There should be no second chances for abuse and offences against children

Recently I watched an interview of the biological mother of a child that has now been missing for more than three years. This mother was young and she admitted to having problems with drugs, alcohol and domestic violence in the past.

Her pain over her missing child was so real and so raw I could feel it in every fibre of my being. Tears were flowing from her eyes and mine.

The child and his sister were in the care of foster parents. The foster mother and grandmother said they took their eyes off the child and his sister for two minutes. Allegedly, in that two minutes the then three-year-old, with his little legs, ran from the property out of a dead street, and to date has never been seen again. Their interpretation of ‘two minutes’ is no doubt very different to mine.

It got me thinking that too many children slip through the cracks.

Remember the Queensland girl, Tiahleigh Palmer who was murdered by her foster father? Then there is the Cairns mother Mersane Warria (also known as Raina Thaiday), who committed one of the ‘worst mass murders in Australia’s history’ when she killed eight children, the youngest just 18 months old.

When children are at risk it should be a case of guilty until proven innocent for foster parents or biological parents.

Three years has now been taken from another child and somebody knows exactly what happened.

The fact is, not everybody in this world is full of love and light. The truth will come out eventually, and I hope it will not be too late for this little one.

I pray God has kept him safe, but to be honest when things like this happen to innocent little lives I wonder if there is a God.

I know these days there is a lot of evil in the world. I know bad things also happened when I was a kid, but it just seems to be more prevalent now.

Some people have no respect for human life, and for those specimens of the human race there should be no second chances, no get out of jail free card, throw away the key and let them rot.

Do you think that offences against children should be ‘guilty until innocent’ as this writer suggests? Do you feel that crime today is the same or more prevalent than it was when you were growing up?

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