Son Was Killed By His Mother
A father has spoken of his grief after losing his 4-year-old son in a house fire. Paresh Patel of Preston, believed the fire was deliberately started by his ex-partner, Janna Josh following a custody battle, which claimed both her life and their son’s, Moksha Jai Joshi.
After winning a custody battle against Ms Joshi over two years ago, Paresh was made guardian of the little boy. However, the grieving father blasted authorities for taking no action after she failed to return him following the school Easter holidays. He pleaded with the police and social services – but he remained in his mother’s care for four weeks.
Speaking after an inquest found that Ms Joshi ‘deliberately set the apartment ablaze’ Mr Patel said she had known exactly what she was doing.
He said: “As a father, you never expect your child to die before you. However, my son Jai died at the hands of his so-called mother and she knew exactly what she was doing. There is only one way to describe this – evil. As soon as they told me, I knew she had done it deliberately.”
“I think in her mind, she felt that if she couldn’t have Jai, no one else could have him either. Failings by authorities have yet again contributed to the death of another innocent child. Jai’s death was entirely avoidable and I feel that the agencies and institutions designed to protect my son have failed him.”
“There were several opportunities by the police, courts and social services to safely get Jai back to me. I know I cannot bring Jai back, but if I can save one child by addressing this simple issue so that all police officers, barristers, judges and solicitors know that the wording in a court order means they can remove a child or arrest someone, then the loss of Jai’s life would not be in vain.”
“Ironically, if a parent takes a child out of school they are fined. Yet Jai was out of school for two-and-a-half weeks and social services did nothing.”
The couple ended their relationship before Janna found out she was pregnant. He said, “I made my position clear – that our relationship was over but I wanted to do everything for my son. Jai was born on August 20, 2009, and it was a dream come true for me. Jai meant the world to me and I would have done anything for him.”
There were concerns for Jai’s emotional well-being and social services were involved and he had a guardian appointed by the court,” Paresh explained.
“They determined that Jai should live with me and that it was the best place for him to be.”
“She was meant to bring him back on the Saturday. But there was a series of excuses. Eventually, she told us she would take him to school on the first day of term and I would pick him up at the end of the day.”
“I went to pick him up but school told me she had not brought him in. Alarm bells started ringing then and we knew she was trying to keep hold of him.”
“I notified the relevant authorities including police and social services and contacted them numerous times. I was willing to stay in court and wait for the solicitor to get Jai and do the handover there and then.”
“But the judge said a court was no place for a child and said that Jai’s mum should take him to school the following morning for me to collect later that day and she attached a penal order to this.”
“I agreed reluctantly and just felt relief that the right decision had been made and that Jai would be coming home.”
But he didn’t.
“I sent the social worker a message saying they needed to get Jai out of that home and I notified the authorities. Then two police family liaison officers came to my home and told me that a woman and a child had been killed in a flat fire in Liverpool and they believed the child to be Jai.”
“I feel anger and frustration with Lancashire Social Services and Merseyside Police. Social services had various opportunities to get Jai out but didn’t take them. In this day and age, I cannot believe that professionals within the justice system have a different opinion as to whether or not they can enforce a court order.”
“If a court order is not enforceable, what is the purpose of it? We do not want this to go away and for another child to die in the future. We want answers and changes to the system. We have to get something positive out of all this madness.”
