Heartbreaking. Child abused and then murdered.

[Dilbertian]

Poor Sebastian. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-62163849

Where was his school in all of this? How could ongoing months of abuse not have been noticed and flagged him as a child at risk? Or did the school do this, and Sebastian was failed by agencies further along the line?

It’s also unrealistic to say “if I was a teacher I do this” when you don’t have any real concept of the number of students that teachers have these sorts of worries about.
Cases where parents beat their children to death are rare. However low level abuse and neglect is depressingly common. Parents who call their children “lazy”, pick at them constantly over minor transgressions, leave them without proper supervision, or move in with “stepdads” and “stepmums” who are not nice to the kids are all incredibly common.
If I think of just one class that I teach. I can think, off the top of my head, of 7 kids out of 30 where I would say that I have worries that they are being parented poorly. All reported internally, a few to social services. None of the kids have an open social services case or an assigned social worker. I know that with absolute certainty because I belong to the safeguarding team. Most teachers would teach 10 or more classes of 30 in a week, so potentially 70 or 80 kids that they might have low level concerns about. Hindsight is always 20/20. In reality it’s not as simple as just “build a rapport”. For all kinds of reasons children don’t disclose.
The bigger question is actually one for society as a whole. Like the PP said, this is a small terraced house. Did the neighbours really see and hear nothing? It’s likely that there were people who had seen or heard direct evidence of physical abuse who did not report to the authorities. What those people saw and heard might actually have been actionable and met the threshold for statutory involvement. We need to stop calling people who report “curtain twitcher” and “sticky beak”. We need to stop telling people to imagine plausible innocent explanations for overhearing worrying things. Any thread on here about reporting things to social services has a good smattering of “MYOB”, “stay out of it”, “my child often screams and we’re not abusive”, “the mum sounds like she’s struggling with her child’s behaviour and reporting won’t help”. People often say that if there is something wrong then the school will report, but, as cases like this show, the school often has very little to go on to indicate something is wrong. In most cases of physical abuse we’ll have significantly less information to hand over than the next-door neighbour.

And what a beautiful smile he had.

Just heart breaking.

Heartbreaking. Poor little lad

I know the size of teenage boys can vary a lot ,but going off his picture he looks a lot smaller than my 15 year old son ,my son is also quite broad physically and looks like a man ,maybe the "step dad' wouldn't have quite so abusive if Sebastian had the height and strength to fight back ,evil bully .

'this is a small terraced house. Did the neighbours really see and hear nothing? It’s likely that there were people who had seen or heard direct evidence of physical abuse who did not report to the authorities.'

Exactly. I lived in a terraced house when I was a student, you heard next door's loo flush or the theme tune for Eastenders on their telly through the walls. I just do not believe that those living nearby or the friends (if they had any) of this evil pair didn't have a clue what was going on.

I really hope they have a miserable time in prison. The poor, poor dc.

Very often I wonder about what kind of abuse women in these situations are suffering. I have no sympathy here though, thete is footage of her abusing him too and she has recently agreed to marry him. She is still putting him over her child. They need locking away for long enough to ensure that they cannot have any children.

He lived with his father in Poland from age 4 until he moved to England to live with the mother.
I think a teenager is able to keep abuse secret so I don't blame the school. Only the murderers. I agree that aggression by a parent to teachers should be recorded as a safeguarding issue for the child, as they are likely to be aggressive in the home too.
There have been a few cases in the past where someone has been hanged or jailed and then found to be innocent. Once you've hung someone there's not much you can do. That's one of the reasons why the death penalty is no longer practised in European countries.

He may have lived with the father aged 0-4 too (with the mother too.) It was she who abandoned sebastian from age 4 not the father

I know. It’s heartbreaking. As someone who works in education this worry’s me so much.
what if a child I was in contact with was suffering like this - would I know? Would I see the signs?

@rainbowdaz

The school's that refused to teach online yes, created a risk.

Other schools were able to keep an eye on pupil's and did normal attendance registers.

Students were asked to keep camera on but if they didn't want too that was ok but it was asked they did at least for registration.
Any students looking sad etc were reported to welfare.

@Opmockingbird84

Unfortunately who would be brave enough living nextdoor to an absolute beast like that man!!

I would have found a way around it by probably going via the school, annymous phone calls etc .

But people really risk a lot of trouble and like the poor child murdered in the hallway peope do report and it goes nowhere

@Opmockingbird84

Remember much training is done by video and not everyone watches it, many don't take it seriously and not everyone is on the same page with it.

It's far far too patchy and loose.

Some people take away one part which they can relate too and forget the rest which they don't see.

@MangoDaquiri ..I think in primary school it's much easier than secondary and beyond.

Each teacher is different so there isn't a consistent thread.
This is why 1:1s or support staff are so incredibly important because they can be the eyes and ears watching the group all day.
They can see things teachers may miss.

Otherwise how would a teacher realise anything was wrong if they saw them for an hour sparodically?

“I hope lessons are learnt for the agencies involved or who should have been involved to prevent similar tragic outcomes in the future.” So sick of this line- what lessons? It’s 2022 for God sake. Nothing will ever change.

Poor child. Presumably this delightful pair of cunts had neighbours? Was it a silent beating? Were blind eyes turned in school? I went to school with a girl who was hit by her father, no idea the extent of it, but there were signs. She outed her abuser on SM years later.

I hope someone addresses the situation when they’re behind bars. Evil.

I didn't say we were part of the EU? . I said that the UK, like other countries in Europe got rid of the death penalty. Nothing to do with the EU. We chose to get rid of it ourselves. We also got rid of corporal punishment in schools, whereas you still have it in some states.
The death penalty hasn't cut child abuse or general crime rates in the US. The murder rate in the US is a lot higher than the UK.

As to your second point, every person who is found guilty is found guilty based on the jury being sure of guilt. Beyond that there is no grades of guilt where those who are definitely guilty are eligible for the death penalty and those who are just probably guilty are not. Everyone is is as guilty as each other, and we know that some of those convictions will be wrong.

And I assume that no children are killed by abusive parents or step-parents in the US due to the death penalty being in place.

Oh wow, I didn't realise any MAGA folks even knew about mumsnet.

That's just a list of QAnon talking points though, especially all the racism; you do realise that either isn't actually true or is significantly warped? Just because you're allowed to say it on tv to make a political point doesn't mean it's true or accurate.

Especially the "libtard mayor" stuff, that's hilariously overstating any power of the Mayor of London who's personally actually quite conservative in a small-C way (and really do read up on Andy Burnham who is far more leftwing for a mayor of a significant region, but you won't have heard of him because he isn't brown and so doesn't meet the criteria for that particular agenda).

@Opmockingbird84 You cannot block anyone on mumsnet! 🤣

Actually male apes look after their own offspring & little ones of others in their group. But I know what you are saying, that some of these testosterone fuelled & steroid freaks just love to bully & control others they consider weaker than themselves. I have no comprehension why a mother would allow any man to harm her child. Even if she was afraid of him , surely you wouldn’t join in too . So very sad .