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.

It is an odd post. I feel odd about this.
Unbelievable that another very young child has been killed by the very person they should feel safest with.
In this case, there should have been no holes in the safety net as the family were subject to more scrutiny than normal.

Clearly, as the evidence and earlier posters pointed out, there was no indication that Matthew Scully-Hicks was a risk.

I’ve just got a horrible feeling that this could have been prevented, if he was able to ask for help and admit he was struggling, instead of having to keep up the fantasy of being the perfect family.

It’s not the same as the men who find they resent a child interrupting their Xbox and reefer session. Something else clearly happened here.
I’d like to discuss what others think.

I dont agree with you Yorkshire Yummy. People, social services, family friends, miss abuse in all sorts of situations and all types of relationships. We cant assume it was because they are too PC about a gay couple - it takes years to be vetted for adoption, I genuinely think they try very hard to safeguard children.

But abuse, sadly is done by people who don't fit a profile. Its usually men who inflict this hurt, but mums can do it too directly or by covering it up too - like Baby P's mum who covered his face with food to hide his bruises inflicted my her ghastly boyfriend.

I'm sure there will be investigations that follow and we will find out what might have been done differently.

It’s awful and just unbelievable that his abuse of the baby managed to slip through the net when the adoption process was ongoing, which I always understood to be extremely rigorous.

Poor little girl. And her poor family x

I’d like to discuss what others think.

Ugh.

I find the reporting on men convicted of violent crimes abhorrent sometimes. Full of platitudes about how lovely, kind and wonderful they were. Oh, except for the horrific violence against their spouse and/ or kids. It's happened again with this.

But he probably won’t suffer in prison as will be on protection with all the other sadistic bastards who have done similar, how is he afforded protection when that beautiful little girl had none? And if my partner was texting that our baby was’psycho’, ‘satan’ i’m not sure I would feel so relaxed about this partner being the SAHP

Garlic I totally agree with you. Lots of people do miss abuse and the Baby P case came into my mind as I was typing. Mothers do abuse their children too ( or step/ fostered/ adopted. Rose West springs to mind) but we know that men are more likely to be abusers than women.

I'm not assuming that it was because the couple are gay that they were too PC, I'm saying that I believe this is what has happened.
Does the Rochdale child abuse case not ring any bells? Social workers and many other people involved were just too damn scared of being labelled as racists and having their careers destroyed to speak up for the children involved. Why? Because it's a symptom of today's society that just as racism/ homophobia/ etc still exist then minority groups rightly or wrongly shout " victim" " racist" " homophobic" at every possible perceived slight. It's just all wrong whatever way you look at it.

I'm not against two women or two men who are in a loving committed relationship applying to adopt/ foster because the thought of all of the children who needs loving homes is awful. But they have to be treated exactly the same from beginning to end and although the process may be exactly the same on paper, and SWs assigned follow the book the SW's involved are still human and they are very aware of how easy it can be to be accused of being unfair because the subject falls into a minority group.
Whatever the ifs and buts, we can all argue about this till kingdom come but it's not going to help poor little Elsie is it?
That picture of her smiling just breaks my heart.
I don't give a shit if he is gay, straight, black, white, able bodied or not, fat , thin, smoker, non smoker, Christian, Jew , pagan or if he is a damn munchkin or alien. The only thing that matters is that he killed that little defenceless baby and I hope that he goes to jail for a long long time. I hope he never comes out actually.
And now I'm going to creep into my DD's bedroom and give her face a gentle little kiss and thank God or whoever that my little girl is safe and loved.
I send warm wishes to everybody who has a child in their home whom they love. Because we are all lucky arnt we.

What I find so chilling about this is that he is not the sort of person who you would every expect to do this. My husband is really shaken by this because it makes you question what people are capable of.
Another poster said that men who murder their family members are always described as lovely and how odd it is. I have always thought that too but now I think I understand where it comes from. People always think their partner or son etc is lovely they don't think that they could ever do something like that, and that's why it keeps happening.
A few posters have commented that it is not that shocking that a brute would murder a child but the world isn't divided up into good people and monsters. Some times people who everyone thought were good do monstrous things. Most people who are murdered are killed by someone close to them.

Every time a child dies or is seriously injured as a result of abuse or neglect, there is a serious case review. You can read these online. Unfortunately, there are around 100 deaths per year.

These cases are often complex and in many cases there really were no outward signs that a death was likely. Hindsight is 20/20, but it seems he was very good at covering his tracks and had the wool pulled over everyone's eyes, including his husband's.

I genuinely don’t think his sexuality is relevant here. A bad bastard is a bad bastard, irrespective of sexuality. He abused and eventually murdered a tiny wee girl, who had already had a crap start in life and should have gone to a loving, safe, happy home. He’s evil, pure and simple. The fact he is gay has nothing to do with that, and I’m horrified by the “there’s a reason two men can’t have a baby” comment.

