AIBU to be furious that all the finger pointing in the Daniel Pelka case...

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Is being aimed towards the Head of Children Services and there is no mention of the Doctor that misdiagnosed this little boy with an eating disorder ? I mean FFS what kind of eating disorder leads a child to picking up food off a floor and scavenging in bins...

There are many people to blame, obviously the parents first and foremost. But also why did the teachers tell him off regarding stealing food from bins without asking him why he was doing it? If I was a teacher and saw a child cobstantly taking food from bins, other children and fruit bowls, I'd sit the poor thing down and ask him why! Not punish him without asking questions first.

think best wait for the real facts to emerge.

The mother and stepfather are to blame, most kids are very slight, but why would a health professional even twig he was being starved? It's something so evil and so sad no-one could have realised. The school had suspisions, maybe ss could have done something?

I don't think you can legislate against psychopaths. The mother sounds clever enough to cover her tracks and deranged enough to torture her own child to death - how can you recognise that?

Jambalaya - of course the people who murdered him or to blame for that BUT there was obviously failings on a number of levels for it to get to that stage and I am sure a number of people have done the "what could I have done differently" since then. Hindsight is a wonderful thing though.

Given what I've read, the teachers have a lot to answer for

But other than report the concerns there is very little else the teacher could do & they DID do that. Wouldn't have helped him to feed him because by the sounds of things his step father & mother would make him sick when he came home.

They failed to follow things up, to make someone listen

The process in school for reporting concerns is very simple, you report it to the person in charge of child protection, usually the head teacher.

Losing weight would have been of concern to me but not outside of plausibility if I was told he was under medical supervision. The rummaging in bins would have meant I went straight to my head teacher, reporting my concerns and asking what we could do to find out more about the medical condition. As others have said though, it can be difficult to find out without the permission of the parent. If I felt my head wasn't doing enough, I'm really not sure what I would do. I'm not always privy to all the information about a child, there may be a good reason why something is or isn't happening. I might call the nspcc anonymously if I was very concerned. I've had no training in circumventing the process. Maybe there needs to be a national service for professionals to ask advice if they suspect the person they report to isn't doing all they could.

Nothing will change anyway, there will be all this talk of reviews, investigations etc etc and statements "this must never happen again"....and sadly it will.

I think that all parents should be more willing to have SS investigate potential cases of abuse, even if it involves them or their friends. That a SW should have the right to insist on a child being seen, and that a parent who blocks that with whatever excuses should be prosecuted for obstruction. That SS, or a safeguarding officer in school should have the power to insist on a child, thought to be at risk and with evidence to back that belief, being thoroughly checked by a nurse or a GP.
The law still prioritises the rights of the parents over the welfare and needs of the child in far too many cases, and puts obstacles and threats in the way of those expressing concerns.

The actual father of Daniel has something to answer to, he can cry for him now, but did he ever visit him? Did he ever enquire how Daniel was or took any interest in his school life. If he had alarm bells may have rang out to him.

The boy had a spiral fracture to his humerus, an indicator of a non accidental injury as caused by twisting. It was also an old fracture. The A&E consultant reported it to social services. Social services closed the case four months or so later. This boy slipped through the net of all agencies, although they didn't kill him (his mother and her partner did) there were many missed opportunities to safeguard him.

I believe responsibility for protecting children lies with the whole community. Teachers, other parents, neighbours, doctors, even passers by!

I do wonder exactly how many people there are today sitting at home feeling awful thinking 'i saw that little boy, thought he probably wasn't ok but didn't do anything at all'.

There is an underlying attitude of 'best not interfere' in this country IMO.

If Daniel's death could make only one difference i'd like it to be for the majority of people in this country now to think of him and in future have the courage to report, report, report and report again.

Having worked in a primary school and been though some of the training for spotting child protection issues and how to respond i am frankly unable to understand how this boy suffered like that without someone taking more of an interest in him than just 'reporting'.
He was eating off the floor :( He was skeletal :(

I've read about the case. I still don't get how this happened in this supposedly abuse aware environment at school.

of course the parents are to blame but at the moment my little boy is under the preschool assessment team possible ASD he has a speech therapist , play therapist, paedetrician sp? and health visitor all with their own set of notes and they don't share the information which astounded me. as I work in mental health and we have a central system where we all write our notes in ie nurses doctors social workers etc so every professional involved gets to see every other professional ,s notes

Sounds like the only option that would have worked was for the teacher to "kidnap" the child & then everyone would have weighed in & maybe at that point they'd have seen how undernourished the child was. Unfortunately, that is very unlikely to happen. It is a horrid thought, but no matter what systems are in place, some children will slip through the net.

