Mick Philpott lived off of welfare benefits. He had been unfaithful and violent towards women throughout his adult life. His reckless and selfish plan to frame an ex-girlfriend for leaving him would result in the death of six innocent children.
A father of 17 children, Philpott lived with two women and once appeared on a daytime talk show to demand a bigger government house for his oversized family.
But beyond the caricature of a welfare parasite, Philpott exposed a much more dangerous stereotype: a control freak whose violence toward women went on for more than thirty years. For Philpott, women were his domestic, sexual, and childbearing slaves and his children were evidence of his virility. This was a man who knew no shame and used everyone, even his own children, to get what he wanted. Join us today for Shameless: Mick Philpott.