Understanding Child Abuse and Its Biological Consequences

Abstract

The above quote typifies the recurring theme of Mary Bell’s life story who, at age eleven years strangled two little boys aged three and four. What happened to Mary Bell from the moment of her birth and which influenced her maturing awareness, can only be guessed at. A life of unrelenting abuse, however, is the sad lot of numerous, potentially normal, healthy children whose personal experience with violence leads, as in the above example, to exceptional form of retaliatory behavior. Given better circumstances, this scenario would have been incompatible with the intrinsic potential of the child. According to the author Sereny, the eleven-year old Mary was not a murderess but a severely damaged child whom no one helped in her despair. However, it must be said that Sereny’s point-of-view is grounded in the belief of the innate goodness of all human beings; a belief which is open to challenge. In instances of unwitnessed murder, where no-one knows what really transpired, there cannot be clear-cut explanations. What is certain is that Mary Bell’s adult memory is distorted and questionable as to detail. We must also be aware that by placing the violator center stage we, by inference, deny the victim’s full significance and may be committing an ethical breach of justice.

Her early childhood memories seemed entirely focused on punishment, whether it was with beatings, or being given away to strangers, or being made to do other awful things she didn’t specify but which felt bad, hurt, tasted bad, smelled bad or whatever, all of these terrible memories dominated&

Cries Unheard: The Story of Mary Bell by Gitta Sereny. Macmillan, London, 1998, pages 336–337.