AIBU to question adoption checks after this safeguarding failure?

[User05677229]

I can’t stop thinking about little Preston Davey. That poor baby boy, taken into care as a newborn, seemed happy and healthy in foster care, only to be adopted by a gay male couple and then subjected to months of the most horrific sexual and physical abuse before being murdered. How did this happen? How did red flags get missed?

I’m a mum of two, and like many of you, I’ve always supported loving homes for children who need them. But cases like this shake me to the core. I’m not saying no gay men should ever adopt - that’s not realistic or fair. But we have to be honest: the data and repeated safeguarding failures suggest that male same-sex couples (particularly for very young children) need extra rigorous scrutiny, not less.

Social workers and adoption panels seem terrified of being called homophobic. So they bend over backwards to approve placements that might raise eyebrows in heterosexual couples. Fast-tracked approvals, ignoring instincts about motivation, lack of a female parent for a tiny baby - all while birth mothers are scrutinised to the nth degree. This isn’t kindness to adults; it’s gambling with children’s safety.

Baby Preston had injuries consistent with sexual abuse, multiple hospital visits, concerns raised… and still nothing stopped it. Eight missed opportunities, apparently. That’s not just individual evil - that’s a system that’s lost its nerve.

Can we please have an honest conversation?

Better psychological and background checks specifically for single men and male couples adopting infants.

Mandatory longer observation periods.

No more rushing through to meet diversity targets.

Social workers must be protected from accusations of bias when they flag legitimate concerns about any applicant, including gay men.

Children deserve the best possible chance, not to be experiments in adult validation. Every child in the care system has already been let down once. We owe them robust, evidence-based safeguarding - not ideology.

RIP little Preston. This should never have happened.

What do others think? Am I being unfair?

Maybe so, and that needs to be investigated.
My point remains that we don’t yet know the full facts and we don’t have access to the original adoption assessment which is what the OP was asking about.

The foster carer raised concerns yet, as happens so often, her concerns don't seem to have been heard. So often fellow foster carers have raised concerns when we are doing introductions to adoption and so many times we are told off and yet so many times our concerns are proven right. We're told we love the child 'too much' and we're 'too attached' that we are just trying to put barriers in the way. Of course we love the child and of course we're attached, that's the whole point of foster carer, to teach attachment is safe and so is love but because we don't have degrees our voices are often overlooked.

I saw a suggestion that all prospective foster carers/adopters should have their hard drives checked but, if you are going down that route shouldn't it apply to ALL prospective parents? Most children are harmed by their parent/step parent/latest boyfriend etc. My own mum suffered horrendous sexual abuse at the hands of her father and his so-called mates.

Came here to say exactly this 👏

Yes, exactly.

And I agree with @SunnySunnyDayz about surrogacy.

Children in the care system are some of the most vulnerable people in society. They have no parent capable of looking out for them, many of them have already been abused and the majority have SEND. Historically, they have been targeted by abusive people because they are so vulnerable. That is why there have to be very strict checks. It is about safeguarding children, not about supplying babies to infertile couples like some kind of puppy farm.

I take great exception to your puppy farm comment. I am a single adoptive parent of two and as far as I know not infertile. A previous poster mentioned that adoption is specifically about finding a forever home for a child who needs one. To an extent, but prospective adopters also want to become parents and that is equally as valid. Adoption is a far from perfect system - and after 20 years, I could write a massive critique - but it is the only least perfect system that we have that provides THE most vulnerable children with permanent and safe and loving homes.

I think you're misunderstanding that poster. She's saying that adoption has to have detailed, stringent checks to protect children who are some of the most vulnerable members of society, not be like a puppy farm.

As both an adopter and a foster carer I would personally have no objection to my hard drives being looked at as part of an assessment.
But even as someone who is not that tech savvy, even I l know they can only look at what you give them. If I was really intent on adopting a child to abuse them, then I'd just have a device hidden in the loft wouldn't I?

If the heterosexual population is so outraged at the idea of same sex adoption, then quite frankly more of them need to stop the hand wringing every time there is a tragedy like this and step up and adopt, not just the nice cute 'healthy' babies, but the older ones, the ones with disabilities, the ones whose future looks very uncertain, the ones who will never live independently.

