Alfie Steele

[Ffswhatsthepoint]

I checked there was no other thread before I posted this one. Alfie, 9, killed by mum and her bf. Drowned. A catalogue of abuse and many phone calls to police/ss by neighbours. The neighbours often fed him too. We HAVE to find people accountable in this case. It was reported. People knew. Nothing was done. Absolutely nothing. Its harrowing. I feel like I failed him. And I'm hundreds of miles away.

Don't doubt it but how effed up do you have to be put a shag above your kids and wouldn't your wider family raise a few concerns? These cases are all the same - guy moves in super fast and the the beatings begin.

The reluctance to take a child away from their mother (which is traumatic regardless of the situation) and the idea that a child’s place of always won’t their mother has to change

many women do not put their child first they put their needs and partners needs first the cycle of abusive relationships that they are often in is for them to have to deal with but to often it’s children that pay the price

Society has changed a lot (often not for the better), and a lot of families have little contact with wider family these days. Also, a lot of communications are now via FaceTime etc, making it far easier to hide abuse.

Anyone who ever wonders how these tragedies occur without the authorities stepping in only has to read MN for a few days.

So many people on here advocate minding your own business. I see it time and again. “I saw my neighbour drag her 4 year old along the pavement and smack him hard when he cried, should I report to SS?”. And the replies come thick and fast “mind your own business, keep your nose out, you don’t know what’s going on in her life, she might have mental health problems, don’t be a judgey pants, leave the poor woman alone, we can’t all be as perfect as you” etc etc.

And so abuse goes unnoticed, because no one wants to intervene.

My pet peeve is: “You’ve only seen a snapshot of their day”. yeah - lucky me. The poor child has to tolerate poor behaviour ALL day not just the snapshot of shot parenting I’ve just seen.

Because it’s seen as normal to have random men around your kids and calling them “step dad” I was reading of a woman who moved a man she had known 2 weeks into her house during lock down because he had no where to go, this woman has a child.

Abusers alienate victims (often but not always women) from their wider families. There have been cases similar to this in the past where family members tried to intervene like the neighbour did in this situation. The threshold for removal of children is high and ask a PP said, these situations are far too common.

my mother married a very abusive man after my father’s death. There was no abuse whatsoever before she met and married him (all within a year of our father’s sudden death in a motorbike accident so there was no father figure anywhere who might intervene which I suspect is often the case in these situations - if the adults involved were scared a bigger adult would come along and punish them for the abuse they might reign themselves in.

So yes as a pp said. we need to understand why often vulnerable women tether themselves so closely to these men go on to put their own interests over that of their DC’s with deadly consequences. When my mother was confronted with the fact that her husband had sexually abused us, her response was ‘he isn’t all bad’ She saw and was complicit in the other abuse though.

I’m in no way excusing the mother whatsoever, but there is a link. I suspect she desperately wanted to please and keep him and began to think her son was the root of their problems.

People need to stop voting for a government that obliterates the public sector and children's services and makes the social worker job impossible to do safely as they are stretched so thin

And also if social workers were paid more then more competent people would be willing to do it as a job

Sad to say in 25 years of working alongside SWs I met 2 I’d describe as competent. The dozens of others just liked holding meetings and criticising anyone but themselves.

@Fantina - thanks for your post. That was heartbreaking.

I do think there is an issue with male step parenting for exactly the reasons you describe.

A man who moves in very fast with a woman should be a cause for suspicion for domestic abuse; of both her and any children she has. These men are looking for women who will let them do pretty much what they like.

I do not understand the woman. She is taking a risk that is obvious.

Obviously this. All services have been screwed up and underfunded. If you don't have the people in place to do the work then those in danger are not protected and removed from the harm as they should be. No use blaming those in sectors who haven't yet left or gone long term sick due to the work load.

@Fantina 💐 from a fellow survivor

As someone who used to have a caseload of 10s of people who this could happen to, who was overworked, underpaid, blamed and pilloried for existing, and everyone knew better than me how to do my job... I left.

People think SWs have a caseload of maybe 20, with one person where this could happen. It's more like 100, where in 50 cases this could happen. There are NO easy cases. SWs aren't psychic, they have to assess, listen to unreliable witnesses who all lie, knowing that removing a child will definitely fuck their whole life up. Definitely.

SWs save lives every day but it is completely invisible. They can't talk about it and no one knows.

If you think SWs are thick (from this thread), incompetent (from everywhere) and lazy and heartless, retrain. Do it yourself. Quickly while you know everything. Make sure to never make a mistake, never miss anything, know who is lying, know who is telling the truth and finish all your work while there's still time to sleep and eat.

