Cultured Views

Dennis O’Neill was born in Newport, Wales on the 3rd of March 1932. He was your average little boy who enjoyed doing all the mischievous, fun things that all little boys like to do. He was born into a large family, his parents were very poor. Dennis had older brothers and sisters but he was closer to his two younger brothers Terry and Freddie. Dennis was particularly close to his younger brother Terry who he met up and played with after school each day, Dennis was very protective of Terry. The little boys were often hungry and cold in their home but they did not know physical cruelty. Dennis went to school and would come out each day and meet little Terry in the street, Dennis would walk towards Terry with one foot on the road and one foot on up the kerb, doing a funny kind of walk just for some fun. One day in 1940 Dennis, Terry and Freddie were taken from their parents and placed into foster care.

Dennis and his younger brothers went on to live in different places a hospital at first then a children’s home and then in the homes of some very kind foster parents. Dennis enjoyed regular hot baths, delicious meals every day, going to school and to church. Dennis enjoyed playing in open fields with his brothers at these foster homes; he told Terry scary stories as they walked home from school on dark wintry days, he collected watercress from river banks to take home and eat on sandwiches, he played in woods, he went bird nesting and he loved to swim and make dams in creeks with Terry and Freddie in the warm summer weather. Dennis loved to collect frogs and tadpoles in jam jars from ponds, he liked to play ‘aeroplanes and gliders’ with Terry in the open fields around the home where he lived with his kind foster parents. Dennis was protective of his younger brother Terry and defended him from school bullies. He made an apple pie at school one day and afterwards proudly shared it with his brothers. Dennis could be a tattle-tale from time to time, sometimes getting Terry into strife. Dennis was the boss, he said clever things and was a quiet, kind and well-mannered little boy.

In June 1944 Dennis and Terry were taken to live with new foster parents Reginald and Esther Gough at Bank Farm in Minsterly, Shropshire.

Dennis went to the local village school with Terry and made pocket money by picking crab-apples and selling them to local shop owners. Dennis worked very hard everyday doing his chores on the Gough farm with Terry working alongside him. He loved the animals, he was good at bringing in the horses and cows and feeding the chickens.  Dennis enjoyed visiting and playing with his youngest brother Freddie who was living with a family at a neighbouring house. Dennis was good at school, he and Terry looked out for each other. Dennis worked hard and did his best to please at all times. Dennis had dark hair and was a good looking young boy. At the age of 12, Dennis was a well-behaved, quiet and polite little boy.

On the 8th January 1945, Dennis was violently beaten by Reginald Gough.

On the 9th January 1945, 70 years ago today, Dennis died in his bed from his injuries.

Dennis O’Neill is more than just a name on the files of untold numbers of court, government and social services documents.  He is more than the subject of an inquiry, more than a wiki page, the subject of blog posts and cause for change. Dennis O’Neill was a real little boy who loved to run and play and get into scrapes, who lived and laughed and went to school and had friends. He was a son and is a brother and an uncle. And for as long as his name is known and for as long as he is held dear by his remaining family and for as long as we who read about him and care about what happened to him…..he will be remembered and loved.

” Evil. Mistrust those who rejoice at it even more than those who do it”. Victor Hugo (1802-1885).

The human animal is unique in that it is the only form of life that will kill its own young for no reason whatsoever. Three year old Scott McMillan of Pennsylvania in the US is the latest victim of a mother who, along with her boyfriend, killed her own child. It is futile to say ‘for no reason whatsoever’ because what reason on this earth could anyone, let alone a mother, have for inflicting the kind of torture and death that Jillian Tait inflicted on her 3 year old son?

This precious, innocent little boy was subjected to such cruelty and violence by his mother and her boyfriend, Gary Lee Fellenbaum, that when his failing body was taken to the hospital’s emergency dept the normally battle-hardened  ER nurses wept at the sight of him. Not an inch of him was spared injury, his tiny broken body the result of two weeks of systematic physical abuse. Mercifully (how else can one put it?) his suffering came to an end very shortly after; we can only hope that in his last minutes he was in some way aware of and eased by the sound of comforting voices and the touch of gentle hands.

And what will be done with the adults who did this to him – take away their liberty for a few years or even for life? as if deprivation of liberty carries even a microbe of equality to depriving a child of their life…as if 50 years being fed and sheltered by the State pays one’s dues for inflicting 50 minutes of terror and unspeakable suffering on a child let alone the 2 solid weeks of continual abuse this child suffered. They even kept him home from nursery school in order to torture him. Every breath those two monsters take will be a breath little Scott McMillan will never take again, every day they live will be a day that has been taken from him.

The death penalty. Execution.Yes. Absolutely. No crime is more worthy of the death penalty than one such as this, no child killer should be considered more entitled to life than their innocent, helpless victim and no prison should continue to be overfilled with living, breathing sadistic degenerates like Jillian Tait and her co-accused Gary Lee Fellenbaum.

I even volunteer to pull the lever.

Justice was finally served in a Belfast court today for family pet, Cody the border collie, who died after being set on fire by Andrew Stewart of Aghalee, Co Antrim.

This good result comes after several heinous crimes of cruelty were committed against animals in this country in recent years, I’d have liked the sentence to have been in years rather than months but it is good anyway to know that this sadistic cretin will be denied his freedom for almost a year. He will now live the rest of his life being known as the monster who took a beloved family pet and committed an act of sheer barbarity upon it.

I hope his time in prison is everything I’ve heard and read about….