To be incredulous that this little boy wasn't protected (warning - distressing news coverage)

[LEMisdisappointed]

news article

I am so angry - yet another child tortured and murdered by his "parents". The school had written comments in the "concerns" book, yet still this poor little mite was starved and beaten systematically over a period of time. Do professionals become numb to childrens needs? Does no one check FFS????

My DD is a healthy child (thankfully) and never taken to the GP as she hardly ever gets sick, the only times she has been in the past few years are for injuries - nothing serious apart from biting through her tongue (ouchie), another time she burnt her hand and more recently a horse trod on her toe. The nurse commented that she was "accident prone" and asked if we had a social worker Fair enough actually, although DP was offended, although no follow up action taken. It looks worse i guess because they are the only notes on her medical record since she was a baby (shes 8 now). Everyone talks about "safeguarding" but it appears that they are just paying lip service to it and children are suffering either through unintentional neglect or willful cruelty.

I don't understand, after the whole Baby P thing that this can still slip through the net

Sadly I think there will always be a few children who fall through the net.

The blame is 100% the scum who did this.

Joanne279, the problem is that people get just as outraged if a sick child is taken away or a family investigated when the illness is genuine. And the medical profession were backing this woman up so how could social services over rule them and take the child away when doctors were insisting his thinness was due to an illness?

I'm sure half the people complaining about this would be up in arms if a child who had a genuine illness was taken from his family too.

Social services couldn't really win in this situation.

The perpetrators are the mum and stepdad,manipulative,cruel,liars
I've seen mn threads were tone is sw have excessive powers,too interventionist
In this case there clearly will be significant case review,with findings and recommendations

*Add message | Report | Message poster Wellthen Wed 31-Jul-13 22:13:45
This child's death lies with his mother and her partner. No one else.

Randomly pointing the finger at any adult with any contact with this child is disgusting behaviour. His teachers and social workers are grieving. Leave them alone.*

I agree that the blame for his death lies with his parents, but what is the point of all these child protection agencies etc if not to protect the child. Surely they utterly failed in their role?

I agree. It's a knee jerk reaction to say the teachers should have saved him, but there are procedures in place for a very good reason. Things need to be done by the book from the outset. In schools, this means noting concerns and passing them straight on to the Child Protection Officer. I have filled out many reports in my time. After this teachers are ABSOLUTELY not allowed to take it any further with the child or the parents because teachers aren't trained to interview children. If we were to talk to the child and make them disclose more, we can be accused of putting words in mouths, so we don't. We pass it on to Child Protection experts.

We have hungry children who we feed with extra toast and school dinners if they have been provided with no lunch or breakfast, but I'm willing to guess that he wasn't always in school. I wouldn't be surprised if he was one of those who was kept off school if he had a bad injury.

Personally, I'm sure that every adult who ever came into contact with Daniel is now wondering what else they could have done. It's awful. We can't know who or how he was failed, though. We are all just guessing and it's not that helpful.

teachers and TAs are also citizens. they could have independently contacted the police child protection unit if SS didn't seem to he doing its job. it's been done in my knowledge.

doing nothing but reporting is not good enough. it's just not.

Sadly it WILL happen again simply because a users are vey convincing and very good at concealing their actions,

Kind of wondering what is the point of all the safeguarding interview questions,policies,procedures and training just about anybody in contact with children go on to be frank.

I can only pray that this poor little boy is in a happier place. So sorry this happened to him.
When i become a teacher I hope i WILL make a difference. I hope i will be trained to recognise this situation. I wont write a report & think that is all I can do. Stealing food!? Poor wee lad, i'd have fed him myself.
So so sad. Off to kiss my DC's.

What a terrible terrible story. God help anyone who comes on here saying that perhaps we need to understand WHY the parents did what they did and if only they had been supported...

They are evil evil people, why did they pick on him. I believe he had another sibling who is still alive. The scum of the earth who will hopefully always be looking over their shoulder in prison.

The mother was trying to make out she was a victim.... The jury took just a few hrs to find them guility.

I hope they rot in hell.

The thing is we give people chance after chance. On another thread people were claiming that often kids are better off being in an abusive household because fostering was worse - really!!

How do you know (and not because the press told you) that they didnt do everything in their power with the information they had?

People don't walk around saying 'I'm going to kill my child tonight' - it could be a matter of minutes between saving a child and losing them.

Based on your argument people should never die in house fires, car crashes or have their houses broken into - I mean otherwise whats the point of the emergency services?

At what point can a doctor hospitalise a child without parental consent.

If he was getting worse why didn't they put him into hospital.

I read that a teacher had spoken to his mother about him stealing food and she had given an excuse along with many other excuses to

It is easy for us to sit here and say we would do this or that but when you are against parents who have a good enough reason for your every concern and once it has been reported there is not much you can do no matter how much you want to. The ss need a total shake up to protect more children but to get a child taken away from a parent or to help families get away from an abusive parent is very complex and difficult

Oh for God's sake. People haven't even read the coverage properly. This woman had convinced the medical profession that the child had an eating disorder which was being investigated.

If she conned the medical profession what could the school or social services do? If she was challenged she had back up from the medical profession that his thinness was due to an illness. Not starvation.

I honestly don't know what they could have done when this woman would have had 'proof' that she was not starving her child in the form of a consultant's opinion.

Because usually in a car accident the emergency services don't have months of evidence and paperwork pointing to something very wrong leading up to the accident.

when I was a child minder I used to warm the kids wellies and coats on the radiator before the school run so they were snugly.

you do that for kids, any kids, other people's kids.

what went wrong with these monster parents? why, just why? that's what I want to know.

If safeguarding procedures (which following VC were supposed to stop this kind of thing happening )were followed correctly then sorry I am wondering what the point is.

If you go for any job which involves working with children you are grilled on it big time.

I don't get it.

Hug your kids tonight,hold them tight,knowing they'll never experience that sustained violence
I know I will
And sadly some kids do live with violent inadequate adults,lets hope system is there for them

The blame lies 100% with his parents. Social workers will never get every case right, there is no profession in the world that gets it right every single time. I think they do save he lives of many many children every year who they remove, but sometimes when the parents are brilliant at lying, and can explain away the evidence, sometimes hey will get it wrong.

no that's true. the facts are still to come out here.

We need to be braver in reporting our concerns. On another thread a woman pulled up a parent berating her child and swearing at him using the most foul language.All the bleeding hearts came on saying 'well maybe she was having a bad day, maybe she needed more support, maybe she was loving and kind normally.'

This sort of attitude leave children wide open to worse abuse then just swearing. In fact some on the thread were saying that actually most children would rather stay in their household suffering the abuse then going into care because care was worse! That I think is why we are getting more cases like this one. We are constantly giving people second, third and 10th chances...

We need to make care better as opposed to allowing these chidlren to rot with parents who should be hanging their heads in shame.

And for all these SW (who are coming on saying they are experts in this area). What happened here? No one understands despite the red flags what happened.

My heart breaks for this poor poor little boy, I wanted toick him up and give him a big hug and a nice big meal. I hope that there is a special place in hell for his killers