I adopted 14 years ago and have been fostering for 3.

My own experience tells me that the standard of social workrers is variable to say the least, but it is also an overburdened system. I have known childrens SWs with caseloads of over 30 children. Mistakes will happen.
I also don't think foster carers are listened to, we are not treated as professionals and are all too often sidelined.
The various services involved need to find ways to be more joined up.
This is yet another tragedy, a vulnerable innocent child has lost their life. As a society we must do better.

My mistake. Sincere apologies.

But we have to be honest: the data and repeated safeguarding failures suggest that male same-sex couples (particularly for very young children) need extra rigorous scrutiny, not less.

What data?

While this is a horrific story it doesn’t constitute data or a pattern.

Yes, fellow adopter and previous foster carer of nearly a decade here. I agree, this is a societal issue and more people need to step up. There’s a huge shortfall in prospective adopters, social workers are only averaging six years in the job and 3,000 babies and children in England are waiting for their forever homes. What you and I both know is that those waits will become even longer now because there will be a systemic reaction to Preston’s death.

I think part of the issue is that SWs seem to leave or caseloads are reviewed and perhaps changed and the child might not see the same SW more than once. I think it’s hard to build up a true picture if the professionals are always changing. Just my experience of being in schools.

It’s devastating.

As PP have pointed out the abusers were very clever. I also realise that a baby that age wouldn’t have been in childcare which would have been an extra pair of eyes and ears in a situation like this.

Blaming single sex couples isn’t going to help. And regarding your AI answer, I’m not surprised that more gay couples adopt. They can’t get pregnant naturally.

Agreed. But who would want to do it? Especially now?

Yup, I get it. I have family involved in adult social care which is hard enough, children’s is another level. And I’m not suggesting that the SWs are in anyway culpable in this instance.

Paedophiles are known for being manipulative that is how many of them get away with it for years.

They were no different. The manipulated the system to get access to a child.

Sickening but true.

each person / agency involved with a child need to understand that what they see in their activities with that child is just a small part of a picture, therefore if anyone has any concerns about any child at all, raise it and keep raising it as maybe another person has others concerns and all the information together puts many of the pieces of the puzzle together. But for that to work people need to communicate and respond when concerns are raised and record them and keep the eye on the bigger picture! The system does not help this unfortunately and people don’t want to speak up to seem biased in any way or worse speak up but then not taken seriously. Staff shortages and cuts don’t help this as there’s less people then keeping an eye on the bigger picture of what’s going on. Poor baby RIP

Having worked in this area I am now suspicious of everyone , men mostly but women too. the amount of abuse is rife in this world and so much overlooked or not taken seriously.

Most violent / sexual crime is carried out by men. Two men doubles the risk and it’s sad but in most situations females are the nurturers and perhaps if that vile specimen had a female partner she would have stopped the abuse.

Children are sadly murdered each week in the uk in their own home

It is harder than you imagine to predict the potential child killer - especially one who is a head of department in a school - and even harder to remove a child based on a hospital visit or two - especially if concerns are not raised by the clinician about the nature of the injury

The majority of these killings are not premeditated- they just simply happen when the carer usually snaps and loses their temper - again it’s not necessarily predictable

I believe statistically the chance is higher if there’s a step father in the child’s home

Yes, the reason my second daughter came into care is because a previous full sibling had died at 10 weeks of non-accidental injuries. No one was ever charged or prosecuted. The police and the CPS deemed that they did not have evidence to secure a conviction on the basis of beyond reasonable doubt. Instead, there were two fact-finding hearings, where a judge sits without a jury, to identify the person likely to have been responsible for the baby’s death on the balance of probability. My daughter’s sibling’s killer is still a free person.

I worked with Jamie Varley. You could have introduced still more stringent checks, checked his devices and checked again, looked for evidence and looked some more and you still wouldn’t have found anything

I have no idea what people want done here, tbh.

Given he had taken many indecent images and videos of baby Preston the idea that nothing would ever have come up on his devices prior is exceedingly unlikely.

But it didn’t. The police checked extensively. Nothing, nada, zilch.

Of course, as someone’s already pointed out unless we do a police raid of homes belonging to potential adopters (and all their friends and family members?) they’ll just hide their stuff on another device.