Former teacher guilty of sexually abusing and murdering baby boy he wanted to adopt - CPS

I used to sit at ballet classes with a lady who fostered babies. The babies who were in her care were all “problematic” - products of incest or from an inmate of a secure mental home or a drug-addicted mother. Most prospective adopters did not want these babies so some she had for some time (and she had adopted one herself.)

It’s not the 1950s/60s where there was shame in pregnancy outside marriage and available “quality” babies were ten-a-penny, sadly. A friend of mine was turned down for adoption as it was judged that the type of babies/children available would be a poor match for them. Friend was angry that social worker criticised their walls of books and cultural interests - but I suppose they do try to replicate background and heritage now. (Pros and cons to this, no doubt.)

They do exist and they are involved; they are called independent reviewing officers.

Often people talk about adoption as being when the child is placed with adopters, but that is a matter of placement, where either party can call a halt at any time and the child would go back into foster care.

If only Preston had been able to ‘call a halt’ to his placement. Where was his voice? An independent and assertive advocate for the child, monitoring the placement, liaising with previous foster parents, visiting regularly, flagging up excuses, keeping tabs on hospital visits and injuries, observant of visible bruising, adopters’ interactions with the child, etc. and able to call for increased surveillance from SS if concerned, should be the minimum requirement for a non-verbal child in a new placement. But I’m guessing there’s no money for that.

There can only be multiple interested prospective adopters if the child is advertised. And children are only advertised if social services have not identified a match, which can happen behind the scenes as it were. And many people will be interested who don't match the criteria.

Local authorities hold all the children. Adoption agencies attract and vet adopters and get a fee from the LA when a placement is made. LAs used to attract and vet adopters too, and I think that in some areas they still do, but the use of specialist agencies was thought to be more efficient and safer, due to the concentrated expertise, and a lot of LAs no longer do it. The problem is that these agencies have a vested interests in getting adopters through the system, or they don't get paid. The emphasis these days is on getting interested parties approved. When I adopted you needed to have a very vanilla background. The slightest concerning issue would be a huge red flag and cause at least a hiccup while it was investigated further.

Gov after gov has tried to increase the number of adoptions. There was an adoption tsar at one point, who actually rowed back on a lot of the government of the time's wishes (like pushing for people to take on large sibling groups) once he found out more.

Anyway, a local authority can liaise with adoption agencies to see if they have anyone suitable while they are processing the adoption. They will have a list of criteria. If there is a match, there is no need to advertise.

Btw my children were advertised with their real faces with a sign saying "unexpectedly available".ì

The evidence is that pretty much every adoption agency warns that there are very few babies available for adoption and that the wait for a healthy baby with no disabilities is likely to be a very long one.

It's a direct result of contraception and the morning after pill.

I agree with pp before you.

Adoptive parents (or any adult, even a biological relative) bathing naked with a child they have no established relationship with is odd.

That is not how you’d try to bond with a child you’d only know for weeks/months (they won’t feel like your child at that point), you’d play with them and cuddle them to sleep.

And although it’s true in trials that minor/obscure details can be blown up because we know the person is guilty, these men took sexually suggestive videos zooming in on Preston’s body. And sexually abused him It wasn’t innocent.

Adopters are not foster carers.

They are their child’s parents from the designated placement date. They share that parental responsibility with the LA until the adoption order is made and any limitations in the parental role are spelled out in the adoption plan. It includes things like not taking the child abroad without permission or needing agreement for significant medical decisions etc.

So no. It is not ‘almost certainly the case’ that early stage adopters have the same restrictions as foster carers.

OK so you accept you have no evidence that there were multiple competing applicants. You’ve assumed that without evidence.

There are in fact multiple documents from local LEAs and others including foster parents with regard specifically to looked after children, worded in multiple different ways, which make it extremely clear that "appropriate boundaries around nudity" and not being naked in front of the children being cared for, including at bathtimes is a key expectation. That would almost certainly apply in early adoption placements as well.

Preston's foster mother clearly thought so and did understand that appropriacy, which is why she was so incensed about their claim that she had suggested "free willy time" and went to court to say so. She knew she wouldn't have advocated that they do that with Preston because she knew it was a safeguarding issue.

Was she wrong?

