Can’t get over poor baby Preston

[Doximama2]

Not sure this is an AIBU, I never post on here but just feel I want to today. I am a 59 year old nana of 3 gourgous grandchildren including a one year old boy, the whole story in the need the last few weeks and especially this week about poor baby Preston that was tortured, abused and ultimately murdered by his 2 adoptive “fathers” has completely traumatized me. I am recovering from a big surgery 2 weeks ago so feeling emotional but this has really upset me so much that this was able to happen and that no one, not any social services, medics on visits to the hospital - one even with a broken elbow ffs - friends and family of these monsters realised what was happening and that Preston wasn’t a happy one year old. My grandson is always happy and smiling unless he is poorly so how did this go unnoticed? I had to turn the news off Monday when they showed this poor baby trying to sleep and this monster kept making him wake up.

im not naive, I have worked in public service including health and social services which I think is why I can’t comprehend how this was allowed to happen. It just feels like there is so many awful things in the world, and has made me so sad. 😭

So what do you think they should have done?

Honestly, I'd be guessing. But my personal view would be - we're choosing to have fewer children overall, for many reasons - lack of stable relationships, cost of housing/financial stability, living geographically further from our support networks etc - and I'm sure those affect potential adopters too, whether it's choosing to accept not having children at all, or choosing to stop at one or two birth children and not adopt additional. I do wonder as well if the fact that many people try for their own families later has an effect, if you experience infertility in your twenties, you might feel you've come to terms with it enough to adopt in your thirties. If you start trying late thirties then you're making that decision mid forties/fifties and that's hard. I also think it's very different adopting now compared to say, forty years ago. Not that I'd ever condone how unmarried mothers were treated, but in the past there were many children put up for adoption where the mother would have taken care during pregnancy and would have been looked after at birth. Naturally those who are removed by social services at birth are those where the risks are highest, the majority of children I see where an adoption decision is made is due to severe drug and/or alcohol use, and/or significant mental health issues for either parent, and/or significant domestic abuse. I can understand that many people enquire about adoption and decide it's not for them. It's not just about whether they would be willing to care for children where there are so many unknowns about their future and how they may be affected, it's having the skills, resources and support network to do it.

You are very chippy, I wasn’t trying to patronise you. I think you need to listen to the professionals and the adopters on here. I could disappear down rabbit holes trying to prove my own theories because I want to believe my own narrative. I would suggest that you read the Adoption UK Barometer 2026 that is out this week. Plus, check out PATCH (Passionate Adopters Targeting Change), a campaign group that now has around 3,000 members.

Re adoption, what does sound very cruel to me is that it seems to be fairly standard for a newborn to go to foster carers for months or over a year before being adopted?
I can't see how that's not traumatic - the baby will have bonded with those carers and perceive them as his or her parents. Surely it's better for a newborn to go straight to their new adoptive parents?

Adoption is trauma. At its core, it’s trauma. It does affect the brain.

My son has developmental trauma. I have trauma.

Adoption is usually the best case scenario for an awful situation.

At the center though for all adoptees is tremendous loss.

Loss of our biological families as shitty as they be is still loss.

Any one adopting should be educated and prepared that regardless of outcome your child will have special needs.

There are different ways to parent due to that trauma.

When we adopted we had to go through classes. I’m surprised more people don’t have to.

This must be one of the worst child abuse and murder cases to happen in this country. 😢 In theory adopted children should be the safest because of all the checks done on prospective adoptive parents. I don't know whether they were so good at manipulating that no one suspected or whether people had concerns but didn't raise them due to not wanting to be called homophobic.
Either way this country needs a hell of a lot more funding for social services and to find better ways to recruit and retain more competent social workers. I have a dear friend who works in child protection and she's hanging on by the skin of her teeth, it's had a horrific effect on her mental health and I don't think she'll be able to take it for much longer. She's only been graduated 4 years and already a large percentage from her course have left social work entirely. From what she tells me there's constant staff turnover and a lot of the staff who stay are so burnt out they can't do a half decent job any more. At the moment there's nothing to encourage social workers to stay, if you really care about protecting children (as my friend does very deeply) then it's an unbearable job to do, as the broken system makes it incredibly difficult to do so. You end up having to deal with the moral injury of knowing that you are unable to help so many children, on top of the emotional strain of all the terrible things you see. So sometimes the only people who can actually cope with the job long term without having to quit (or constantly be off sick) due to it wrecking their mental health are going to be the ones who don't really care or have stopped caring.

