The parents of a 13-year-old who carried out a school shooting in Belgrade have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms. The boy’s father received 14 years for failing to secure his firearms, and his mother was given three years for child neglect. In the United Kingdom, where the last school massacre sparked a tightening of gun laws but left parental responsibility largely untouched, the case is raising questions about the limits of the law.
Miloš S., now 14, killed nine classmates and a security guard in May 2023 at the Vladislav Ribnikar primary school. He used his father’s legally owned pistols. The prosecution argued that the parents had been grossly negligent: the weapons were kept in an unlocked cabinet, and the boy had been left alone with them for hours. The father, a doctor, had taken the firearms home from work and stored them improperly. The mother, a psychologist, ignored signs that her son was planning the attack, including his writings about “the perfect crime”.
In Serbia, the verdict was met with relief from victims’ families but also a sense that the state had failed. The case has sparked a national debate about gun culture, mental health support for teenagers and the duty of parents. In Britain, similar questions are being asked.
Under current UK law, parents can be prosecuted for “causing or allowing the death of a child” or for “neglect” if they knew their child posed a risk to others. But cases are rare and convictions difficult to secure. The threshold for criminal liability is high. A parent who stores a shotgun in a cupboard without a lock may face a fine, but not jail. A parent who ignores a child’s violent fantasies may be referred to social services, but not prosecuted.
“The Serbian case shows that the law can be a powerful deterrent,” said Dr. Emily Hart, a criminologist at the University of Manchester. “But it also raises uncomfortable questions about where the line falls between poor parenting and criminal negligence. In Britain, we tend to see these tragedies as a failure of the individual shooter, not the family. That may be changing.”
Parental responsibility laws do vary across the UK. In Scotland, a parent can be guilty of “wilful neglect” if they expose a child to a risk of harm. In England and Wales, the offence of “cruelty to persons under 16” covers neglect, but it must be “wilful” and “likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health”. Neither covers the sort of indirect failure that the Serbian parents were convicted for.
Campaigners for stricter gun control argue that the UK’s tight licensing regime makes a similar event unlikely. But the Beleš attack has renewed calls for a “parental duty” law, similar to those in some US states, where parents can be liable for gun storage around children. The Law Commission is currently reviewing the law on parental liability. A spokesperson said: “We are aware of the Serbian case and are looking at whether current safeguards are adequate.”
For the families of victims in Serbia, the verdict is a bitter consolation. “Prison can’t bring back our children,” said Milica Petrović, whose daughter was killed. “But it sends a message: parents must be responsible. The guns were not the only thing that killed our kids. It was neglect.”
In Britain, where school shootings are vanishingly rare, the debate may seem academic. But the principle of holding parents to account for the actions of their children is being tested elsewhere. In June, a court in France sentenced the parents of a school shooter to four years for failing to secure a rifle. The legal landscape is shifting.
As lawmakers in Westminster watch the Belgrade trial, they know that the real lesson is not about guns alone. It is about the web of responsibility that society expects parents to weave. When that web fails, the law must act. The question is how far it should reach.
