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.

Unfortunately those saying there is a lot of support for adopters are wrong. There really isn’t. I know a family with two adopted boys. The younger (removed at birth) is ok but the older has real problems. Both the adopting parents work very locally and only p/t and still find it hard work. They love the boys but they’ve been left to it without adequate support.
It’s one of the biggest failings of local authority spending being utterly inadequate 🙁

Absolutely spot on museumum. There support is woeful !

I was discussing this with my partner earlier. Was talking about how Elsie had been to hospital several times and each time Matthews description of events was considered to explain the injury. Now we know that's incredibly unlikely.

My question was how much did Matthew's appearance as a well to so upstanding member of the community have in his accounts not being questioned more, and if it was a vulnerable family would there have been more scrutiny from health professionals.

Even if social workers were concerned, if doctors are telling you every time there's an injury that it fits with the explanation provided by the parent, you can't tell then they're wrong as you're completely medically unqualified. Obviously they should still have been questioning why she was allowed to get so many accidental injuries and whether they were not capable of keeping her safe. But in respect of overlooking injuries it appears to me health services have a lot to answer for here rather than social services, given the number of times she was seen.

I dont imagine people were being overly PC tbh. Maybe 10 years ago, but gay couples make up a significant number of the desperately needed adopters now

Very aptly put yorkshireyummymummy

Daddy is important too but a mothers intuition and nurturing instinct is something which is not going to disappear in 40 years of feminism and equality.

It is such a sad and insidious case.

There actually isnt a shortage of adoptors now. There are many approved waiting a good while as there are not enough children available ( except older or children with disabilities etc )

There are a million reasons why this is different from a ‘normal’ dad-kills-baby type situation. (I’m struggling to believe I write that sentence, tbh.)

One of them is that instead of getting a lovely immobile newborn, you are given an angry, terrified, grieving infant, who won’t in all likelihood respond like other infants do and for whom normal parenting won’t work. It’s also one of adoption’s big taboos that you don’t love your children from Day 1. And obviously if you’ve got a child who is traumatised/‘difficult’/different then that bond may take a long time.

The second difference is that he had been ‘vetted’ and ‘trained’. This means he should have known that the child would be traumatised/grieving/different etc and that he was judged to be able to cope with this. One of the things SS say they look for is your ability to ask for support when it’s needed. He obviously wasn’t able (or chose not to).

And honestly, the ‘training’ we received was pitiful. Woefully inadequate. We were very ill-prepared. And no-one gives a shit normally. How we got through the early days I’ll never know (and by early days I mean first year.)

Thirdly, before the adoption order was granted, he, unlike birth parents, had the option to say ‘I can’t do this’ and disrupt the placement, literally, to hand the baby back. But he didn’t.

And fourthly, before the order was granted, Elsie was still a looked after child. SS should have known about her injuries. But in an adoptive placement that normally means one visit every few weeks.

There are a lot of questions for SS to answer, and not only about how he ‘slipped through the net’.

Raving, let's not demonise Elsie's birth mother. She was ill. She had an addiction. Addiction chooses you, you don't choose it.

I understand Yorkshire's point. I don't get why it was seen to be in this baby girl's interests not to be given a mother.

No Raven she wasn’t a fit mother hence the reason Elsie was taken into care. It doesn’t mean she didn’t love her in her own way and I can’t imagine that this happening to her baby is going to help her break free of her addiction

People are angry at SS because its part of their job to protect children and notice any signs of threats to their safety, and it obviously has not been done here, just like in the case of baby Peter.
However they were quick enough taking poor little Elsie away from her
birth mother because she was ill.
With the right support she could have been a good mum

Aww, you (and I) know very little of birth mother’s circumstances. You don’t know that at all.

With the right support she could have been a good mum.

Don't you think social services considered that? How on earth do you think you know?

Noone can know that she could have made a good mother. That is such a simplistic view based on little information, much of which will never be in the public domain to protect any sibling/s. So many of these families whose young children are removed have been known to SS for years, given opportunities to turn their lives around, make better choices but for whatever reason will/can not engage. The pattern is often sadly repeated with further children being born into the same scenario and then into the next generation.

There is an assumption that taking on a new born is starting with a blank canvas but it is also possible that even a child removed at birth may have had issues which were not fully understood yet alone supported during the adoption process.

I am sure she wasn’t removed from her birth mother’s care lightly.

but it is also possible that even a child removed at birth may have had issues which were not fully understood

She was also I understood not placed with the adoptive parents til she was a good few months old

I don't get why it was seen to be in this baby girl's interests not to be given a mother.
I agree with you stichglitched. We are allowing experiments on parenting to be carried out on real live children.

I’ve also been shocked at the lack of support available for adopters who are struggling with children who have appalling issues to overcome.
We’ve all felt the insidious pressure to be that instagram family but most of us can laugh it off and admit the truth of parenting is pretty unglamorous.

May I reiterate that, by seeking to understand the circumstances, I am in no way excusing the horrifying treatment of a tiny vulnerable child.

Children who are removed at birth are not immediately handed over for adoption.
They will stay in short term foster until a suitable family is found and the procedures are carried out.
The earliest this could happen would be at around 3 months I think.

There are many amazing single dads and gay dads out there doing an utterly fantastic job of raising children whose birth mothers either couldn't or didn't want to raise their children. It's really, really shitty and unfair to demonize them all just because of the actions of one man.

I know a few M-F couples that have adopted children and they've all struggled, they've all felt like giving up sometimes, they've all vented sometimes. Adoption really is hard work.

What happened to Elsie was utterly tragic and unforgivable. I would rather wait for the serious case review before speculating on what went wrong and what could have been done to prevent this from happening. But don't demonize all gay dads because of this one case. That isn't fair at all.

Nobody has demonised gay dads. Thinking it would be nice for a young baby to have Mum doesn't mean anyone thinks single or gay dads are bad.

and where was her birth father, or the biological family? Why do women rush to judge and punish other women. Why are we looking to blame the mum for her addiction. As someone said above you don't choose the addiction, the addiction chooses you.

Where there no aunty or uncles who could have adopted the little girl?

And also OP, you say that he is not the "type" to do such a thing. I beg to differ. Still waters run deep. Anyone is the type to do such a thing, we are all human, but .......

I can't get over the catalogue of injuries that poor child had. No wonder she bloody cried! Broken leg, fractured ribs, bruising, bruising and more bruising, fractured skull..........

How did his husband miss this? I find it very hard to believe. Why isn’t the husband under the same criticism as the social services and doctor??

I don't see the birth mother as being to blame. She had her child removed, rightly or wrongly, and had no say in any of the events that followed. You can't remove someone's rights as a parent yet still expect them to take responsibility. You can be an addict, incompetent, useless. That doesn't put you on anywhere near the same level as a murderer.

Sleightofmind, not always the case. If the decision to remove the baby is made pre-birth newborns can be directly placed with prospective adoptive parents rather than into foster care.