ABSTRACT
These stories are compiled from the experiences of many families so as to illustrate in dramatic form the themes of earlier chapters.
Angelo, aged 18 months to 4 years
Angelo was 18 months old when his mother Molly died. She was found on the ground floor of a café which she had run in partnership with her common-law husband. It was Sunday and the café was closed. Mario, Angelo’s father, called the police to say he could not get into the flat above the café and that his wife did not answer the doorbell. As the police, at his request, broke open a window, father said, ‘Can you see her body?’ When Angelo’s father was arrested, he gave his brother and sister-in-law as
next of kin. They were telephoned by the police and came to the police station to take Angelo to their home. The child had been in his cot upstairs when the police got into the house. His mother had been dead for some hours and he was wet, dirty and crying bitterly. No one knew whether he had been put into the cot by his mother, before the killing, or by his father after the mother’s death. No one knew what the child had seen or heard.
