AIBU to question adoption checks after this safeguarding failure?

To be fair, it would've been quite easy for them to use burner phones to look at paedophiliac content using Tor, and then dispose of them prior to the adoption process. I don't believe that would leave any traceable evidence.

I don't think they 'should've' been caught prior to the adoption (they do seem to have covered their tracks well) but I wouldn't be surprised if evidence came out that Varley had abused other children.

Then again, if he had a preference for infants it's possible no one will ever know whether he abused other babies he came into contact with. Anyone who has let their non-verbal child alone with him will now have to wonder what might have been done to them. It doesn't bear thinking about.

So the hundreds of children that will be without adopters as a result of what you think? What's the plan for them?

That’s really not how statistics work

At those first visits he was diagnosed with physical health complaints, prescribed antibiotics. He was subsequently visited by social workers who confirmed the illness

Babies cant be removed from carers because they got ill. Its clear in hindsight that it wasn't what was going on but at that point he was a baby with a fever and infection. Adopters also are more likely to go to hospitals because they are new parents (just with an older kid!) and because pre adoption order you tend to be very careful about getting everything documented properly.

Again in hindsight obviously its a massive problem but you can see why two cases of illness didnt result in massive concerns, when he broke his arm they ramped up support and had multiple visits from different independent people. Again a single broken arm isn't enough to get a baby removed

Yeah, I have no idea what the issue with a baby holding a rainbow flag is!

This does happen on MN a lot. I’ve seen it on ‘have you met a celebrity’ threads and a lot of MNetters met Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris and knew he was a wrongun, apparently.

It’s true, we want to believe we can recognise a monster; we can’t. Acceptance of that is a start.

I could also find loads of worrying shirts about straight couples. Lots of those sites are things where you can print whatever.

I worked in a charity shop and we'd get all kinds of alarming "mummy should have swallowed me", "mummy doesnt only ride horses" type things.

A baby holding a rainbow flag seems the least alarming thing

Social services are to eager to adopt out, his grandmother was only declined due to breast cancer. If he had stayed in foster care till she was well enough this wouldn’t of happened.
social services needs a massive overhaul, the fact he was taken to hostipal three times, why didn’t they remove him at the first time? They should of done.

It could be interpreted as immaturity and stupidity. It isn’t a criminal offence on its own, and it isn’t sexual abuse is the point I suppose.

Oh wow. That’s quite a leap.

I’ve been through the adoption process, and, honestly, do not understand how this could possibly have happened. I’m flummoxed and devastated for that poor, poor child.
A full inquiry will, I’m sure, be carried out. It has BIG questions to answer.

People are hoping its an easy fix. People are hoping that people arent good at deceiving others. Everyone wants to think that it wouldn't happen under their watch because they would know and they would be able to tell

For some people the reality that awful unpredictable things happen that we are unable to prevent is too terrifying

It’s really not unremarkable, at best it shows a lack of care for a child to not allow them to sleep. A child isn’t a toy to be used for the parents entertainment, it’s the parents job to be attuned to the child’s needs and waking, or purposely keeping a small baby awake is a concern.

I understand this is hard for you, knowing one of the people concerned, but trying to defend the indefensible isn’t going to help you process what’s happened. I’d think carefully whether posting on this thread is helpful to you.

I don’t know about normal; there’s nothing normal about this case. But whatever their previous proclivities they didn’t indulge them. I am inclined to think it was there, it was dormant, perhaps unrecognised even in themselves, and then it was triggered.

We dont know that people had concerns though. I think until there is a proper review then its naive to hope there was a smoking gun somewhere that someone didn't check
There seems to be a lot of assumptions that proper checks were skipped, or they got special treatment because of their sexuality but no actual evidence this was the case.
There's been lots of suggestions over the many threads on how they could have been caught but many like the suggestion of checking phones etc the court suggestion is that they were clean at point of adoption anyway.

My checks included (and every adopter even the gay ones that I knew)
-Bank statements
-proper home checks (someone in another suggested going through bedroom drawers)
-my online presence inc social media

• employment references

The existing checks are extensive and weed out lots of people (often rightly so). Its hard to see what else could be added that would have changed this outcome

Equally post placement In this case there's evidence of lots of processes being followed. There's evidence from the court cases that the hospital visits were deemed as non suspicious by medical staff but they still visited him at home (and thought he looked poorly which was in keeping with the antibiotics he was prescribed and infection he was diagnosed with). He was also visited by a hospital social worker. He was also visited by an independent social worker. The social worker also called the ward who said they didnt have concerns.

I think its really easy to assume that if the right question had been asked, or a phone checked, an extra visit happened etc that this wouldn't have happened

But until its clear where there was a decent chance of actually finding something then it's all just hot air

I don't think that's likely, the abuse must have started as soon as they adopted him and within a few months they'd killed him. I just do think they were perfectly normal people who suddenly changed after adopting a baby. I don't think of them was a school safeguarding less wasn't he? He'd likely know all the risks of being found out with csam material, maybe before they started the adoption process they made sure to completely remove any traces of anything like that they had, or else they might not have had any because it was too risky. I think the abuse was planned from the start and that was why they adopted him, but the murder was likely not premeditated.

It seems babies are already being used for ‘Pride’ propaganda.

Equal opportunities law is one thing, parents using children this way is very misplaced in my opinion. Awful.

In context, agreed. On its own could be interpreted in other ways.

People did not know. There was nothing to know.

I know people simply cannot accept it and I don’t know why. I can’t say what went through their heads, but there was nothing to indicate a sexual interest in children: not on their phones or laptops, not from work, not from friends or ex partners. There was just nothing to comment on.

It is a nasty example of a completely wrong attitude towards a baby.

I am aware that they shouted ‘boo’ and woke Preston up, but that is not sexual abuse, and without the other factors in this case on its own is unremarkable.

Agreed. I don’t think a gay male couple should be allowed to adopt or foster a child.

When I went through the approval process to foster I think I had to have around six references. Three of these people were visited. My young children were interviewed as was my ex husband. I’m assuming similar procedures are in place for adoption. I’m also assuming many potential adopters would have wanted a healthy baby boy. My concerns are that this interest in abusing children did not just start after the adoption. People knew and no one said anything. Either ex partners ( were they interviewed?) colleagues or friends and family. Someone knew or suspected but no one spoke out

Children are also at risk from a lack of adopters, foster care is significantly linked to more bad outcomes than adoption so more kids spending a long time in foster care isn't risk free either. Neither is keeping lots of kids where there are concerns because theres no room in foster care either.

Obviously adopters need to be safe, but having too few adopters also increases risk

Statistics on that?

As the Australian and US studies I've encountered in regards to that show things more along these lines -

In a major 32-year study of U.S. filicide arrests, it was found that:
Among offenders, while fathers were about equally likely to kill an infant, they were more likely to be the alleged murderer of children older than a year, especially when the children were adults (fathers were the offenders in 78.3 percent of those cases). Overall, fathers were the accused murderer 57.4 percent of the time.

What utter rubbish, yes social workers need to guard against acting on their own bias - we work with people in the margins of society who for many different reasons experience discrimination and disadvantage. It’s important our decision making is as evidence based as possible, without making blanket judgements.

I don’t know anyone in my profession who would rather risk a child’s life than be viewed as racist or homophobic. The reality is people do make assumptions based on a whole range of characteristics (many of which are protected under the equalities act, many of which aren’t), social workers need to be clear they aren’t doing that. As for career ending, what do you think it does to your career, not to mention your every day life, to loose a child on your watch.