The pictures of babies are generic photos. There is no way any agency would be permitted to breach the privacy of a child in care on a publicly accessible website. The LAs as corporate parents would have really strict rules about this. These will all be photos from modelling agencies of parents who have given their permission for their children to have their privacy breached. Again, another discussion for another day. Thank you. Yes, you have understood perfectly that one of the biggest issues in children’s social care and adoption is the proliferation of private, profit-making agencies, plus private, profit-making children’s care home providers. The average annual cost of a children’s home in this country is now in excess of £300K. There are simply not enough foster carers and not enough adopters and now judges in the family court division are avoiding making freeing orders for children to be adopted, because they know there are no places for them to go. Meanwhile, the Dubai-backed private children’s home providers are raking it in. People really need to wake up and understand the reality of the paucity of children’s services now. But still, the demands for heads to roll for Preston’s death will continue. There is no money, there are no services. There are not enough adopters. There are not enough foster carers. There are not enough placements for children who are not safe at home. There aren’t actually enough social workers now, because who would want to do it, living in terror of a child dying on your watch? And knowing that you would be vilified in the media? I’m not really sticking up for adopters. I’m just trying to correct a lot of factually incorrect information. (And also point out that women kill babies and children too). There’s been so much guff written on here: agencies for gay men/ rules on bathing for adopters / checks on genitals etc etc.

Agree. Certainly my friend whose adoption failed was basically just left to it, with a really challenging (but lovely) little boy. The total lack of support or realistic training post placement (she was just left to it basically and it turned out he had problems she'd had no awareness of and no experience of dealing with - and she was handling it on her own) failed the both of them horribly in the end. She was distraught, felt guilty and depressed, he ended up having to go back to his foster parents.

It was awful and traumatic for all. I still think about him now and hope he is doing okay. He was 3 when he was placed with her. There's a massive gap there between 'on paper' and reality from all concerned really.

They did not have the adoption order. This is really easy information to find.

Thanks, I suspected so.

Tbh I don't know if they ever got the adoption order - i have looked at timelines but can't see this. Often people talk about adoption as being when the child is placed with adopters, but that is a matter of placement, where either party can call a halt at any time and the child would go back into foster care. Social workers visit regularly during this period and there are restrictions, like on who can look after the child, who can stay in the house, going on holiday.

Some people wait a long time before applying for the adoption order - often because they realise how much harder it is going to be to parent the child and they are trying to get agreement from the LA for more support.

You can't apply until the child has lived with you for at least 10 weeks and the gov website says it can take 6 weeks to get back to you. Then there is a hearing.

As Preston died four months after placement, they either didn't have the adoption order yet or it was very recent.⁷

It did, yes. The adoption wasn't finalised, they murdered Preston before it could be.

I understand why you're defending adopters @ThePieceHall and I'm sorry you and others are not better supported. Adopters should not have to shut up and feel grateful. I have suggested device screening on the other thread but I was thinking about this particular case and the period when Preston's hospital visits had triggered a police notification and social work inquiries - if they had been able to access JV and JMF's devices, they'd have found the videos.

As others have said Adoption Now is a regional agency, not a 'gay' agency (just looked at their website, they do have pictures of babies with biogs. I shouldn't say this but my local dog rescue has the same format). But it's interesting to learn both that 'one of the massive issues in child protection is the proliferation of agencies for profit' and that agencies are the ones who screen potential adopters, which I hadn't realised. I also have thought online footprint screening could be useful at that vetting stage but I doubt the agencies have the resources or permissions beyond a certain point.

I don't say that with any intent to hound adopters for some unspecified length of time, of course. People do want to discuss anything that might stop dangerous men accessing babies, naturally. I think these conversations very much need to be had about surrogate agencies and transactions, which are taking off commercially in many countries.

This is not true. There are no rules about this. When were we supposed to be notified of these rules? Shit! All those times I took my girls swimming and we shared a changing room! I’d love to see the policies and procedures around these rules. Obviously, every case should be considered on its own merit. If sexual abuse is suspected, then it would be obvious.

Did either of them have any experience with babies, with challenging needs?

Yes, one of them at least made a big thing of having baby sat lots of his nieces and nephews, and friends' children. Presumably that was used as evidence that he would be able to deal with a small child.

Of course it now also means that all those parents will be afraid that he may have been abusing their children too. That will have to be looked into.

(Preferably without forcibly inspecting the children's genitals though! 🙄[

Agree that the main point is this little boy has been failed.

I agree with this.

Thank you for this info

Did the bath incident happen before the adoption was finalised?

Agreed.

Yes, there is. It's beyond playground, but there we go.

This thread on dads taking baths with children has varying opinions.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4769880-dad-taking-a-bath-with-young-child?page=1

A non biologically related man doing so arguably IS potentially more worrying.

If this was standard procedure, like going for jabs, I would be happy to do this. Provided non-adoptive families also partook. Obviously, no one here would want society’s most vulnerable children - by virtue of the fact that they have been legally severed from their families of origin - to feel more othered than they are already.