Sorry - possibly triggering - just finding this whole Ellie Butler thing really horribly hard

[MypocketsarelikeNarnia]

Just that really.

I'm not given to crying at the news. It's the fact that they had saved her. And then they sent her back.

I just wanted to post here because I think you'll get it.

And dd is six too.

Me too. I can't actually read today's news stories about it yet - what I'd read so far just makes my gut clench with fear for that defenceless child

It's heartbreaking rather - in the way it always is post sentencing when we learn about all the previous convictions. Her grandparents fought so hard for her and got nowhere. The judge who sent her back to him made some inexplicable decisions. And there's a Mail article from 2012 about how happy they all are now they have their daughters back from the evil sws.

And can any if this hindsight change anything? The judge has retired...

I have read very little as I burst into tears when I heard about the case when the two mums beat their child to death. I just cannot handle how terrible the world is right now and how cruel. I know the basics but I am finding the news at the moment really gets me down.

Just read the Serious Case Review; the submission by the grandparents is particularly heartbreaking

It's just the thought of that little girl sent to live with that sadist.

And that fucking mail article.

And her grandparents.

And the judge.

I don't know why I can't stop picking at this though. I normally can.

It's just too sad.

Me too, OP. I have a six year old, as well. Maybe this will give pause to those who argue that a child should never be taken into care without prior conviction of parents for a criminal offence.

My heart particularly breaks for the grandparents, fighting to save her.

It's horrible. I think the media spin they did - appearing with Denise on this morning, for example to discuss their treatment at the hands of the courts - just gives an awful dimension to the whole thing.

Spooky, I also hope it causes a pause but I doubt it will. The pendulum just keeps swinging.

It's truly awful, just read the report in the Telegraph.

I think it's the whole Denise/mail thing. And it won't give those people pause for thought in the future because they're vultures.

Her poor poor grandparents. And that poor sibling who they sent in to find her.

And I just think we've set the bar way too low. I know that's not a popular viewpoint but I think children have to bear too much before they can be helped by ss.

I know. It's just all too awful.

My 6yo was playing and being silly the other day and turned to me to say 'Mummy, if I wasn't given to you, I wouldn't be doing this'. And I can't stop thinking about that and crying for all the children who can't play and be silly.

It's truly awful :( I think it's so awful that some people can't have children and struggle with fertility problems for years and then evil people like this seem to have no trouble conceiving and then go on to terrorise their children.

I read the serious case review today - really interesting that for once it wasn't the usual cocktail of lack of resources and poor co-ordination. Though there were minor errors, the key thing really was the judge in the first criminal trial deciding that because the clinical evidence didn't prove non-accidental injury (which was probably the correct legal judgement), then stretching that to decide that this meant the parents were definitely innocent and insisting that (a) the LA had to write to all the helping agencies telling them the parents definitely weren't abusers, and (b) deciding the parents couldn't be expected to work with the LA and so appointing independent social workers. It just reminded me of threads on MN where posters have clearly not understood why the bar for taking children into care is different from the bar for clinical conviction, and have assumed that in the absence of criminal conviction having your children in care must be a terrible wrong.

The independent social workers also went from a position in which there was no assumption that Ellie would move back to her parents (she had been living with her grandparents for over 5 years, and her parents initially only asked for the other child back), to moving her back really quickly - before they even had a bed for her. And again, I was reminded of threads in which posters have indignantly insisted that where parents have been wrongly deprived of their children, those children should automatically go straight back to their parents.

The review's key finding, though, was that the parents were such aggressive, demanding drama queens that the children's needs and wishes were completely marginalised.

I do wonder if the judge had been influenced by the antics of Hemmings et al. But the judiciary wouldn't co-operate with the serious case review, so we'll never know.

spooky, I had the same thoughts when I saw the general MN outrage. I immediately thought of the debate on previous threads where the overwhelming view is to return children immediately if parents have been "wronged". The Webster case was the previous year to this one and I too wonder if the climate at the time impacted the decision.

I had similar thoughts

I also read a comment piece (forget who it was by) arguing that this was another example of why we need to open up the Family Courts. It was depressing how blithely they dismissed children's privacy with a wave of a hand

I heard the grandfather interviewed on the radio last week. It was heart-breaking. He and his wife had begged the judge not to send her back and he had told the judge she would have blood on her hands. Now she has. What a totally stupid and reckless decision.

Then the judge ordered that SWs had no real involvement and even when Ellie was missing from school for two months nothing was done. It should have been picked up then that there was a serious problem.

It's just been reported too that the sick bastard tortured a dog so badly it had to have its leg amputated. That was when he was eight years old. Why didn't that come out in Court?