Will lessons really be learnt after this tragic child abuse case?

[Tolkienista]

The horrific case of baby Preston Davey sickeningly abused by his adoptive parents (a teacher and his partner) concluded in a guilty verdict in court yesterday.
The details are too traumatic to contemplate the awful end of this child's life.
Once again the age old phrase "lessons will be learnt" has been quoted and I have to say, will they?

I know life is extremely complicated & I'm in no doubt that the killer of Preston was manipulative, cold hearted and extremely secretive in covering up his abuse of this defenceless little child.
I guess that because abuse generally takes place behind closed doors, child abuse will sadly always be a part of our society.

Utterly utterly tragic.

Leiland James-Corkhill was killed by his adoptive mother. It does happen. And it’s not always men.

And no, we don’t give people the benefit of the doubt in adoption, if anything the process is designed to make people prove they can parent safely and to a higher standard than we expect from birth parents for obvious reason. No system will stop someone who is determined, deceitful and hell bent on harm.

@Jellycatspyjamas

I guess that what I am saying is that, given males do offend at a higher rate generally, shouldn’t we study the relative rates in these cases and then design safeguarding procedures with that in mind? I’d imagine a deep dive of JV’s internet searches might have been illuminating….

And @Jellycatspyjamas, how do you get to a place at which two men are formally chosen in this very stringent procedure and have absolutely no idea how to care for a baby on day 1? The foster mum remarked upon it.

Adopting a baby is not a right but a safe loving home is absolutely a right for a baby.
I have really thought about the comments on this thread and i just cannot agree with men not being able to adopt when there are so many men - straight /single/
gay, who are completely capable of providing what a child needs.

Maybe the answer is not to ban gay male couples from adopting, but have much stricter safeguards in place.

For instance thorough physical examinations when an adopted child presents with multiple injuries at A and E.

Why is it homophobic ? The NHS saw that baby three times with significant injuries, and not once did they flag up concerns, even when one of the injuries was a broken arm with elbow involvement. Varley gave two different doctors two entirely different accounts of what happened, and yet still no safeguarding concerns were raised. I believe that at least in part, this was due to staff not wanting to be seen as homophobic or bigoted.

Do you have children? Did you know how to care for them from day 1 or did you need a bit of supper while you worked it out?

It’s part of the foster carers role to show adoptive parents how to care for their child, showing the child’s routine, food and feeding, bedtime etc. Until matching there’s no certainty about the child you might adopt, their age, sex or particular needs. The transition period is to start to get to know the child and to learn how to provide practical care.

I agree - my toddler daughter once fell with her head against the fireplace and started bleeding from the head. We went to A and E and there were about 3 different members of staff who asked me separately what happened.

The doctor wanted to have a detailed account, I suppose to check if my explanation makes change.

She also wanted to know if any of my children had a social worker and if my daughter attends nursery.

I think given Prestons background as an adopted child, his multiple injuries in a short time span, the fact that a nurse didn't believe one of the explanations and their failure to present Preston at A and E on one occasion when he struggled to keep his head up should have resulted in a thorough safeguarding investigation.

Because the woke authorities responsible for placing the baby considered political correctness more important than safeguarding. Preston could have been placed with his grandmother, who wanted to care for him. All they had to do was leave him with foster parents for a few more weeks while she completed treatment for breast cancer.

But when the adoptive parents hid Preston from the foster carers, that should have been a red flag.

So why is this not done before the child is handed over to the adoptive parents ?

As I get older I am beginning to feel that policing the human race is impossible.
I read a this poor little boy’s horrific short life and his abuse and murder at the hands of someone whose profession it was to safeguard and protect children.
I think over time (and I mean thousands of years) we have become more socialised, we live in societies with laws and constraints were there are accepted social norms and codes of conduct which most of us manage to stick to.
However, there are those who simply don’t. Whether it’s just due to them being psychopaths, sociopaths or just plain evil, they have no human feeling as we would understand them to be. They hurt, murder, rape, abuse and torture and this includes children and babies, the most fragile humans of all.
When you look at wars and conflicts young men (and sometimes women) go off to fight and carry out the most terrible atrocities. When you see what happens in Ukraine, the Oct 7 massacres, and in Gaza and so many other places just in the past couple of years, what has taken place is just horrific. I am not making a political statement, more an observation that ordinary everyday people, children and babies get murdered and harmed not in their name, but at the behest of someone else’s greed, power or lunacy.
This poor little boy, entrusted to two responsible adults who on paper should have made wonderful parents, suffered so much it’s hard to comprehend on any level.
I struggle with the death sentence, but in this case, I wouldn’t hesitate for one second.
As time moves on I realise even with so much progress if there is still a human race in 100, 200 or 500 years time, these crimes will continue to happen.

