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?

It is completely wrong.

Sleep deprivation is a terrible form of torture-and as a former Social Worker, I can tell you unequivocally that what you refer to as "boo" is neither unremarkable nor normal.It is sadism.

In the interview with criminologist Professor David Wilson, he described the sleep depravation 'boo' incident as torture.

I for one am looking forward to an uptick in applications for social work training from all the arm chair experts in safeguarding.

Don’t be silly, they’ll all be too busy submitting their expressions of interest to become adopters or foster carers, given it’s all so easy and all about the queue jumping and the priority treatment. The 3,000 children in England who are waiting for their forever homes will be welcomed by them with open arms once they are approved and matched.

Agree, I'm looking forward to retiring with all the newcomers who know the answers, looks like we won't even need child protection in a couple of years. We'll just have an army of female angels taking care of children with their innate maternal instincts and goodwill.

Dear OP,

I agree wholeheartedly with what you say. I am not a 'homophobe'. I have nothing personally against people with same-sex attraction, but I do not condone the behaviour nor pretend that it is either normal or healthy for anyone.

What is? A baby holding a rainbow flag?

What does condoning same sex attraction mean?

It means I don't pretend it does not have moral, psychological and emotional consequences.

What kind of ‘consequences’?

That is textbook homophobia.

Why is same-sex attraction not normal or healthy? (I'm straight, BTW.)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16050624/

Advanced
User Guide

                        Title & authors                            AbstractSimilar articlesCited by                                                                MeSH termsRelated information                                                LinkOut - more resources                

Gay obituaries closely track officially reported deaths from AIDS
Paul Cameron et al. Psychol Rep. 2005 Jun

Abstract
The age distribution of AIDS deaths of males who have sex with males [MSM] was estimated from obituaries in the Washington Blade, a gay newspaper. Statistics from the 2003 HIV/AIDS Surveillance Supplemental Report are highly congruent with deaths of MSM due to AIDS from these obituaries. Death due to AIDS in old age was most frequent for heterosexuals and least frequent for MSM who were drug abusers. Obituaries in the Washington Blade are thus consistent with and may be representative of deaths due to AIDS among MSM. The latest CDC report tends to strengthen the overall finding based upon obituaries: that the lifespan of MSM is shortened two to three decades by AIDS and, possibly, other causes.

Advanced
User Guide

Full text links
Title & authors AbstractSimilar articlesCited by Publication types MeSH termsRelated information LinkOut - more resources

Comparative Study
Does homosexual activity shorten life?
P Cameron et al. Psychol Rep. 1998 Dec.
Show details
Abstract PubMed PMID

Full text linksCite
Abstract
Previous estimates from obituaries and pre-1994 sex surveys suggested that the median age of death for homosexuals is less than 50 yr. Four contemporary databases were used to test that estimate: (1) obituaries in the homosexual press from 1993 through 1997 reflected treatment success for those with AIDS but suggested a median age of death less than 50 years; (2) two large random sexuality surveys in 1994one in the USA and the other in Britainyielded results consistent with a median age of death for homosexuals of less than 50 years; (3) the median age of those ever married in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway was about 50 years, while that of the ever homosexually partnered was about 40 yr; further, the married were about 5 times more apt to be old and 4 times less apt to be widowed young; and (4) intravenous drug abusers and homosexuals taking HIV tests in Colorado had almost identical age distributions. The four lines of evidence were consistent with previous findings suggesting that homosexual activity may be associated with a lifespan shortened by 20 to 30 years.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9923159/

According to Mumsnet it isn't, worryingly, it's a difference of opinion.

With due respect, I am not homophobic. I have no ill-feeling towards any homosexual person. I have had many hkmosexual colleagues. I was always very fond of them all.

Pink News is a UK-based, globally focused LGBTQ + digital media company.
Founded in 2005 by Benjamin Cohen, it is one of the most widely read LGBTQ+ news outlets in the world, producing content across its website, app, and social platforms.
Here's what they have published on their website.

So, may I ask, is Pink News homophobic???

www.thepinknews.com/2007/04/04/american-scientist-gays-die-younger-than-smokers/

American scientist: gays die younger than smokers
Apr 04 2007
Written by PinkNews Staff Writer

A study says that marriage for gay men and lesbians is more dangerous than smoking.
The Family Research Institute, a Colorado based think-tank well-known for their anti-gay views, studied same-sex marriages in Denmark and Norway.
It claims that engaging in “homosexual behaviour” reduces life span by up to 24 years.

