You will have heard of killers such as Mary Bell, Myra Hindley, Ian Huntley or Jon Venables, but it’ll be a bombshell when the name of the latest person to contribute to a child’s death is revealed. It could be you.
You’ve probably read reams about Victoria Climbie or Carla Nicole Bone or Jasmin Beckford or Baby Peter, but it’s less likely you’ll recognise the names of Harrison Joyce or Muireann McLaughlin or Lillian Bagnall-Lambe. The glare of national publicity and public outrage has passed them by, yet their deaths were tragic, too.
Harrison was aged three, Muireann was two and Lillian just 16 months when they died.
Unlike those who were murdered, however, they didn’t die at the hands of cruel and despicable evil-doers. They died, instead, in happy family homes where their unsuspecting loved-ones never dreamed that a lethal killer was lurking unseen, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
In each case, the perpetrator was the cord of a window blind.
At first reading it may seem a little over the top to liken the death of children at the hands of murderers to that of window blind cords. But the point the article is trying to make is that children are dying because of the inherent dangers posed in the home by window blind cords. The article mentions that while the tragic deaths are reported, the incidents when the child is rescued before strangulation can occur are usually unreported and therefore may be much higher than we’ve previously thought.
In the US, legislation has been passed banning the manufacture of window blinds and shades with hanging cords due to the over 300 deaths of children since 1985. Here in the UK, however, as previously reported, the government has refused to institute any legislation on the production or fitting of window blinds, nor on the fitting of safety products to existing window blinds.
A spokesman said: “The major concern is not the banning of the cords through regulation, but the millions of blinds with looped cords that are already in consumers’ homes.
The Press and Journal picks up on this point with a great piece of logic;
That’s an interesting argument to proffer. It’s akin to saying that 2010 car safety standards cannot be introduced because of the millions of cars that are still on the roads having been built in the 1990s. It sounds to me as though no action is an easier path to take than tackling a potentially huge problem.
It is a huge problem and we believe something must be done. But first we need to unite our voices behind a campaign to raise awareness of this problem, of the lives that have been lost – and of the children who have been badly injured – due to the hanging cords of window blinds and shades.
Please register your support on our official website and on our Facebook Page.