Even if you think the child isn't being abused any professional can call a multi agency meeting under the CAF ( common assessment framework). This was set up specifically so agencies can share info.

The law still prioritises the rights of the parents over the welfare and needs of the child in far too many cases, and puts obstacles and threats in the way of those expressing concerns.

Spot on. Not to mention the fact that child protection work can destroy careers. Dr David Southall, the paediatrician who filmed parents smothering their children, has had his life ruined by vindictive campaigns against him, even though his suspicions were correct and the parents were abusing the children.

Every time one of these child protection cases hits the media, children become less safe because social workers and doctors are deterred from doing safeguarding work.

Quick story before other people dive in to blame the teachers; In the past I have made 5 referrals to SS about a family. The second time they set up meetings but the family refused to engage and as they were voluntary they were signed off. Three more times SS investigated and signed it off. Each time the teachers despaired and expressed their concern. It wasn't until the sixth time the children were finally taken from their mother. CAFs need parental signature to proceed, unless it is a CP referral to SS. The system is still broken, despite the findings from recent serious case reviews.

I've name changed here for obvious reasons but I'm going to start by saying while I don't like the public pillorying that is becoming a trend ( soon no-one with any brains or ability will take up public service posts) there is something wrong with the system that is supposed to safeguard children and vulnerable.

My neice was physically abused and continues to be psychologically abused by her mothers bf. It started when she was 5. Long story short. They were dosing her with sleeping drugs to keep her quiet after school. He felt my DB's contributions not enough so said she didn't deserve to eat. Locked all food away in their bedroom. Of course we were frantic with worry and contacted every authority we could for help but there is always a plausible excuse and very young children are scared, can't articulate and open to coercion.

Crunch came when she was badly bruised and told my DM he'd beaten her. My DM did everything by the book. GP to make sure she ok, took photos and went to SS begging them to find a discrete way of checking on her because of concerns for safety. What did they do? Ring them up to say DM had been with photo, that they'd be around next day to interview if they could kindly be in, and then accepted fell off bike excuse which they coerced her to go along with. When SS gone they beat her some more for telling her nan and told her smugly that no one would believe her again.

This has nearly killed my DM and my DB has aged, has an ulcer and lives in perpetual fear ... Of course we pursued vigorously and it was followed up and the heat was briefly on.

So What do you think they did next? Move of course to another local authority. It has come out in court now that the beating and coercion occurred but These people are convincing and i can see how Pelka and Krezlek conned so many.

I don't think teachers, SS, and worst of all lawyers (seriously some lawyers need to look at their ethical practice because just cos it's your client you really should not collude with practice that could jeopardise a child.. I even said at one hearing ... Would you accept that for your own DC and the woman had the courtesy to blush scarlet and look down at the floor) they don't have the right in depth training or the time to deal with abuses like these.

Anyway just to say. Public pillory not good. But the system is not effective and we do need the failings to be exposed.

wonder how difficult it would be to introduce an emergency court order that any public body could request and then have a magistrate pull together school, social services and medical records to decide whether there is a concerning pattern amongst all the recorded evidence to issue social services with the power to gain access to a child as a first step rather than a last?

Dont need to. Emergency police protection order lasts 72 hours which is long enough for Ss to get the relevant orders in place long term. "The system takes too long" is an excuse used by people that want to hide behind it.
We were discussing this in the office yesterday, we have a retired CPT DS in our team whose opinion is as above. Too many cases, inexperienced social workers and insufficient resources mean Ss have one hand tied behind their back

I have had to report numerous things to the Child Protection co-ordinator at school, as a TA. Children tell you all sorts of things, and sometimes just a change in behaviour is enough to alert you.It is up to us to listen to what they are saying,and be vigilant.And ask a lot of questions.

It is more than our lives are worth not to report things that are concerning.

But I know that things seem to take forever once passed on to other agencies. Usually too many cases is cited. That is the downside of needing everything reported...not enough staff to actually carry it out quickly.

The problem seems to be collation of evidence from different agencies. Surely something as simple as a centralise database for all agencies would resolve this? In the case of gps maybe there could be a flag system of concern to protect patient confidentiality but make other agencies aware that the child was on their system. Flags could be colour coded for different concern levels ranging from being a registered patient to having serious concerns. Further details could be given to ss when there are other agencies involved.

Ultimately I think each agency lacks the power to investigate fully. When confronted with lying or uncooperative parents then there seems to be very little they can do other than log concerns.

This reminds me of a child called it where the school nurse spent month photographing bruises and making notes to gather sufficient info. Sadly some children don't have that long.

Jamdonut - you need to be very careful when asking "lots of questions".

I meant,not just automatically assuming the worst. its a fine line I know. we've all had "the training",don't worry.