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.

How can anyone on here say there were no circumstances which made changing the name appropriate. There is so little publicly known about the birth family. The grandmother's stated that her desire to adopt the child/ren was dismissed by SS but it may not have been a suitable placement for one of many reasons. It seems clear that a decision was made to severe the link with the birth family and renaming may have been part of this process.

There seems little about Elsie's early life, if she was fostered from birth at what point did the Scully-Hicks become involved. How well did they get to know her before the adoption?

I think the name change is relevant. To be really blunt, it’s changing a perceived ‘chavvy’ name to a ‘nice’ middle class one.

A name change in and of itself may or may not be relevant. It may be necessary in some cases and be a positive thing, as pps have said.

When it’s in the context of maintaining an image which seems to be a factor here then yes, I think it is relevant.

Any single factor can be benign and yet when presented in the context of the whole picture, maybe not so benign.

The big picture here is a couple presenting one image to the world while the reality is very different - and in that situation the name change seems less benign.

Utterly tragic. I hope someone steps up for the little boy

The sentencing remarks say she came to live with the Scully-Hickses in September 2015. So she was there for eight months before being killed.

Re the name change.

We adopted and were told that changing a child's name was a big no no and would only be considered if the name was extremely unusual and the child would be in danger if traced by the birth family.

My DSs name was unusual at the time we adopted him but has gained popularity recently. We never considered changing it.

Our SW told us about an adoption breakdown that she was dealing with at the same time as dealing with the placement of our DS.

The first sign that all was not well was the fact that she noticed the couple had started calling the child a different name. When she challenged them about it they admitted that they were having trouble accepting and bonding with the child. The adoption was stopped as the couple reluctantly admitted that they couldn't cope as the child didn't match up to their expectations.

Also want to say that the crying out technique is something I was advised to use on my adopted DS by my health visitor. We were not told that is was not appropriate for adopted babies ( although it seems so obvious to me now)

It worked to solve the problem at the time but I really do regret following her advice. My heart breaks when I think back to those nights and I would love to travel back in time and cuddle him all night regardless of how sleep deprived we were.

Social workers will always go through the mill for missing such obvious things. Just look at the case of Ayeeshia Smith, who was taken from her birth mother for several months, then returned to her, and despite constant visits from social workers, was abused and stamped to death by the mother and her boyfriend. There were many local reports after from other people who'd had dealings with one of the social workers and complained about their conduct and got nowhere.

@angelswithsilverwings out of interest how old was your DS? My understanding is that a different view is taken with a baby young child aged 1 or so than with a slightly older child who knows and can recognise their name. Possibly advice varies between local authorities.

My DS was 10 months old. My friend adopted a two year old and was allowed to change the spelling of her DDs name. The birth family were pronouncing the name one way but were spelling it in a different way. My friend got permission to change the spelling so that it matched the way the name was pronounced. So not really a name change , more of a spelling correction.

And my DS absolutely knew his name at 10 months old - he could already say it ( or the rough sounding of it anyway! )

I'm sorry fatme-my wording was clumsy-I didn't mean a warning sign in and of itself but more of a flag to check that itvwasnt symptomatic of them struggling to accept her/bond with her in which case more support could be put in place.
It seems that at least one of these men has put his image and ego above the wellbeing of his child.

Name changing isn’t a sign of bad parenting. My parents kept my name because they liked it but changed my brother's name because they wanted name him themselves.

It seems that many people are overlooking the fact that the Scully-Hicks' had already adopted - Shayla/Elsie had an adoptive sibling, that was already in the family. In the sentencing report there is no mention of ANY concerns for that child, and no reported injuries of him/her.

I imagine that her sibling was a very different child, maybe an "easier" child to parent hence why only Elsie was abused.

It's so desperately sad and tragic, and I imagine the doctor that missed the femoral fracture is distraught.

I expect we won't ever know why the maternal grandmother wasn't allowed to foster or adopt Shayla/Elsie. I would imagine there are issues there unreported, as IME Children's Services aim to make familial placements whenever possible as they are easier (and probably cheaper).

