Mum of Five-Year-Old Boy Stabbed By Dad Slams Mental Health System

The wife of a man accused of stabbing his five-year-old son blames the mental healthy system and declared she ‘still loves’ him despite the tragedy.

The 36-year-old father, who cannot be identified, was charged with the murder of his son at a Carlingford home in Sydney’s north-west on Friday morning.

The heartbroken mother said her husband of many years ‘was a sick man’ and was ‘not himself’, revealing she still loved him despite the charges he faces.

‘I work in a hospital and know only too well how poorly funded mental health is. The death of my son is the price I’m having to pay for this,’ she told the Daily Telegraph.

I still love my partner … I need to be there to support him when no one has. He loved our son more than words can express.’

She said her son’s father had tried to get medical help up to four times in the week leading up to the alleged stabbing, but was turned away or given more medicine.

On Wednesday, he reportedly tried to voluntarily check himself into the mental health ward at Hornsby Hospital but was turned away because there were no beds.

His wife hit out at the public health care system, questioning why her alleged requests for assistance dealing with his mental stability were rejected.

‘There was no bed for my partner … yet there’s money for space in the hospital morgue for a five-year-old’s body?’ she said.

A nurse working at Hornsby Hospital claimed the father tried voluntarily checking himself in on the same day four people were stabbed at a birthday party in Asquith.

The hospital was under ‘immense stress’ as they were reportedly dealing with a separate stabbing incident two days before the fatal attack on the five-year-old boy.

‘He is a product of a broken system and we have to live with the pain for the rest of our lives,’ a friend said.

Moments after the horrific alleged attack, the child’s grandmother found the young boy in bed covered in stab wounds.

The boy’s father faced Parramatta Bail Court 24 hours later via video link from Amber Laurel Correctional Centre where it was heard the man’s family tried to find him help days earlier.

When the father appeared through video link, he seemed confused asking ‘where am I?’.

Superintendent Critchlow described the level of violence as ‘horrendous’ as investigations were still in the early stages.

‘The fact a young boy – five years of age – has died from being injured in his home, it’s probably about as bad as it gets,’ he said at the crime scene Friday.

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14 Comments

- - mom67623 said
  - 15 Jun 2018
    8:34 am
The repeated stabbing of a fathers child by him is horrendous to say the least and does require a penalty for doing such a thing. I also have to say that mental health is on the rise for many reasons and there are not enough available services and understanding for mental health issues. It still carries a stigma and stops many people accessing services (if they can find them) resulting in tragedy. It says this man sought help and it was not available, I ask how many crimes have been commited from this epidemic of this kind and suicides have been done.We live in a society where wealth,fame and goverment spending on redoing things that were OK and not on valuing people and there needs. Shame Shame Shame is a killer

- - curlytops said
  - 14 Jun 2018
    9:08 am
Such a tragic story my thoughts go out to the family.

- - mom265671 said
  - 13 Jun 2018
    11:44 pm
As a mum, I will always love my child more than my partner or anything else in this world. If she knew of his issues, I wished she had more ways to have protected him.

- - mom101628 said
  - 13 Jun 2018
    10:18 pm
Everyone seems to think the NDIS will be the magic bullet to fix all this sort of thing – the system is in crisis and bringing more and more migrants into an under infrastructured system will not help it.

- - LuckyMum said
  - 13 Jun 2018
    8:10 pm
How many times has this happened ? How many innocent people are going to lose their lives because the system has failed them? Something needs to be done !!

- - Ellen said
  - 13 Jun 2018
    7:55 am
I agree the system sucks.
There should always made space in a hospital or institute for a person who’s a danger to himself or the other !!

- - mom206279 said
  - 12 Jun 2018
    8:14 pm
How was someone so ill even allowed to be near his child?

- - cherz said
  - 12 Jun 2018
    7:52 pm
Personally none of us know his mental state .. and to say the mother and grandmother should have taken better care of the child, this father loved his child and apparently something snapped with him. I am not a nurse or a doctor but this man was sick mentally and I feel the hospital system failed him and as a result this poor innocent child was killed.
My love and prayers are sent to this angel now in heaven.

- - BellaB said
  - 12 Jun 2018
    7:33 pm
This certainly makes it sound like it should have been avoidable.

- - mom90758 said
  - 12 Jun 2018
    6:31 pm
I am not sure either that I would be able to forgive him. But the fact that he tried to be admitted to a mental health facility and he was turned out, is really upsetting. A tragedy that could have probably been avoided. Difficult to take a side.

- - mom309263 said
  - 12 Jun 2018
    1:04 pm
This happens way to often. The system is so broken. Its heartbreaking ????

- - mom81879 said
  - 12 Jun 2018
    11:37 am
It is pretty disgraceful that this man had sought help and was turned away more then once. I also think though that the wife and the grandmother knew his mental health and should have taken steps to protect that little boy

- - Myrlie said
  - 12 Jun 2018
    11:23 am
As someone who has had dark times in my past, I am not insensitive to mental health. Sure the system failed when the Dad tried to reach out for help, but that’s where the Mum who saw how unstable he was, should have been with him, or another family member, to make sure he didn’t do anything drastic (including to himself). It wasn’t just the system that failed, it was his family friend support system too.
Sorry I could never feel any compassion to someone who murdered my child

- - Newmumma87 said
  - 12 Jun 2018
    11:18 am
Nope. Not good enough. Sure the system is grossly under funded but there is no excuse for this. The ‘mother’ should have protected her baby, and not ve standing by the murderous swine who killed him. Yet again mental health is used as a get our of jail free card and as justification for a terrible crime.