because generally young babies dont have adoption orders yet, so arent techincallt up for adoption. typically once a baby is removed (often not at birth as they are normally given a chance to prove selves)? theres a period of time where all the meetings happen, assessments, where all alternatives are explored eg other grand parents, fostwe care etc then the decision is made for adoption. theres lots of periods of appeals etc. the baby waits this out with a foster carer until the back to family, foster care or adoption decision is made

there is such a thing as foster to adopt. for the small portion of babies where the decision looks very very likely to be adoption they are placed with adopters who have also been approved as fosters. they typically have to facilitate birth family contact and be able to tolerate the risk that ultimately the baby might be removed at any point and given to a new relative that pops up.

In poor Preston's case, he was probably very traumatised having been removed from the people who were mum and dad to him. Heartbreaking that instead of at least being loved and cared for, he was treated with such cruelty both in those large, unspeakable ways as well as all the petty small cruelties.
He must have felt so lost, confused and alone.

It is usually dependent on legal proceedings. Children can be removed at birth on full care orders if there is a risk of future significant harm (yes, a nebulous expression). Birth parents have the right to fight for their children through the courts. These legal proceedings can take a long time (2.5 years in the case of my second daughter). There is a scheme called early permanence or foster-to-adopt whereby, if social workers believe there is a high probability that birth parents/and extended family will fail parenting assessments, usually on the basis that they have lost multiple children already, a newborn will be placed with prospective adopters on a fostering basis. The prospective adopters have to qualify as foster carers, will be paid as foster carers but will be expected to perform all of the duties of foster carers ie transporting the baby to contact with birth parents, usually three or so times a week. This scheme is paralleled with court proceedings. There is a massive risk though as it’s not unheard of for early permanence babies to then be transitioned to their birth parents if they have satisfied the courts that they have made the necessary changes identified by children’s social care. This is obviously devastating for the would-be adopters who have nurtured and loved the tiny baby for many months.

I have really appreciated your posts @Runningswanker so this is certainly not sw bashing, have a bunch in my family and am very appreciative of what good ones can do and get really pissed off that social workers are routinely pilloried by people who have no idea what it is like to try and do these jobs. When I was looking into adopting I felt I could offer a home to an older child or teen but as I worked outside the house at that point, I was told using after school clubs would be totally unacceptable. The social worker I spoke to was so patronizing in explaining why I was really put off, and was also quite sneery about a single woman adopting.

There is a process for foster to adopt, where prospective adopters take on a child in a fostering arrangement and then proceed to adoption if approved. It's very difficult in practice though. Quite simply, however certain a situation might seem, the outcome isn't known until the end of the care proceedings, which is usually six months or longer. If a baby were to go straight to people who'd want to adopt them, there'd still be the chance the child could go back to the parent, or to a family member. It's a big ask to expect potential adopters to go through that.
Foster families are heavily involved in the transition to foster parents though, to help the child bond with the adoptive parents. Which must be all the more traumatising for the foster parents in this situation.

This is what I don't understand, surely NEW adopted parents, as in ones who have never done it before, more so ones that have never had children before too, should be under massive scrutiny from the get go, and if there are any doubts about their ability to care for a child (failing to follow up a serious medical issue, presenting at hospital with unexplained bruising etc), the child should be removed while investigations/interviews take place.

It's like councils are so desperate for foster placements to work out that they turn a blind eye to any signs that they are unfit to parent, a foster parent fracturing a child's arm should have been immediate removal IMO.

You can call it chippy, I just I find it a bit much to come to a thread about the unimaginable trauma of a dead child and make it about your favourite theory and your personal experience. For some reason you try to browbeat people into agreeing with you. I have no idea why but it’s quite grim to watch.

Not all adopters or professionals agree on everything, the scientific evidence is mixed and nuanced as we learn more. As a pp has said, many children on her caseload don’t have additional needs despite being removed, and thank heavens for that. It doesn’t mean all children can shake off their past like it’s nothing, but it means there is hope for the future.

And even worse, he would have formed some attachment to those despicable men so them hurting him would have further traumatised him.