The adoption was outsourced to a private organisation, from what I’ve read. More privatisation sneaking into public services in the guise is making them more efficient?!

I wouldn’t consider either as ‘jokes’.

No of course not. Women and children have been being raped and murdered forever and men don't give a shit. So unless we revolt against them they will keep doing and keep protecting those doing it.

So money changed hands ? So depressing.

In the sense that public services are being encouraged to cut headcount and get private companies to deliver services and make decisions, yes. It’s happening everywhere!

I don't think the failures will turn out to be just because it was two gay men, though I think that "status" may have impacted SOME elements or people involved in the timeline. But it'd be a mistake,I reckon, to try and make the sole issue, when we know that children have been murdered horribly by, yes,mostly men (the stats are pretty clear, sexual assault on children really isn't an equal opportunity offence and so biological sex absolutely is relevant) but also many heterosexual men and a fewer number of women. Plus it does future kids no good if we don't look further than that into the deeper/more wide ranging issues that this case and others throw up.

I think there are multiple issues all colliding. We'll find out in due course how much JV and JMF's 'status' and what elements of that influenced decision-making or how big a factor it was, but I think there'll be more systemic issues coming up also.

• Were all the checking and child protection procedures that are already supposed to be in place and followed (there are a lot, and social workers and others are trained on them; good professionals do follow them) actually followed correctly at each stage?
• If not, why were they not followed or adhered to in this case?
• If all currently expected measures were followed correctly, what does this case show about them?Do they need adapting,improving ?Where were the biggest gaps and problems in this case? What can be done to mitigate those in future? What changes can be made if any to improve them, educate or make it more likely that things that should have been picked up are less likely to be missed in years to come?

Like others, I don't believe you'll ever eradicate it totally, because you can't eradicate the existence of wrong 'uns. New ones will always pop up. But there are things that can be done to try to learn from mistakes.

Varley told two doctors two very different stories as to how Preston’s arm was broken - a complicated break involving his elbow. If the safeguarding procedures are so robust, why wasn’t that picked up ?

It looks as though his colleagues DID also pick up that his story of how the elbow fracture happened was different from person to person and they did, rightly, flag up to the head teacher they were getting different stories. Which means they were aware that something was off, and did the right thing by telling someone (if they told the right person is another matter).

But the head teacher's response was just to go and check on Varley himself, and to believe his story that his 'social workers knew about his mental health' rather than to flag that outside of him as a big concern that had been brought to her attention.That is an example where a key red flag wasn't exactly missed - people had correctly picked up on it - but it wasn't acted on or passed up the line the way it should have been when reported. That, unfortunately, is where those personal relationships and what you spot and report and don't comes into play. But as a professional rather than just a friend, she should really have reported that to SW as something to look into.

@JellycatspyjamasI do have kids, yes. My husband and I both read books before we had kids and during this time. My husband also taught himself how to change my daughter in hospital based on the books he read and taught me. You don’t know everything, but you’d think a capable professional would have done some level of thinking about what a one year old’s routine might be (or even asked!) before the day of handover?

The foster mum will have dealt with more than one handover or new parent in her time I’d have imagined and she described these guys as totally and utterly clueless. That’s not how I would describe most new parents, to be honest - most people are anxious to get parenting right and invest a lot in that.

These guys seemed to half arse it. Changing their child’s name immediately was also a big red flag.

The 60 odd year old gran who would have been still parenting into her 70s, whose 14 year old daughter murdered a pensioner she befriended. That gran?

It is, the child isn’t handed over until the end of transitions when it’s assessed that it’s safe to do so. After the foster carers have worked with and supported the adopter to care for their child.

No, this is simply not true. Adoption Now, the agency which approved the pair, is a government-funded amalgamation of adjacent local authorities who work together for efficiencies of service, broader reach and economies of scale. Adoption Now is classified as a regional adoption agency and it operates on a not-for-profit basis.