Exactly, on a school roll or off a school roll, school wasn't going to be the agency that could actually protect her.
An earlier poster asserted that Victoria Climbie was supposedly being home educated. That's incorrect. I was caught up in the inquiry.
She was taken from her parents ironically with the promise of education and a better life. In reality she was to be a ticket to public funds and housing in France, (immigration uses are unclear) and later to public funds and housing and immigration status in the UK. Another child had been selected, but then wasn't available at the time.
She was enrolled in a school in France. The school was rightly concerned that she was often absent and when present, falling asleep and appearing unwell.
They issued a 'Child at Risk Emergency Notification' in February 99.
Victoria was subsequently removed weeks later, supposedly to go to London for 'treatment.'
Instead she was presented the day after arrival in the UK in April as part of a homeless LP family in Ealing under the name Anna, and supposedly the DD of her great aunt Kaouo, who then moved to Brent. A concerned relative made two reports to Brent SS about the condition of the child. In June there were no instantly available school places and she spent her days from up to 7am to 10pm with a childminder, who was then asked to foster her in July.
In June Kouao had met Manning, the driver of a bus she was on, and Kouao moved to his Tottenham flat in July. Manning didn't want Victoria there, and again no close school places available there either. Kouao refused to transport Victoria, so she went onto a list of those waiting for any local school place.
The childminder refused to privately foster her, but kept her overnight. Her adult daughter took her to hospital in the morning because of lots of small injuries, and she was admitted and police and Brent SS informed.
She was removed from the hospital, and her possessions from the childminder, the following day by Kouao.
A week later she was back in hospital for two weeks supposedly having poured a kettle of boiling water over her own head. Two further referrals where made to SS, one by the hospital SW. Yet case SW and a police officer concluded in August she could be safely discharged to Kouao's care. Her known lack of education wasn't considered an issue as it was school holidays.
She was referred to the Tottenham Child and Family Centre who failed to follow up or visit.
In October Victoria's sofabed was thrown out and she started sleeping in the bath/room.
In November after being told only abuse would get them housed, Kouao took Victoria to Haringey SS claiming Manning had sexually abused Victoria.
Kouao recanted allegations the following day, but was told they needed to stay at a friends.
They actually returned to Manning's flat that night, and no follow up visits to Victoria or offers of school places for either there, or the friends address, were subsequently made. No suggestion or claim that she was being home educated by Kouao was made either.
She was at that time sleeping in her own feces and urine tied up in a black sack and being beaten daily with items including shoes, a coat hanger, wooden spoon, a hammer and a bicycle chain. Victoria’s blood was on several walls of the flat, and Manning’s football boots and trainers.
Her skin deteriorated so much that they stopped using the sack because of possible "untoward questions" being asked by those who saw her, though she remained hog tied and mainly in the bath. By January she was being fed still tied up, off a piece of plastic, by pushing her head towards it.
She was next seen by a SW in a hospital the night before she died. Her poor little body simply gave out. She was initially admitted with a temperature of 27 after being taken to see a priest about her 'behavior.'.
She died of hypothermia caused by malnourishment, restricted movement where she was tied up, and damp cold environment - a bath in an unheated, unlit bathroom.
She had 128 separate injuries caused by sharp and blunt items and no part of her body was unaffected. She had been systematically brutalized and tortured to death.
Victoria was declared dead on 25 February 2000, the same day Haringey SS formally closed her case, with her still not offered a school place nor believed to be educated in any way elsewhere. She also wasn't 'hidden away' she was at home, (though supposedly a different one) and taken to France at least twice during her last four months, staying with Kaouo's son, and was under the care of a SW, and a family center that specialized in overseeing children referred to it.
She and Sarah have several commonalities including presenting as bright smiling confident children when nursing injuries, not being currently enrolled in school and coming from ethnic backgrounds, which certainly played their parts. But IMO the biggest is they where children who one way or another where mainly 'procured' for financial, housing, and settlement gains, by a primary abuser, who later involved secondary abusers, and who knew how to run rings around those supposed to protect 'pass the parcel' children, and the systems in place that should have kicked in to specific big red flags waving, just didn't.
I don't disagree with the petitions aims, but it does nothing for those where females are either primary or secondary abusers. It wouldn't have saved Victoria, or my sibling, or many others. Many parts of jigsaws need looking at.