Elsie Scully-Hicks

[Elephantgrey]

How can you understand how someone can harm such a tiny baby. My husband knew Matthew Scully-Hicks and said you would never imagine he would be the sort of person to do something like this. When we first heard about it we imagined that he had just snapped but seeing the news report he inflicted so many injuries on her since the day she arrived. It's just heartbreaking.

I do not understand at all why the other child was not removed while they investigated or subsequently!

Queenifwands sorry, only just seen your posts. It’s not standard practice but I know of a number of cases where children who have been abused by a female are placed with two males. I was using this as an example to come back at the homophobic comments made about same sex couples adopting being ‘a social experiment’.

So clearly there was no deemed risk of anyone hunting her down & kidnapping her, therefore a name change was not necessary.

As Shayla and her Grandmother have been named, I suppose it's okay to say.

Shayla's mother was jailed for violent offences around the time she was adopted. So the renaming problem had something to do with that as she would have been a higher risk.

Re wondering why the husband didn't say anything about the bruises - well some kids bruise a lot and easily

But not bruises which are bad enough to require medical advice (according to a health professional) or last 8 weeks. That bruise alone should have rung alarm bells. With broken legs and falls downstairs and bruises appearing on top of bruises plus abusive texts he really should have had an inkling unless he was daft. Which he wasn't. And I really doubt he couldn't have noticed something off in their interactions either.

Even if you didn't jump to the conclusion of abuse the overwhelming majority of people would have recognised that he was not coping and wasn't capable of parenting well enough just to keep them safe from accidents.

I don't understand about the baby gate either. You're not supposed to use them at the top of the stairs. Plus he blamed failed baby proofing for at least two of her previous injuries. At the very minimum I would have thought Social Services would have had someone around there inspecting the safety of the environment.

Imagine calling a baby a cunt :( awful

At the very minimum I would have thought Social Services would have had someone around there inspecting the safety of the environment.

I'm going back 11 years but when DD1 was very little she grabbed the hot grill. 100% my fault and a bloody stupid thing to let happen, after taking her to the GP l did have the HV out for a safety chat.

If I overheard a neighbour shouting at their toddler and calling her a silly little cunt I would definitely call SS. As far as I can judge, that kind of language belies a hateful attitude - beyond frustration.

Completely agree Yoda but it's worrying how much on here the "your just seeing a snapshot of the child's life" advice get given out.

Going back 20 years my child was ill. He also had a red patch of exema. Questions were asked at hospital. Rightly so.

When SS are already involved for adoption you would think that safety of the environment would have been checked.

I think it's yet another case of child professionals working in 'silos' like in the Baby P case isn't it? Various professionals are seeing concerning things but that information never being shared so the whole picture isn't put together.

Every time this happens the same issues come up. With the capabilities we have for sharing via computer systems these days it's absolutely unacceptable that alarm bells don't ring.

Perhaps if the public sector didn't rush to absolve senior managers like Sharon Shoesmith who are responsible for these sort of structural practices change might actually happen.

As it is I expect as usual blame will be put on individual low level social workers for their poor organisation and practice, who work in organisations with terrible overall organisation and practice which is a result of poor leadership. And as usual the management responsible for that will get away with it scot free. They'll probably end up publishing books, giving speeches and being feted as experts on multi figure salaries with gold plated pensions like Shoesmith.

And that will all be paid for by the next poor kid who dies because their managers spend more time waffling on about 'silos' and 'communication' at seminars and conferences with other managers rather than actually putting any of their waffle into practice.

Of course you can use stairgates at the top of stairs - just not the ones with a floor level bar across as it is a trip hazard.

margaret violent? Where did you read she was violent?

I have seen remarks made about theft etc.

So if your child receives an injury and you take them to A&E, is this followed up? What if you go to a different A&E every time?

It just seems yet again there is no communication in these cases. Surely more than one call out by SS should trigger a visit by a higher-ranking person.

Margaret of course you are supposed to use gates at the top of the stairs! They are to stop young children falling DOWN the stairs...

I actually feel sorry for the SW involved in this case they will be devastated, face losing their jobs and are probably feeling extremely guilty for missing this.

The one person with the most power to have noticed and saved this poor little girl's life is the husband. He received the texts. He didn't raise alarm or become suspicious over bruises. When he received the texts he could have had a talk with his partner about ability to cope. Why was he not more seriously concerned about his partners remarks? I think sexual bias is partly at work here. Imagine a new mother referring to her new baby that way? Probably be investigated for Post partum depression. People are far less tolerant of women using negative frames of reference in regard to their children, far quicker to be perceived as unhinged, or not coping.

I also think class snobbery is at work to. There is a large perception that MC families do not fall into very serious dysfunction, when evidence shows they have greater means to cover it up as opposed to WC families who 'wear it on their sleeves' so to speak where serious dysfunction is obvious.

Health professionals could have been more vigilant certainly.

Possibly the neighbours could have also done something.

But the SS, this time I'm inclined to believe they were genuinely deceived. If the docs, gave all clear, not sure what they were expected to notice.

