**Trigger Warning** Title edited by MNHQ Very distressing news story about murder of 24 day old baby

[A580Hojas]

Aibu to not comprehend how it can be possible that newborn baby Stanley Davies, who had been in hospital on 3 occasions with broken ribs and limbs (if I am reading the reporting correctly) was sent back home with his parents and not removed from them by Social Services? I just cannot fathom how that could happen.

Someone is guilty of failing massively in their duty of care here (I refer to the professionals, not his parents). Unless any more knowledgeable Mumsnetters can explain to me how this might have happened?

@whatsthepointthen SS can't win then, can they? Criticised for investigating, criticised for not investigating.

The people to blame are the people that did this to him.

^ This^

No-one is to blame but that pair

@whatsthepointthen SS can't win then, can they? Criticised for investigating, criticised for not investigating.

You couldn't make it up could you?

maybe investigate the serious cases and leave people alone once its proven to be lies. they did investigate, but still wouldnt leave me alone till i made a complaint. yet they are apparently so “busy” yeh busy wasting time.

What a disgusting thread.

Yes, let's gang up to pillory social workers, and to sit in judgment about all of this.

None of us knows what happened. Of course it's shocking and upsetting and I can't begin to picture what a horrific life that poor baby had. But it's cheap to presume that if something awful happens, it must have been preventable.

And the less said about mawkish bullshit such as 'your safe in heaven,' the better. Honestly. You should be ashamed.

What MrsTerry said.

I don't understand how social services are to blame for this. Imagine if someone posted on MN: "Social services are accusing me and my partner of harming my child. Even the consultant we saw at the hospital confirmed that he has a birthmark, not a bruise, but they're ignoring that and still pushing to take him into care." People would be shocked that the consultant's word wasn't enough for the social workers, say how shocking it was that they were targeting innocent parents when there are so many genuine abusers out there, etc.

Unfortunately there will always be parents like this. As an advanced society we are supposed to have safety nets in place to prevent child abuse and child murder. I want to talk about these safety nets. It goes without saying the parents are to blame. I don't want to talk about the parent and parent's partner - I want to talk about the safeguarding failures here.

The baby was 24 days old, it's highly unlikely that social services were even involved given the tiny amount of time this poor little boy was alive.

Child deaths are always referred for independent enquiry, and lessons are learned and as a result lead to ever more effective safeguards for children.

But you can put any amount of safeguarding procedures in place and it still won't be enough to prevent a monster from killing a 24 day old baby just because.

Poor baby, such a little angel. Some people are pure evil. Karma to them, poor defenceless baby had no chance.

Yes let’s sack all the hypothetical social workers. Even though we don’t know if SS were even involved.

Unfourtunately there will always be parents who hurt their children. You have a stretched, underfunded service who are heavily criticised by the public and the media. We don’t know yet which or even if professionals made a mistake. We do know that this child was failed by his mother and the man she allowed into her life.

a580 except we don’t know what safeguarding failures happened in this instance except a missed bruise.

He wasn't taken to the hospital 3 times before had that is incorrect he was seen once before for a mark by his ear but that was said to be a birthmark.
It was midwife that saw him at an appointment that got him taken to hospital.
The extent of what happened to him was found afterwards.
This happened very close to where I live and has been covered by the local media.
I would read all the information available before blaming the authorities

Human beings are infallible. We make mistakes. Signs can be missed. Parents can be deceptive or manipulative. Professionals can put their heart, soul, energy and time into a case and it can still result in a negative outcome.

Safeguarding can and does fail occasionally. We can try and learn lessons from it but people and society aren’t perfect.

How could ss possibly have "picked up" this awful situation which occured within 17 days of this poor baby's life if they were not even aware of it?

It’s horrendous, but then the entire town is a hell hole so I’m not remotely surprised about where it happened. Social Services there will be completely overrun, ditto the police.

Another child lost because medics and SS could not see what was staring them in the face. I know people who have reported stuff and been told off for it and then the truth came out and the child was being harmed but SS ignored the reporting persons. Still we hear SS saying lessons will be learned but they are not as this still goes on.

On the other hand we don't always hear of every case where SS and or medics have gone in heavy handedly when there is nothing.

This is childrens' lives we are talking about, we don't care about anyone's budgets or case loads we really should be caring more about the poor children who suffer through inadequate actions of SS

TheBouquets do you have a source of additional information on this case? If so, could you share it please. What was staring who in the face?

This is childrens' lives we are talking about, we don't care about anyone's budgets or case loads we really should be caring more about the poor children who suffer through inadequate actions of SS

Ok, so you'll be donating the 15 million necessary, will you? Or volunteering to work round the clock for free?

Thought not.

Empty posturing.

There are safety nets in place. The trouble is that every time they work, no one knows about it, because obviously no one can say which children would have been murdered if they weren't taken into care. You will never prevent every child murder. Thankfully we do have SS there preventing most of them though, and thankfully, lessons are learned every time a child isn't saved. Wouldn't it be nice if we could learn lessons without blaming fallible humans, who were just doing their best. I'm guessing anyone involved in a case like this feels bad enough already.

I don’t think location is relevant, I’m live in the same town and have been following the story like Duggee In local news updates. There are some not so nice parts here but it’s not a ‘hellhole’. Also, if your that sick and twisted enough to harm your own baby like she did, I don’t think it matters where your from. She’s from a big family and many of her siblings live relatively normal lives, with children of their own.

How heartbreaking, that poor little boy. Watching that video, the couple were obviously well known to the police and both were obviously intoxicated - That poor baby. I can’t wrap my head around how anyone could harm such a tiny baby, or how anyone can sit by knowing he’s been harmed and not get help.
Disgusting couple.

Can I just point out here that the people responsible for this child’s death are the people who were convicted of it today.

Not the Social Workers and the Health Visitor.

If you want to point the finger of blame at the professionals involved please aim much much higher at the politicians who have cut and cut and cut most Children’s Services Departments stripping them to their knees and placing dangerous and unachievable expectations on SWs who are expected to work 50 hours a week and get paid for 37.

This is childrens' lives we are talking about, we don't care about anyone's budgets or case loads

I don't understand what you mean here. If SS are working on a low budget, there are more cases to share between fewer social workers. If their caseload is too high, then of course they can't give enough time to all their cases.

This is childrens' lives we are talking about, we don't care about anyone's budgets or case loads we really should be caring more about the poor children who suffer through inadequate actions of SS

It's patently obvious that the Tory government does not care about anyone's budget beyond their own personal purses and those of their cronies, and every single person who voted for them and continues to do so share in that.

Oh, and what LRD said.