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

I agree with this. I think the current system is loaded with problems but it takes a tragedy to draw attention to it. In the case of Leiland-James Corkhill, his mother was not a criminal or guilty of anything other than a propensity for choosing unsuitable partners.

Absolutely terrible. So hugely against common sense best practice for childhood psychosocial development.

Fucking hell, if that’s true, that’s shocking & all
involved should be criminally punished for failing in their duties.

I've just read this interesting article from a previous adoptee child murder case. From, again, two men.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/23/social-workers-adoption-system-failings
"Typically, adopters whose application is approved will continue to be represented by the social worker who assessed them. This means that their social worker is invested in the adopters having a child placed in their care – it is on the basis of their professional judgment that this recommendation is made. But it is also in the interests of the child’s social worker for them to be placed with an adopter, because otherwise there would be a delay to the child being provided with a long-term placement. "

I think this bias towards the adoptive parents has been again a huge contributing factor towards Prestons death.

Perhaps we need to end the culture of adoption is best for every child in care - especially for infants and children up to age 5. They are going to disproportionately suffer from attachment issues regardless of being with foster parents - so perhaps once a suitable caring foster has been found, it must be funded and supported and expected to be long term? I know there's issues with the amount and quality of suitable foster carers. Could there be reforms to attract more? More children's homes? New job roles created ? Idk

I think too often there is still the dream of an adoptive couple swoop in and raise a baby and have little contact with the birth family. A "fresh start"

Fingers crossed (although I hope no prison guards get caught in the crossfire)

His family were not all criminals. Maternal grandmother is already the carer for the baby's sister. She was keen to take him as well, but had had a masectomy and cancer treatment, and needed a couple of months to recover strength, before her surgeons would let her lift a baby. The foster mother was eager to just extend the foster period a little, so she could keep him until grandmother was strong enough. Social workers would not allow anything so obviously in the best interests of the baby. Not if it spoiled their aim of ticking a box on gay ideology.

Just to clarify: his mother wasn't 14 years old when she had him. She was 14 when she murdered a pensioner. She had the baby later in life.

Apparently word has already spread around the prisons that they will be "receiving new guests"

People are fantasising about harms they wish upon the perpetrators. But what of those who enabled, indeed forced, the placement, and then as you say ignored every known red flag waved right in their faces? Some in the hospital, some in social services. Every one of them will complacently await their golden pensions, and no doubt continue to worship whatever 'sacred' groups are in fashion.

That baby. That poor beautiful baby.
How dare they do that to a defenceless child.
I cant see them lasting long in prison.......

Men like these, where there is absolute certainty of their crime, should have their genitals removed.

Agree. Absolute scumbags - hope they suffer horribly.

It's so brazen to go through with the adoption process and begin to abuse the child on day one - surely this indicates more than just spontaneous abuse due to access to a child? I would believe he must have offended previously
I'd also be wondering how these two met, clearly they were both child abusers and/or paedophiles so did they meet online ??

Can't quite get over the huge pantomime they did in the hospital. From my understanding he videod the baby after his sexual assault and the baby showed respiratory distress and died after ? Wtaf

Also just saddening and shocking they wanted to strip the baby of his identity by renaming him too. Poor foster mother. I don't understand SS decisions here - surely there's huge attachment issues of removal from birth mother, birth father, maternal grandma then removal from foster mother, then placed with two random men. How is that healthy?
His family were criminals, all of them? Not one member of the family could've kinship cared? Sad.

Its Prestons birthday tomorrow.

That is correct. She and a friend, 14 year old girls, murdered an elderly woman. I remember it in the news.
Baby Preston was taken to the hospital on numerous occasions with unexplained injuries and handed back to the these two monsters. There were concerns by social.servises also, but nobody acted upon the information.

Another defenceless child sacrificed on the altar of "diversity"
Everyone involved in this horror needs to hang their heads in shame 😡😡😡

I’m not sure at all that that’s the case @logiccalls . What in particular do you think would have triggered his removal if he’d been adopted by a heterosexual couple?