There has been an enourmous amount of investment and fundamental change to working practises following publicised failure such a baby P.

There is a hell of a lot of evidence Sharon shoesmith and others were political scapegoats.

No offence but if you don't know anything about whether there have been changes why make such an impassioned speech?

The most recent advice I was given was not to use stairgates at the top of stairs at all if possible. And that they should be used at another point (e.g. bedroom door or hallway) to stop children being able to lean on them and either dislodging them or opening the gate by leaning on them then falling downstairs.

If you can't avoid one at the top of the stairs it's supposed to be wall mounted and open away from the stairs. Theirs apparently opened down the stairs (and had a faulty catch they were aware of) so opened when she leaned on it meaning she fell downstairs with full force (supposedly). So it was incorrectly fitted and they knew it wasn't working properly minimum.so it still should have triggered a check.

Running it was more robbery than theft and involved violence.

One of the most puzzling things ( after the sadness ) about this case and I’m sure there is much that is not public because of the young sibling, is the involvement of Mathew Scully Hicks.

In the cases of Baby P and Victoria Climbie there was more than one close person involved, if only in the cover up. It seems to me that if WE are questioning his part in all this then surely and please I hope so, it has been extensively questioned and probed by the police and SS. Surely?

He MUST have been asked what he thought about those awful texts?
About the repeated ‘accidents’?
He MUST of. He MUST of been questioned about his actions. The name change. EVERYTHING.

There have been no charges against him. No suggestions of guilt. ( possibly on here) Almost no mention in the judges summing up.

As it stands I CAN Not even imagine what he is going through.

Sorry - I did not mean that the sadness is puzzling! I meant that it comes After the sadness.

Badly written by me. No offence to anyone.

I know there haven't been changes made because since Baby P there have been multiple cases including this one where a child has had several different red flags raised to several different health and SS professionals which put together should have triggered serious concerns. But repeatedly these organisations aren't communicating with each other which has meant that the pieces of the jigsaw haven't been put together and a child has died. SCR after SCR has pointed this out.

Communicating these issues amongst different bodies is an issue for the senior management of those bodies and not one being addressed. It's not the individual health visitors/social workers/doctors who are at fault for this. It's the senior management of these bodies. It hasn't changed and it won't change as long as the buck stops with junior workers. There is simply no impetus to tackle difficult issues like this when management can get away with ignoring them until it actually leads to a death. They know there is likely to be zero consequence for it.

Shoesmith was only found 'unfairly dismissed' because procedures to dismiss her weren't followed correctly as she was summarily dismissed when Ed Balls called for it.

Her supporters have claimed she was scapegoated. She claimed that she was professionally scapegoated by Ofsted but this was rejected by the judge in her case. She may have been personally scapegoated by the press for the actual death of Peter incorrectly, but to describe someone's professional failings for organisational failings which were indisputably their fault is not scapegoating. Particularly when at the time she presented herself as an authority on preventing those exact failings taking place.

Effectively the Shoesmith case created a situation where working in silos and lack of communication between professional bodies was declared nobody's responsibility. And people wonder why children keep dying because of this exact problem? It's ridiculous.

margaret I see.... she obviously moved on from her early days of thieving.

I guess if you are the sort of person who hurts children you are canny enough to take them to different hospitals. Just like you are canny enough to avoid appointments and move around a lot.

The MASH was created as a result of the cases you mention

I guess if you are the sort of person who hurts children you are canny enough to take them to different hospitals

Not sure if that wouldn't invite more suspicion these days. First thing they ask you when going through AE is address, then to assess potentially seriousness, how you travelled. Well at least that's been my experience. I have been in AE with DS (who went through a particularly accident prone stage between 6 and 7, and nearly gave me nervous breakdown each time) and on each occasion was asked for my 'explanation' or 'version of events' again and again by each member of staff, along with, 'when did you call the ambulance/where were you/how did you get here/what did you do - use bandages, apply plaster etc etc'. I can't imagine if I had say, gone on a detour to another hospital further away that that would have not raised immediate suspicion to be honest. I certainly think I would have been asked why I didn't take a sick child to the nearest hospital.

But then maybe I'm not cunning enough

I guess if you are the sort of person who hurts children you are canny enough to take them to different hospitals. Just like you are canny enough to avoid appointments and move around a lot.

My DD1 has had a couple of broken bones this year (nothing dodgy, football injuries) At two separate hospitals (Durham and Darlington) i've had to fill in a form about who she lived with and how the injury had occurred.

I'm in the north east, live in a poor area and I'm not middle class. I know that shouldn't make a difference but it probably does.

Shayla's mother was jailed for violent offences around the time she was adopted. So the renaming problem had something to do with that as she would have been a higher risk

Do you know this to be the reason for the name change?
I am genuinely interested, not being snarky.
Because many, many children in the care system have at least one violent birth parent so I would have expected this to be a general rule. It isn't so why would it be in this case and not the others?

My DC's bm has lots of form for violent behaviour. So has their aunts and uncles. It wasn't ever an issue and nor was that ever suggested as a reason in our prep group.

I read that and thought - how could you possibly know that?