It's very easy to cast the blame entirely at the door of Children's Services - after all Shayla/Elsie had 2 episodes of bruising and a broken leg, why wasn't she removed? But seeing as Matthew had given apparently consistent reports of how the injuries occurred and the medical assessments tallied with that, (given the undiagnosed femoral fracture) and the evidence of the neighbours was never reported until after her death, what were they supposed to do?

Of course there were failings here and they contributed in small part to the tragic murder of a gorgeous little girl, but the only person ultimately responsible was her adoptive father.

My understanding is that a different view is taken with a baby young child aged 1 or so than with a slightly older child who knows and can recognise their name.

So the official line is (supposedly) that one year olds don't know their names?

I expect we won't ever know why the maternal grandmother wasn't allowed to foster or adopt Shayla/Elsie

I expect it will come out at the enquiry. I hope there was a very good reason.

Do you know what the official line is Battle or are you speculating?

It could be less about whether 1 yr old will recognise their names ( clearly most do ) and more about what effect changing a name will have at that stage. But then I’m speculating.

Well spiney, McTufty just very pointedly told MrsDV that she had worked in children's social work;

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.

Then she went on to say;

My understanding is that a different view is taken with a baby young child aged 1 or so than with a slightly older child who knows and can recognise their name. Possibly advice varies between local authorities.

So I took that to be something official from her work and not something she was just inventing and I found it quite shocking, frankly.

There is no official line. For some SWs it’s tantamount to abuse and they would stop a march going ahead. Others are happy with it. In our case SW suggested it. Sometimes the risk posed by birth family or their proximity will be taken into account.

The law is clear though - adopters get to choose.

*match

McTufty was saying that there was a policy in her LA.

We all know what the law is fat, we're discussing good practice and good, empathetic, parenting.

And whatever distress you think is caused to an infant having their name changed, these days it has to be weighed against birth family potentially crashing unbidden into teenaged child’s life via social media.

I think adoption will have to evolve to accommodate a changing world, in all honesty. Closed adoption plus relinquished newborns in an age of repression worked. Not so much now.

Also, can't see that "Shayla" is all that unusual TBH. Nor does it sound particularly "chavvy" (horrible word but since that's the argument...). So I can't understand the security concern or the snobbery, but they clearly had a preference for very trendy names.

This poor beautiful baby girl. What a tragic life she had, failed by the system that is supposed to protect her.

If we as strangers are so affected by this story, can you imagine how Shayla's birth family feel?

Prison is too good for that bastard.

I'm an avid reader of family law judgements (don't ask: I know it's weird) and depressing but true- you can see the same thread running through 90% of the birth families . Toxic triangle- mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse: domestic violence. Almost inevitably more children already removed from birth mother: almost inevitably given chance after chance, expensive support and failed. I don't judge them, their lives are very hard and they are not equipped as I am to improve them.

But they are not good parents. Often their circumstances mean they are not capabale of being loving parents. Frequently, their children die under their care from things caused by their neglect.

I'm finding it fairly hard to care about the BM if I'm honest. That poor kid didn't have a chance. And when she got given a lifeline it went awfully wrong. But children die under the care of their birth parents every week. I can't bear to see them glamourised

I don't think anyone on the thread has "glamourised" the BM, have they? Nor questioned the removal of Shayla from her care?

What I do admit to be curious about is the assessment of the BGM and the decisions made there.

We know almost nothing, so can assume nothing. But my interest was piqued by the impact statement.

Obviously I don't know the reasons the grandmother was not allowed to adopt but I do know, from my friend's experience, that the reasons can be very minor and pretty pathetic.

My friend after months of interviews, home visits etc was refused her grandchildren because she was overweight (she was a size 18 at the time not 34 and is now a size 14) and she has a dog. A dog that is a soppy thing and loves all her other grandchildren.

So the children went to a foster family who then proceeded to abuse them physically and mentally but hey that's ok because they weren't overweight or had a dog

Sorry that's not true. That's just what she told you. Is overwhelmingly likely that the grandmother wasn't capable of caring for Elsie, but other reasons are being too old or Elsie not knowing her. Being fat and having a dog (provided you're not taking extremes here) no way