I was adopted, as was my brother who was removed from his bio mother because of extensive and extreme abuse. We were very lucky. Wee Elsie deserved all the love and happiness in the world, instead she got this. It’s heartbreaking.

100 deaths a year? Jesus
He was saying horrible things about the little girl as well like ‘Satan in a babygro’ (or something similar) Didn’t that raise alarm bells?

I read one text where he was saying she’d been difficult (I can’t remember the exact language he used but it wasn’t nice) until she’d eaten and was suddenly all smiles like she was being spiteful and it jumped off the page that the poor wee soul was hungry and that’s why she’d been upset. Instead he took it as her manipulating him, that should have rung alarm bells!

He messaged his husband calling her Satan in a babygro and yet SS is getting the blame?

The thing i cant understand is why his husband wasnt horrified by the txt messages? If my husband spoke about one of ours in such terms alarm bells would have been ringing .
It is so sad. As a foster carer and adoptor i can confirm that any injuries, illnesses or hosp incidents have to be reported to social services immediately as the child is still technically a looked after child until the final adop order is granted so if he wasnt doing that why did that not raise red flags when the sw saw the injuries because it seems that they knew about the hosp visits and falls etc.
Sadly the system will always be fallible but i cant understand how the pattern of injuries was missed.

RIP to that poor little girl. Let’s see what the serious case review concludes, anything before that is just speculation.

@yorkshireyummymummy I found your first post pretty unpleasant.

He was obviously finding her difficult. Why didn't he say he was struggling? There would have been enough people calling to ask him directly how things were. Adopting is nothing like having your own newborn.

Notreally that message upset me too. It was so obvious that she was hungry. The text messages are very chilling. It is clear that he was very underprepared to meet the needs of a tiny child. It is surprising that someone who had been through adoption preparation could think that leaving her to cry when she woke up in the middle of the night would be an appropriate strategy for a tiny child who would have had some attachment issues. This was a little girl who had been separated from her birth Mum and foster cater in her short life. She was clearly desperate for love and attention.

I have friends (also a same sex couple) who adopted and their preparation focused a lot on attachment and the needs of adopted children. I do wonder if he felt under pressure to keep up an act of being the prefect family and not admit that he wasn't coping.

Clearly there were failings especially after the adoption took place. I can imagine that they would have made a very convincing case. It was mentioned at the trial that Matthew said his own happy childhood made him want to adopt. My mother in law ( who knows his Mum) found this upsetting because his Mum is a lovely person. He probably imagined giving Elsie the same kind of childhood he had yet he has not admitted to harming her and sounded so cold on the 999 call.

There have been other cases where adoptive parents have abused their children. There was a case where a mother abused her 3 children over years like Matthew she was a stay at home parent whist her husband had a high pressure job and worked away. Thankfully the children survived. About 1 in 3 adoptions break down. So maybe it is part of a wider problem and many families who seem perfect don't cope.

"Can you imagine how an innocent loving parent would be? Somewhere on the Hysterical scale is where I would be. "

You can't know this for sure. Many parents react by being calm and collected, until you're in that position yourself you have no idea whether you'd be hysterical or calm. This is a monumentally stupid thing to say.

Buttery I agree with what you say about the reporting style and him being a man. A woman carrying out these crimes would be reported as evil and not much else.

Poor little girl.

Incredibly sad case. It is not easy to be approved to adopt, especially for under 2s, and yet it seems he fooled everyone into believing him suitable. It was particularly chilling that this case was in court while a mn poster a few weeks back was apparently so desperate to adopt despite a very turbulent relationship and anger issues.

Someone gave that little girl up probably in the hope that she would have a better life with someone else, who would better provide for her, and they did what they did. It's heartbreaking and I hope he rots in jail.

There was a feature on radio 4 recently which said that 25% of adoptions are in crisis and over another 25% are struggling. Social workers should be on high alert for issues in the early days.

Someone gave that little girl up probably in the hope that she would have a better life with someone else

Well the child was probably taken into care rather than “given up” but yes just because her birth mother couldn’t look after her doesn’t mean she didn’t love her.

This wasnt their first adoption though was it? They had another adopted child so he should have known having a child was challenging !

Her birth mother loved drugs more than her. Lets get that clear ok. All of these fucking romantic posts about the birth mother are rubbish - she was a user, she was not a fit mother for her child. And social services didn’t vet the adopted father appropriately. The only person who truly cared about this little girl was the husband, Craig, and even he missed what was going on.

I genuinely think that social services need to be more actively involved post-adoption and be upfront about MH issues. It’s clear this poor little girl had emotional issues the adopted parents were not equipped to deal with.