who know and determine what is socially acceptable, could act accordingly.
Thor, it's interesting that your reaction to the post was that it is 'judgemental nonsense'. I agree it's judgemental, but it doesn't make it nonsense. What's even more interesting, however, is that we view any moral outrage – and who can be blamed for being outraged by such appalling case – as something negative. Why do we shy away from morality? Has our quest for liberalism eroded our sense of morality? Why is social conservatism such an unfashionable notion?
Leaving responsibility up to the State makes it easy for society to avoid the risk of being seen as a snooping busybody . Has our collective psychology that seeks to avoid interference, being judgemental or taking the moral high ground been taken to such extremes that collective virtue suffers?
I agree with Cole that greater community interaction has a role to play. If we all knew our neighbours better, then perhaps we could help avoid this sort of situation. Translating this into policy, however, is another issue. Perhaps greater communication, sharing of information and integration are starting points.
An interesting reply Gina.
But when you ask if our collective psychology that seeks to avoid interference, being judgemental or taking the moral high ground been taken to such extremes that collective virtue suffers I would raise two points.
Firstly, beyond the unification of a common identity against a shared enemy experienced during the wars of the past century is it possible to talk of a British collective psychology ever truly existing?
Secondly, perhaps our notions of collectivity have been deconstructed and reordered in the post-modern age, directed away from the local community and into a wider network of relationships that is not reliant on spatial proximity?
In this case we have to ask what connection residents have to their local environment before we can look at the role of 'community'.
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