Grandmother had recently had cancer treatment, and she needed only a couple of extra months to recover her strength, so she could lift the baby and so on.

She and the foster mother got on well, and the foster mother pleaded to keep baby just a little bit longer, until grandmother could take him to bring him up alongside his sister.

As women with the best interests of children at heart, they both appreciated that the foster mother was the familiar 'parent' for the baby, and there was a continuing mutual affection, so the two women would continue to be friends, and would not dream of stopping the baby having contact with the foster mother.

Social workers were fixated on the ideology of the 'sacred' group i.e. gay men.

So were the hospital staff, who did not follow any guidelines about infant/child injuries. The baby had obviously never at any stage been thoroughly examined: If the situation had involved a hetrosexual couple, we can be sure the baby would have been put on a safeguarding list and kept away from the parents, pending futher investigation and extremely careful examinations, and observations of any interactions.

That baby was killed for ideology. In 115 days, he had been to hospital three times, with broken bones, bruises, and he had ruptured insides from anal penetration which had burst his colon. Presumably the penetration of the throat was what finally killed him.

Without wanting to turn this into a men vs women thread, Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo Hughes were murdered by their parent’s female partner and Leiland James Corkhill was murdered by his adoptive mother all fairly recently (after lockdown). That’s not to deflect against the seriousness of what these men did to Preston, but just to say that unrelated women in these cases also abused children to death in their care. I think that everyone adopting should be subject to the same scrutiny because that should be highest standard for vulnerable children in the care of their local authority. I’m really not sure what can be done to protect children from their parent’s new partner though, because that’s a parental risk assessment which some parents get terribly wrong.

What i think is that children’s adoption teams are not rigorous enough, based on my work with families, often foster placements are not up to scratch.

i think this as a massive safeguarding fail, the fact that the couple were gay/working class/single/older. Is neither here nor there.

I often used to muse that the child in care would better off in the care of very poor parents, than what is on offer.

A poor or even more dangerous environment, or even worse an institutional children’s home where no boundaries are afforded and rape gangs exploited this situation.

What a gracious post, thank you and likewise.

@LittleMerrymaidBoth myself and @followtheswallowcan post and refer to as many threads as we like. We both happened to be on the other thread, we have both been respectful to each other, even though we have differing opinions and neither of us have forgotten this whole thing is about sweet little Preston Davey. Why do you think this whole discussion is so emotive? because at the heart of it is the totally avoidable, totally needless death of an innocent little boy!

I don’t disagree but then I don’t know what the statistics are on gay men adopting. There have been two cases of a gay man murdering the child they wanted to adopt, but in a similar timeframe one woman has committed the same crime. So out of three murdered babies (what a horrible sentence to write ) one woman, two men. Not a hugely drastic difference to warrant banning gay men from adopting at all, although I do understand the instinct to want to do something to prevent it happening again.

This was after repeated visits to hospital and social workers seeing all sorts of bruises on the baby's body.

The filthy degenerates fractured Preston's arm, and their social worker sent them a message after the hospital visit reassuring them that there were no concerns, ending with a love heart emoji

How the hell was two men breaking a baby's arm after 5 minutes in their ''care'' not concerning?

The broken arm, the constant bruises, a previously healthy baby now suffering seizures, multiple hospital visits...how many more red flags did social services need waving right in their faces before they'd start asking questions?

Class does make a difference. People with money that pay for a cleaner appear to be providing a less chaotic environment than similar people who are struggling for money. Professionals are likely to have more people skills and be more articulate and aBle to manipulate or allay the fears of onlookers.

And I think perhaps the risk of an unrelated man is ameliorated to an extent by a female partner. Two men should perhaps be seen as a multiplied risk rather than a sum risk. Is that logarithmic? Or something. ‘To the power of’, like earthquakes/decibels.