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

Oh FFS. "Reading between the lines" doesn't mean "just making shit up based on the assumptions because a family have social services involvement"

I don't think any of us know enough about the circumstances of the mother to comment. We all know family court often give contact to abusive men, even with SS involvement. We have no idea what the SS involvement was for, it may have just been on Dad's contact time. We don't know.

The mother has 2 other children by him. She left the home after a row just before Christmas.

If I were her I wouldn't be mouthing off about Social Services failing her son.

Couldn't the police have told the SW they didn't have the manpower to do a welfare check? Then she could have taken more assertive action earlier.

Who knows what they said - in my experience, they dont tell you much when you ask them to do stuff, you have to keep following up. And when you have a full case load, it can take hours/days to follow up and find out what has been done (or not in this case). I am glad the police referred themselves, because they are supposed to do welfare checks. But in my experience, they often refuse or just dont do them because they are understaffed and overstretched and it is not seen as a priority.

Not sure what you mean here but you'd have to be pretty naive if you can't see that this whole situation was dire. Where was literally anyone else in this child's life?!

Admittedly I have never left my 2 yo for more than one night and I sure as hell don't think SS have done anything wrong. They were on the ball. But I have no idea how unreasonably I'd react if my 2yo had just starved to death. No way on this planet would people judge a Dad so harshly.

No one is to blame apart from the mother.

ss did everything they could.

Unless you work in the police you have absolutely no idea how stretched they are. For eg, optimum strength in my sisters borough is 25 per shift. Absolute minimum is 15. They are currently working with 8.

The mother knew the dad was vulnerable and didn't think to check on her own child? Mad

My daughter is doing a social work degree and they were told before Xmas that with good attendance on their course that they will all receive a £4,000 bursary. They weren't expecting this at all. It was because there isn't enough social workers and they have already received half. I have a 2 year old and I've been very distressed reading this news today. No family visits for little one over Xmas is so sad. My heart also goes out to the poor neighbour who was checking in too 💔

But it said on the article the child had only recently started staying at dad's.

That would imply mum is main carer.

So main carer, man or woman, dumping their child round a mans house (with health issues) and not contacting them for 2 weeks? Pretty traumatising and neglectful

This is so very sad. Poor little boy.

How the mum can blame social services is beyond me. Where was she when her ds needed her ?

'Reading between the lines' in this case means forming an opinion from what people choose to share on social media - how they present themselves, support of certain organisations, details of their chaotic personal lives broadcast and who they presumably idolise enough to name their children after. I believe the poor child never stood a chance.

Another one here who thinks that Social Service are not to blame in this case. Why did the police not check on them after the social workers reports and as for the mother, she sounds like one of those people who doesn't think they've done anything wrong and accusing SS of failing the family. Disgraceful.

This is on the mother and police , not SS

It looks like Dad had custody of the child (didn't take much to find all the relatives on fb). If that's the case, then THIS is where I now believe Social Services are at fault.

They kept a 2yr old child with a 60yr old man, who was so unwell he was YELLOW (which the social worker would have known if there were weekly visits). This child should have been removed prior to this happening, or better safeguarding in place. A child that is on a child protection plan should have weekly visits for a reason, and even if the social worker last saw Bronson on 22nd, it was still 18 days before she got the key to force entry. Action should have been taken long long before it got to this stage.

Do I think the social worker could have done more? Yes. She could have knocked on neighbours and seen if they had been out the house. Checked the bin to see if there was recent rubbish. Listened through the letter box while she rang dad's phone to see if she could hear it ringing in the house. And maybe she did those things, but I still think the council is right to investigate if there were failings, because I suspect that there were.

Yet another negligent parent abdicating all parental responsibility to social workers. Seriously this is disgusting. The remaining parent needs investigated. Poor little child.

What “more assertive action” could she have taken?

Social Workers cannot force entry to a property. Only the police can do that.

This social worker was so concerned that she tracked down the landlord, got a key and entered the house all the while knowing that if they were safe and well inside the property she could have been in serious trouble.

That social worker went above and beyond, and I’m fucking sick to death of SW being hung out by the media in this country. This woman is one of the good ones, the ones who give a shit enough to bend the rules to check on vulnerable children and she will probably never work again. Is that what people want? The profession is already in crisis.

The police, and the mother, are the only ones to blame here.

Poor lad. I don't see how social services or the mother are to blame here. I'm assuming the mum thought he was safe with his dad, mothers are allowed a break.

She didn't contact her two-year-old for two weeks! Once you're a parent, "breaks" such as that are a thing of the past.

What you’re coveting there is a flawless system, where every single avenue that can be pursued is pursued. In real life the vast majority of people with even severe health issues are not imminently about to drop dead. Where would this end - no single parents who are morbidly obese or diabetic? No single parents with epilepsy? In the vast majority of cases when people don’t answer the door to SS or support services they’re perfectly fine, in fact it isn’t at all surprising given the chaos they usually live in or their unreliable behaviour. SS took what I would call reasonable steps to investigate what was going on. If they performed their duties to the extent you believe they should the service would be painstakingly slow and they would need triple the staff.

Do you know how high the threshold for removal is, and that is a court decision?

So say she last saw Bronson on the 18th and then broke up for Christmas on the 22nd. Return to work on the 2nd, tried to see him but couldn’t. It is common for appointments to be missed, people forget, they could be away, a whole host of reasons. She was concerned enough to call the police the FIRST time she couldn’t reach Bronson’s father.

Even if the social worker did all of those things you list, if a neighbour hadn’t seen them, if the bin had no new rubbish, if she could hear a phone ring (unlikely to have battery after a day or two anyway) then what? Oh that’s right, call the police for a welfare check because she cannot legally force entry.

She did that, didn’t she?

Bloody well put.

No way on this planet would people judge a Dad so harshly.

I disagree. If a woman and her baby were found dead, and the child's father hadn't even checked on them for two weeks, MN would be baying for his blood!

I appreciate public services like the police are stretched but I don’t understand why they don’t have time for welfare checks or to investigate crimes like burglary but you hear about them investigating someone saying something mean on social media. I think they should be better funded but also have better priorities

Whatever you conclude about what the social worker should or should not have done I just find it absolutely incredible that a child aged 2 years old is left in the sole care of a 60 year old man with known previous health issues without being checked up upon.

Call me sexist, call me ageist but some people just very obviously do not have the skills to look after children that young. What the heck? Any female relative who had any kind of experience of looking after children and did not have obvious problems (eg addiction issues etc) would be a far better choice. Sorry if I sound like I don't understand but really, I don't because if I was vulnerable and 2 years old I would not like to be left alone with no contact with anyone else being cared for by a 60 year old man who was at risk of heart attacks and when my mother saw fit to not make any contact to check I was ok for days on end.

@millymog11 i think you’re just going to have to trust people who work in this arena to be honest. There is such a severe shortage of foster parents that unless a child is in imminent danger, even if they succeeded legally in removing them they would have nowhere to go. The threshold for removal is very very very high. Do you think single parents with cancer, epilepsy, type 1 diabetes or morbid obesity should have their children taken? Millions upon millions of single parents with health conditions raise children and it’s very rare for this to happen which is why it’s all over the news and so very shocking.

@Naptrappedmummy I agree. I've seen social work PLACE a children with family members who would fit the description of this late father.

Because at that time and when that decision was made that was in the best interests of that child.

I don't think it's fair to look at why he was there, any one of us could drop down dead right now, it really is about where was mum and everyone else.