In contrast, the lifespan of a smoker is only 7 years shorter than that of a non-smoker.
Dr Paul Cameron said at the convention of the Eastern Psychological Association: “What justification is there for condemning smoking and endorsing homosexuality?
“Today, all across the Western world, school children are being taught the acceptability of homosexuality and the wrongness of smoking.”
The research found that in Denmark, where gay marriage was legal between 1990 and 2002, married heterosexual men died at an average age of 74.The 561 married gay men died at an average age of 51.Married women died at an average age of 78, compared to 56 years for the 91 lesbians.In Norway, married heterosexual men died at an average age of 77 and the 31 gay men at 52.Women married to men in Norway died at an average age of 81. The average life expectancy for married lesbians was 56.“The consistency of reduced lifespan for those engaging in homosexuality is significant,” said Dr. Cameron.“Given the greatly reduced lifespan for homosexuals, school children should be strongly and consistently warned about the dangers of homosexuality even more so than smoking. Those school districts which are introducing pro-gay curricula need to rethink their priorities.”Dr Paul Cameron and Dr Kirk Cameron presented the convention with their research named the Federal Distortion Of The Homosexual Footprint.Paul Cameron has published over 40 articles on homosexuality. None of them positive.

The problem with lots of this research is that its old. 20 years (the age of that pink news) is a long time in gay rights terms, and the health data is collected over the proceeding decades in most cases.

The people included in those studies would have been people living through the height of the aids crisis which of course had a massive implications. It was also through eras when gay people were less likely to be seeking health care, who might have been subject to treatments etc. As noted there is also the case that lots of the studies etc have links to people with long standing anti gay feeling.

There is also a cross over between things like a significant portion of lgbt people continue to report concerns about accessing health care, going to gyms etc which impacts health concerns and also higher levels of social deprivation which is linked to poor health outcomes. It also used to be a higher smoker rate (i dont know if that's still the case) linked to more alternative lifestyles. Being gay doesnt give you lung cancer, smoking does

Its also incredibly hard to gather any health statistics because there's no objective measure in which to tell who is gay and who isnt

Take for example the study that you've linked which is using obituaries from what they thought were gay readers. Its unlikely to be a data source that's overly reliable, or representative of gay people as whole.

There's family members in my family tree who we suspect are highly likely to be gay, but that wouldn't have been recorded in their health records. Its only fairly recently where people have actually been honest with their health care professionals and many of the older population (who would be bumping up the hetro stats!) still dont especially if they arent in active relationships.

I suspect that in the 90s where a lot of this data is from youd record the one person that game in with aids as gay because it was seen to be gay aquaired , but assume his 8 pals weren't because they didnt

Try harder, @JoCoFin. Research conducted by the notoriously anti-gay Family Research Institute? Which is one man, the homophobic propagandist Paul Cameron, whose writings up of his ‘research’ have been rejected numerous times by credible peer-reviewed journals? And who claims that gay people ate ‘from the lower social strata’ and that parents should allow their children to experiment early with straight sex because it’s better than turning out gay? Who advocated concentration camps for sexually active gay men during the height of AIDS?

www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/paul-cameron/

It’s nothing like that, @Badum. This ‘research’ was conducted by a notoriously homophobic loon whose other stats claim things like 18% of gay people like eating human faeces. He publishes in non-peer-reviewed where you pay to have your work included.

Infectious diseases aren’t a moral issue because they can’t identify a potential host’s sexuality. They will infect anyone, regardless of the individual, given the opportunity via an effective route of transmission.

Gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men were completely failed in the 80s and 90s; both by a lack of public health guidance and by a system that made healthcare inaccessible for them. That made them vulnerable to HIV but that doesn’t mean HIV specifically chose them. Today more heterosexual people are diagnosed with HIV than GBMSM because there’s more opportunity amongst that less educated population than the well educated GBMSM population.

Absolutely, I did put in the comment above that they are usually from dodgy places. The idea of trying to gather how healthy a population is from obituaries is clearly flawed!

There is a wider problem though in any longitudinal data about sexuality because we are so close to the aids crisis and decriminalisation and homophobia. Older data is definitely not accurate and newer data is still massively incomplete

My aunt is a lesbian but wouldn't be recorded as such, and probably would describe her self as a spinster. Her medical records from a significant illness in the 90s refer to her as living with a lodger who should be allowed access to her etc. Her Dr was very kind and was clearly cautious about the implications of outing her on paperwork.
Even now in 2026 it wouldn't be correctly recorded so she would be in the healthy hetro camp at 70 along with many others in her position.

https://www.change.org/injurymapping

hi all, please sign this petition mandating injury body mapping for children who present to hospital with an injury. It won’t help Preston but it will help other children like him. I can’t do anything about the evil men that did this and I can’t do anything for Preston, but my god I am going to try and make a change
i cant blame the doctors or social services, they have a hard job, but the fact remains Preston was failed catastrophically by us all and change needs to happen. Please sign and share wherever you can x