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

Equally, 7 months prior to his death the Mother claimed the boyfriend had tried to strangle her to a visiting health Professional, why was this not reported, isn't domestic violence treated as abuse now. It doesn't matter whether it was true it's that nothing was done about children in that context.

I guess part of the problem is no-one could believe anyone could be so cruel. When a plausible medical issue was offered as an explanation people believed it because the reality is so unbearable.

Little Daniel should have been protected. He should have been protected from the woman who was supposed to protect him the most.

Every adult who knew Daniel has failed him and there will be a lot of people who can't sleep easy in their beds for a long long time.

The awful signs were there and those who knew him - teachers, social workers, neighbours, 'friends' - are all responsible for not doing something. It is everybody's responsibility!

Rest in peace sweet little boy xx

chubby, I hope so too.

Another tragic case of a child dying because of itsnotmyresponsibiltyitis.

Of course, nothing will change, some low grade manager will be wheeled in front of the camera telling of lessons to be learned, there will be tv interviews with social workers telling us how busy they are and that it was a difficult case.

In the meantime, the parents will live in a fully risk assessed environment with heat, light and 3 square meals a day. Then they will be released and supported back into the community.

So proud to be British today.

He weighed 1st9 when he died- 3lb more than my 7mo son. How on earth was it not obvious he was severely underweight?

It's a tragic event and the blame lays firmly with his monstrous parents but prehaps if more questions were asked it could have been avoided and he wouldnt have suffered so much. I think it's a sad sign of the times that people no longer intervene because they are so scared of repercussions etc.

I just hope poor little Daniel is at peace now.

IMO there is currently far too many restrictions within the rules that prioritise the rights of the adults under suspicion. SWs, teachers, HVs are not allowed to enter a home and insist on seeing the child under investigation, or demand that they are taken to GP or a hospital to be checked.
Hundreds, possibly thousands of children are living in situations with varying levels of abuse and the adults get to set who and what happens for the majority of incidents. Police constantly see DV situations between adults and are unable to remove the children because the mother's need to be with her children is seen as more important than their safety.
The current options are not working, overcrowded and strained by the needs and demands on them and children are dying and being seriously hurt mentally and physically because of the failures.

This is incredibly distressing. I hope this little boy is at peace now and his sibling is getting the care he needs.

So upsetting that there is widespread outrage after his death but there was enough to help him while he was alive and desperately needing intervention.

This is tragic. I've been following the story, feeling sick to my stomach. As a 2/3 of the way qualified SW with plenty of unqualified experience, my opinion is that communication was probably not happening. As an isolated incident, each 'problem' could be explained away but put this picture together and it is as horrifying as can be. Despite what the law and guidelines say, there is not a joined up approach to working in these sorts of cases.

Poor sweet boy and his siblings too.

I've been following this case for months and it makes me want to vomit each and every time. I think he looks too much like my own boy and is similar in age for it not to have an effect.

What were the other parents doing? What were the teachers doing?

I was asking myself this morning, would I notice someone was seriously wrong with a child in my son's class or would I be too busy at the school gates to register the children of others? :(

I just want to scoop this little boy up and protect him and tell him he's loved.

Nancerama makes a good point. What Dr saw Daniel? A consultant or a first year? Who was the sw assigned, someone with lots of experience or someone young?

I do feel now there is a acceptance of giving people the benefit of the doubt. To be mindful of cultural differences etc and to keep the family together if at all possible. That means that even when the red flags ae waving widely people still hold back, they understandably dont want to make a mistake so they hold back.

My DM flagged some concerns regarding some children she taught. Due to her age she didnt give a toss about political correctness and giving people every chance. She gave children who were clearly coming without breakfast and unwashed some food. Is she following process? I dont think she cares. At 80 what are they going to do - fire her! And if it ever came out that a 80 year old ex teacher flagged something to a inexperienced head and something happened - the media would have a field day.

And the Dad?

The dad seems to be a waste of space as well. Left when Daniel was one and returned to Poland and (as far as I can see) never saw Daniel again.

I'm utterly baffled by the fact that this poor, beautiful little boy was singled out for abuse and his siblings were not.
My mum used to work in child protection and she had one case where one of many siblings was singled out time and time again as a punchbag when his mother got angry or frustrated. She would literally drag him out of bed and beat him up to relieve her tension. Luckily he was taken away from her but was apparently distraught at this because his abusive mother was all he had ever known. I pray he's doing much better with living carers now.

It is quite common for one child to be the focus of the rage, and hate and abuse and for the others to either be golden children, or treated normally.

The Dad is blaming all and sundry - he was being interviewed last night. Clearly had little input into his son's life.

Why are people so afraid to act?

I know a lovely and truly caring school nurse who took a child home with her for a week, in order to force SS and police to act. She knew the child was seriously abused (abused and deprived of food daily, raped at weekends) but couldn't get any notice taken.

When she made a stand, at great risk to herself, the child went into care and the parents were imprisoned. Why was it neccesary?

Candycoatedwaterdrops hits the nail on the head- the communication between the different actors appears to have broken down. Effective coordination of all responsible actors is required.

The focus should be on what is best for the child and should not differentiate between intentional or unintentional acts or passive and active neglect. In Daniel's awful predicament this approach would've identified an issue with the Mother missing appointments when her child was emaciated. Equally, there would've been concerns highlighted when the Mother highlighted domestic abuse from the partner. This was 6 months before his death. If the needs of the child were a priority, coordinated efforts would've had to identify a solution for this.

Well done to that school nurse. I wish more people would do what she did.

Agree, the needs of the child should be an absolute and clear priority.

Have just been listening to R5 where 'lecturer in Social Work' has been asked about this case. She spent most of the time making political points about the government and simply wouldn't address any of the questions she was being asked by the interviewer. Having said that, I have been in situations where social workers were meant to be visiting children when concern was raised by schools; on several occasions we were told parents were not in; unless there are huge amounts of evidence a tick is just put in the box to say the visit has been made. If parents really want to pull the wool over professionals' eyes, there is simply not enough time and staff to keep following these up. However in the IT age you would think that cross checks could be made by all agencies.

Exactly, lots of boxes to be ticked/not ticked. The boxes aren't the important thing, the child is. An abusive parent not being in, not answering the door- if I was trying to avoid detection and it was as easy as pretending to be out then you can see how children are failed.

Part of the problem is, people are quick to demonise Social Care and other professions involved in Child Protection.

For example, when I worked as part of a safeguarding team, I was trained to use the One Database (that's what we called it - ContactPoint was the official name). It contained all the names of all the schoolchildren in the UK, and any referrals that had been made to Social Care / EWOs / Youth Workers etc. If you made a visit, or a phone call, or sent a letter, you logged it, detailed what was said / happened, attached any documents eg letters sent / received. The idea was that it would be joined up working. And if a family moved counties or boroughs, the information would be there, at the new authority's fingertips, instead of the family having a clean slate.

What happened? People were outraged that their children's names were included in a database - they weren't abusers, why should they be included?. NIMBYism, to an extent. So it was scrapped. The information sharing idea went back three steps.

Imagine if it was still around, and all the concern logs from the teachers, and the HV visits, and the SW visits had all been logged and detailed... would it have helped? It may well have done.

Poor little soul.

Batman - but presumably such a system exists for children deemed 'at risk' ?

Not really, that's why they tried to set up a central hub for information gathering and sharing.