Or:

1. Don't vote Tory
2. Be important in the life of a child
3. Volunteer
4. Welcome the DC who are smelly, poorly behaved and violent to your homes
5. Actually care about your neighbours
6. Foster
7. Don't vote Tory

I know it's easier to blame the people who do the hard work while you're sitting on your arse, but the fact is violent abuse happens every day. It's constant. You just don't have to see it every day. SWs do, poor bastards.

I've been struck by comments on here about there being a shortage of foster carers. Are there no children's homes any more? I know there was a move to place children with families, but does that mean that children's homes don't exist now?
And obviously I'm aware of some the problems with children's homes, but surely the same issues can arise with individual foster carers.
I think the whole sector needs an urgent review on structure, funding, training and pay.

They have learnt nothing from the tragic death of Jasmine Beckford.

Actually there are not more children murdered every year. The numbers are stable. We would want them to go down of course but life means sadly there will always be parents who manage to murder their kids. We work incredibly hard and keep thousands and thousands of children safe every year. Threatening to jail social workers is a sure way to increase the number of dead kids 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 good plan

I used to work in a bank and we had to do a money laundering course each year. If you suspected someone was money laundering but didn't report you could go to prison don't remember the sentence but was at least 4 years I think . Money more important than a child's life.

Of course ALL social workers aren't incompetent 🙄🙄🙄
yes the problem is systemic. Training is underfunded so there aren't enough of them, meaning the work is excessive and gruelling, as well as being emotionally draining. It's an incredibly challenging career and not particularly well paid.
social workers protect children every day. You have no idea how many children aren't hurt and killed because of social workers.

Because they don’t have the power to.

That's correct
police Can remove a child for 72 hours but social workers cannot remove a child without a court order.
emergency court applications are possible but rarely used. Court applications are expected to be planned and work MUST be attempted with families before an application is made. In order to go to court social workers MUST have evidence. In the case of Alfie they needed to have the evidence that this man was still in the house. Sometimes we know what's happening but we are waiting for the evidence we need to go to court. That's how the system works.

This is it, isn't it? Who'd be a children's social worker? Pay is rubbish, but you need a degree to do it. Cases coming in, left right and centre, with no where near enough staff to see to all of the cases. They're often subject to abuse themselves (I know of a children social worker who did take children away and they were subject to an horrific campaign of abuse, tik tok videos with the man threatening to rape her, kill her, burn down her house. Telling the world her name and address. And threatening to kill her kids. And more). Society views them dimly too.

Combined with an ethos that removal of children is to be avoided, and one that is difficult to achieve due to the process involved, the threshold required.

Let's not forget that the monsters responsible for this are the people who tortured that kid. The adults involved in this will be liars, manipulators, and accomplished deceptors.

I remember watching a TV show, possibly benefits street, with a child who had ss involvement. The kid had the filthiest feet. But as soon as any kind of appointment came up, they made sure he was clean and tidy. Not an extreme case but a really good example of there being no evidence for the sw.

We need double, triple, even quadruple the staff in these services. They need better tools, better support, the service needs more money. The courts need more sittings to hear their emergency cases (I know of a couple of courts that are currently not taking any LA cases, at all, so they have to use courts in the neighbouring counties, who are already stretched). And the same for other places that children come into contact, like schools. Schools don't have enough teachers or support staff, so the wider network that often props up a system like social services are decimated.

Until we put the safety and welfare of children first this will continue to happen. And even then, I'm sure cases like this will still get through. Evil people will find a way. But at least if ss we're funded and staffed and resourced properly, these cases, I think, would be come the exception rather than the norm.

I can't get on board with blaming social workers on an individual level.

I think,firstly ,we should ask ,why do so many women have relationships with men who are to put it bluntly complete bastards? Why do so many single mothers prioritize the men over their own flesh and blood? Why do they fail to protect despite being warned of the consequences? I've sat with women who have been assaulted by their partners and told them they have to protect their child, only to be told he wouldn't hurt them. I've been trying to get them to a place of safety for crying out loud, and they are happy to stay with a man who beats them senseless, and they think the kids are OK.
I actually think the mother, in this case, should get life, because she allowed this.

No, you don't find many children's homes any more, the ones that exist are usually for kids too disturbed to be in foster care.

I read about this this morning. The recording of that poor little lad screaming for them to open the door broke my heart. How can people, his own mother, be so cruel?
I don't know the answer but I hope to god that poor boy is at peace now.