One of the saddest stories in a long time TW: Neglect/child death

[Perjo]

I read this this morning and it has to be one of the saddest, most avoidable child deaths I've read about in a long time. Especially where it says he was still alive on January 2nd.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/47b4c6b2-673d-4c43-8ef0-b8ba05c47f0a?shareToken=39b0f7f8b3c90882aca021214db91159

Why can't people search for their social media? When a tragedy like this happens, people want to know why. They want to get a sense of who was involved and what they're like.

These cases often come with no clear answers. But it's a deeply human impulse to find out more. Do we not care about our fellow human, especially a child?

I'm rather suspicious of anyone who declares 'Move along, nothing to see here! Mind your own business! You'll take the official line and not a word more!'

This is part of it. And yet, someone on mumsnet posted a few weeks ago that they felt concerned that they never saw one of their neighbour's children and got absolutely roasted for being a busy body.

I remember that thread, she got told to "mind your own business" and "keep your nose out" by loads of posters....

If you mean me, it was in the Mail. No searching of social media necessary.

One who literally isn't allowed contact with her child without SS involvement?
One who is in a secure mental health unit?
One who is severely ill in hospital?

No-one knows the situation here.

People are only pointing the blame back to the mother as she has pointed it first at social services. There is a social worker there who, on the face of it, did all they could and in the end found two dead bodies. One can only imagine the impact this has had on them, then to have it all blow up on SM.
Families need to take responsibility for their children. I am fed up with it always being someone else’s problem. If the mother was in hospital or NC with the father, there are other ways to go about making sure that poor little boy was ok.

It’s too soon to be allocating blame- and it could happen to a lot of socially isolated people.

DH was a bit useless in his younger days and would go off for ten days with work and make no contact at all. Like a PP, I worried I’d fall down the stairs or something, and the DC would be alone. I drilled the 4yr old hard in calling 999.

We need to find a way of broaching social isolation that doesn’t look like nosy neighbours.

The “mother” had two other children but that doesn’t necessarily mean Bronson’s dad was their dad

He was the biological father of at least one of the others. The other one is unclear.

That poor child. I don't want to even think about what he went through after his father died.

I don't think social services did a bad job here - if I was the mother I'd be looking closer to home for blame. It was after all the social worker who managed to finally get access to the property.

I am so tired of people blaming social workers and it does my heart good to see the support for them on this thread. My experience of SWs is of predominantly caring, sometimes very capable people struggling in an overwhelmed service.

Utterly heartbreaking. I burst into tears when I read it. The social worker did everything she should have done. There is sadly no way anyone could have reasonably forced their way in after just one attempt that went unanswered. If only she could have seen in through a window or otherwise surmised what was happening. I’m so devastated a child could die like this.

Another one saying the ’mother’ has a fucking cheek saying anything, she clearly didn’t give a shit about her kid. Sounds like the social worker cared more than her. I hope the social worker is being supported, she must be traumatised.

@WingingItSince1973 thank you. He is now 21 and a uni student. The police rescued him on the second occasion. He was found abandoned in a very dangerous area in the early hours. I dread to think what could have happened to him if the wrong person had found him. They took him back to the Police Station and looked after him really well whilst waiting for emergency social services. I often think I'd like to tell whoever looked after him that night, just how well his life has turned out. I can imagine if you work in Social Services/Police etc you must wonder over the years what happened to certain children you were involved with. My heart breaks for the poor little boy who died.

@FlatWhiteExtraHot no the person on here saying they'd searched their Facebook. Better not tag them or I'll get deleted again.

I dread to think what that little boy went through in those final days. A horrible way to die, alone and starving. It's heart breaking.

I don't think I've read something so instantly upsetting for a while. Just so tragic and goodness how long the little one suffered alone for 😥

I blame the mother for abandoning her child and the police for not doing a welfare check sooner. I'm sure the background for this situation is not going to be straightforward, alarm bells should be ringing if the mother has no contact with a tiny and child and no one could get hold of the father either. The mother was AWOL and the police failed this little boy. Why weren't they joining the dots that noone knew if they were ok?

😭😭😭

Note mother takes no responsibility for her two year old. Always someone else's fault.

I know the fear is probably irrational, but I always think about this… what if I died and my baby was locked inside alone? I don’t live near family and I doubt anyone would come looking for us if we didn’t reply to a text.

it’s actually part of the reason I have food (crackers, oranges, apples, cheerios and kiwi) on a lower shelf that my baby can reach. Their water bottles are also always full and can be found in many rooms around our home.

Unlikely to happen, but you never know!

Not read the whole thread.

My view is:

• social services are not to blame
• HOWEVER the culture which assumes that the biological father (in this case over 60 and with known health issues) should automatically be allowed to look after a very vulnerable very young child probably having no experience of caring for a child in the first place is absurd and, I hate to say it, is something social workers endorse
• the mother in question is at fault. Why in the hell she did not make daily contact with her child who was 2 years old when he died is utterly beyond me. Its one thing to have a kid with someone who is 17 years older than you (mother was 43 father was 60 and i would bet had health issues / heart issues when they got together in the first place) its another thing just to assume that a man that old who is given responsibility for his 2 year old as a result of a domestic argument (i.e. impulsively) over Christmas - will be adequate childcare for that child and that the child will not be desperate to see its mother (assuming the child did have a normal relationship with the mother that is).

Social workers did not cause this, but they probably did say at some point that the father has every right blah blah to look after his infant son alone because .....

The mother has got about 9 different Facebook accounts with a different boyfriend in almost every profile picture, for a 43 year old she looks closer to 430 years old and her jaw looks like she’s been on crack most of her life. I don’t think she’s a strong contender for mother of the year.

I heard this story on the news and the detail of the poor boy’s body being found next to his dad just made me tear up. Such a preventable tragedy. I really feel for the social worker. It seems they did everything right and beyond so, so I hope they don’t feel bad. It must be hard not to replay things in your head with hindsight though.

This is a situation where if the police had responded when social services first flagged an issue the outcome could have been a lot different.
that poor social worker and poor boy and his father. It’s a tragedy that shouldn’t have happened at all!

This is one of my worst fears as a single parent.

Social worker did nothing wrong, and I can’t see what more she could have done- police don’t look good and neither does the mother. Stop blaming everyone else, he was your baby.

no the person on here saying they'd searched their Facebook. Better not tag them or I'll get deleted again

Think that was me @lavenderphase. Why, what's your issue?

I think it's horribly invasive and ghoulish.

They do that stuff over on web sleuths but I'm surprised it's tolerated here.

I repeat, none of us know the circumstances here so whilst we can feel sad for this poor child and be pissed off about how it's being reported in the media, that's as far as it should go.