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.

That profile is just bizarre. It's just people talking about how wonderful he is.

This is what happened with Alan Hawe, the man who murdered his wife and their three sons, then killed himself. Glowing tributes to his character. It's a disturbing trend in the reporting of violent crimes committed by men against their family members.

All those texts. All those injuries . How can he not have known?
And strange phrasing -wouldn't have been 'tolerated'.
This case has really distressed me. I imagine the doctor who missed the second fracture initially is devastated as are all involved.
Many people have fucked up here.

And shameless and egotistical of absent male to say .."let me be clear ....mine was a happy home filled with love" what a way to describe a place where a baby was tortured and killed.

True butterymuffin. Appalling

I heard his 999 call on the radio. How he was able to be so calm after killing her moments earlier truly chilled me. He is either extremely unwell or pure bloody evil.

He's been assessed by psychologists so, assuming you trust their judgment-pure evil.

How can they possibly justify not telling her grandmother of her death until 7 months after it happened? I find that absolutely shocking. I keep looking at the picture of that poor little baby smiling - how can people be so cruel to an innocent little baby? Sorry for the rambled post it's just so upsetting.

I know another-especially as I think I read they had been having contact with her before she died?
I wonder if there is more to come out. The serious case review may give more answers.

I haven't RTFT,but I find it utterly impossible to comprehend how this man wasn't flagged up during the adoption process. I have friends who have recently gone through an excruciatingly painstaking adoption process (quite rightly so!). I would never have passed! How did he slip through the net?

I don’t think prison will be easy for him.
I don’t think inmates are known for their warm welcomes towards child killers.
Aren’t they put in a special wing to try and protect them?

Agree completely about the husband not spotting (or more likely not questioning) bruises.

We have a two year old and sometimes he does come home with a bruise or a scrape from nursery. Dh ALWAYS spots these (as do I) and there is ALWAYS a conversation about it, along the lines of ‘he’s got a bruise on his arm. Yeah nursery said x pinched him, they will keep an eye on them’ or ‘yeah he tripped over in the playground’

That’s for all tiny little things. I would feel so distressed and so would dh if we saw he had anything bigger - how can the husband possibly be judged safe to keep the little boy when he failed in such a BASIC standard of care?

Poor kids. Mind boggling :(

BakedBeans what I meant was I cannot remember a case where a dad murdered a child after a prolonged period of abuse and the mother was not presented in the reporting as complicit until cleared; and in a lot of cases mothers are also treated like criminals by the legal process. The difference in this case has been stark.

I can’t cope with reading all about it, it’s utterly devastating, I can’t stop thinking about her. I have a little girl who is 1 next week, I can’t imagine the suffering Elsie went through. I hope he gets beaten back and blue daily until he is eventually killed. I have read the statement Elsie’s maternal grandmother made and it’s heartbreaking, Elsie was born Shayla and her grandmother wanted to keep her, social services are beyond useless, why they took this little girl away from her family and delivered her to a killer is beyond comprehension. RIP Shayla (Elsie is the name the men gave her 😡)

The name issue is irrelevant. They were entitled to change it for any reason they chose because they adopted her, and she became their daughter

Utter and unmitigated shite.

That little girl didn't arrive at her shiny new home as a blank slate.
She was a person with an identity and a history.
When you adopt the child becomes your son/daughter but they do not become your property.
If you are not prepared to accept them as someone else's birth child you should be adopting in the first place.

I suspect this was part of the issue that led to this little girls death.
The vision of a perfect little family. All ready supplied for dressing up in new clothes and new names.
But instead of dollies they got real live children. Children deeply affected by their past and experiences.
That fucker couldn't handle it but wasn't prepared to disclose the flaws in his perfect little SAHD fantasy.

They changed her NAME. They didn't want a child with a chavvy name that didn't fit in with their picture of what their family should look like.

There are sometimes very good reasons for changing an adopted child's name. Snobbery isn't one of them.

The madness of someone saying 'The name issue is irrelevant'.

Yeah its only a name. Its only a traumatised and confused child's identity. Nothing important hey?

Agreed MrsDV

Indeed. My friends who adopted didn't change their children's names although they weren't the names they would have chosen. They acted on advice from the social workers that this was better for the children and that was their priority.

Well said mrsdv.
I understand that there are sometimes reasons for changing the names of adopted children but this wasn't one of them. Should this have been a warning sign to SS?

Oh please. I changed my LO’s name. I’m not going to murder him though.

Warning sign, my arse.

(In fact, SS suggested I should. Maybe they’re going to murder him. FFS.)

I thought SS advised a name change in some cases. In fact I remember reading similar on these very adoption boards. It is so the original birth family cannot find the child.

The name change seems relevant now with the benefit of hindsight but on its own it is not an indicator of future happiness or parental care. There will be children, especially those adopted under a year who have had their names changed and who have been brought up with love and care.

It's not a bloody social experiment.

I hate it when people spout this shit about same sex families.

I think that may have become more frequently advised, Ana, now in the age of social media where a distinctive name will make someone easy to track down. Of course this varies from child to child and some children will benefit from a name change. But not all.

Aren’t they put in a special wing to try and protect them?

They are usually put on a "vulnerable" nonce wing.

Most prisoners aren't evil, a lot have children they miss very much. A lot are probably as outraged as we are.

I hope he gets hurt badly, so he feels a tiny bit of what he put that bairn through.

There's a justgiving page set up by Shayla's family so they can have a memorial bench for her because none of them were allowed to go to the funeral apparently. So sad.

Genuine question @mrsdv are you basing this opinion on direct experience of child protection and adoption? Because I used to work in the system and had a very different experience to the one you are outlining.

If it is “madness” to say her name change is irrelevant to her murder, could you point me to evidence that shows that adopters who change their child’s name are more likely to mistreat the adopted child? Because I find it very hard to believe. And I find your opinion on it pretty offensive to the many wonderful adopters who have changed names and are fantastic parents who would never dream of harming their children the way this monster did.

Also, child’s birth identity is important and will be dealt with by life story work. It isn’t erased.