In todays 'daily mail' How can ANY father kill his child?

How can ANY father kill his child? As another man is found guilty of the ultimate crime, a question to chill every mother
By Kevin Toolis
Last updated at 3:07 PM on 04th January 2010
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Gunned down: Maisie Copland was shot by her father
Father kills his four children. Dad executes four-year-old girl. The headlines scream off the page and a shiver of apprehension runs through every mother’s mind.
In the latest family annihilation, just after Christmas, 56-year-old Andrew Copland waited at his Hampshire home for his former partner Julie Harrison to drop off their four-year-old daughter Maisie for an access visit to open her Christmas presents.
In our divorce-ridden society there was nothing unusual about this awkward Christmas ritual, as estranged parents nationwide share what’s left of their children’s belief in Santa Claus. But once Julie and Maisie were in his house, Copland pulled a gun and shot them both before turning the weapon on himself.

How could a father kill his child? It is a crime that defies our comprehension. Your own flesh and blood? There is a word - filicide - for this act of homicide. But we rarely use it, perhaps because we find such acts too horrible to name.
Andrew Copland had a history of violence against his partners. He was a jealous man with few friends, and his relationship with Julie had been troubled. But, tragically, his crime was not unique.
About 10 per cent of all the homicides in Britain each year are child killings. In an average year, 75 children will be murdered, the vast majority by their own parents or step-parents. Despite our fears of ‘stranger danger’, only a handful of children are actually abducted and murdered by people unknown to them.


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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1240381/How-ANY-father-kill-child-As-man-guilty-ultimate-crime-question-chill-mother.html#ixzz0bf1sjoO0

Toolis wrote a "Good" book about the IRA, IIRC.

https://missingmadeleine.forumotion.net/found-dead-f96/maisie-copland-killed-by-her-father-andrew-copland-t6964.htm?highlight=copland

There's a thread about it on that link above.

You know what makes this kind of crime so very very bad and sad?
That the last thing that child saw is her very own beloved father pointing a gun at her before she felt a severe pain.

That brings a lump to my throat.