This case has made me cry too. When my little boy was small, he was always laughing and smiling. The photos of Preston before he was adopted showed a happy little boy who was clearly loved by his foster family.
That video of the scumbag abuser shouting “Boo!” at an exhausted Preston who was going to sleep sitting up made me so angry, Preston deserved a loving home but got this pair of bastards. I’m not a violent person but I could batter these two men. How could anyone hurt a child? I don’t understand it but hopefully they will get some punishment served on them by other prisoners. Whole life tariff needed here.

Don’t tar everyone with the same brush!
safeguarding is extremely important I agree, but not all men will do something so horrific.

I know of loads of gay men who have adopted and their child(ren) have the best life and are loved
remember women can be just as capable, Myra Hindley, Baby P’s mother to name but a few, does that mean women should not be allowed to adopt either

Realise I cross posted with @ThePieceHall above, you explained it more eloquently than I did!

Thank you @Isitevensummer and I'm sorry you had that experience. It's a difficult one with adoption and fostering; with the latter the government has said that councils have to stop 'discriminating' against single carers or carers who work, but the reality is many children who were removed from their parents need more care, support and supervision and it isn't necessarily possible that a parent can rely on after school clubs or regular childcare options.
I don't know if it's something you are still interested in, but supported lodgings is a lower commitment option, providing a home for 16-17yr olds but it's more a room/hot meal/company rather than parenting.

Thanks, something to think about. I worked with a lot of children (10 years in a psych hospital working with children and adolescents) so really did and do understand the needs that children have - we had a disproportionate amount of looked after children coming in for help. But it simply was not, and still is not an option for me to work less than full time. I just felt the approach, although understandable because who does not want these children to have the best?) excluded a lot of potential adopters like me. But taking in a much older child is a good idea to think about.

Yes, I would love an hour in a room with Josh MacAlister, the children’s minister to put him right on lots of things!

The social work load is untenable and I have read today that most are now only averaging six years in the profession.

Foster carers is not regarded as a profession - even Josh MacAlister said in a TV interview that it is not a job. Foster carers do not have full employment rights and are regarded as self-employed, even though they can only work for one agency. They have no pension or employment rights and their voices are not as regarded as those of the professionals, even though they have the best knowledge of the child. Also, there is a high propensity for children in care to make false allegations. Ditto in adoption. I have been arrested on a false allegation of assault by my elder child and detained in a police cell for 21 hours.

As far as adopters are concerned, the rates of disruptions/breakdowns is increasing exponentially as there is simply no decent support to help us parent some of society’s most harmed and challenging children.

Yes I can imagine all of that. It’s an interesting point about people trying later. I know a few people with one child who haven’t even bothered trying for a second but would consider adopting but feel daunted by the process and/or assume they’re too old (forties/early fifties). Support networks and finances likely a big one too and unlikely to change.

@Isitevensummer I do hope you can find some way to use that experience and commitment to care for children, it sounds like you could really offer a lot. I'm not sure how long ago you enquired, but it might also be worth enquiring about fostering, though it would likely depend on whether your employer has a policy to support carers (eg allowing time off to attend meetings)

I’m a single adopter of two. I would not be deterred if you are still interested. Your experience in your previous role, and your understanding that children who are care experienced are disproportionately represented in the mental health arena, sounds like it would stand you in good stead. I don’t mean to patronise but do you know you can ‘shop around’ for an agency to assess you? It does not have to be your regional adoption agency. I do understand what the social worker was trying to tell you as most singletons I know (and I know lots all around the country) have either had to give up work, change jobs to less demanding ones or work part-time. There can be financial assistance, depending on the complexities of the child, not anything like a foster carer allowance, though. I’m sorry that you had that negative experience.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/15/baby-preston-care-paedophile-tragic-circumstances/

I know that this is The Telegraph and some readers may not like this newspaper but as far as I can tell, the same quotes have been repeated across most media outlets.

This bit I want to talk about is Preston's maternal grandmother talking about a letter from these specimens to her saying that the adoptive individuals, "Had just booked for his third foreign holiday abroad."

Did they just lie about this?
How is this even possible?
You can't take a baby who isn't even finally adopted out of the country, surely?
What about a passport?
How many holidays are feasible within just short of four months?

All children in care are now expected to have a passport. The adopters would have to seek permission to take Preston out of the country and to have a letter on official letter head to be able to present to passport control to explain the relationship. The adopters, until the adoption order, would share parental responsibility with the placing authority.

Just wait till people in the prisons they end up in get alone with them.
Then they’ll know the fear and pain that baby felt.
Karma indeed.