Leiland-James Corkhill Trial

[EllieQ]

Has anyone else been following this case? I’ve found it very distressing that both the parents thought that smacking a baby was acceptable, especially after they had been through the adoption vetting process. And they seemed annoyed that the baby was unsettled when he moved from foster care to live with them.

I really feel for the birth mother as well. He was removed at birth, presumably because he was at risk of harm, but I assume that she knows what happened. How awful for her.

Leiland-James Corkill: Couple 'struggled to bond with baby' www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-61422121

I work alongside social services in providing medicals for non accidental injuries of minors. You would be surprised how common things like this are.

We get at least one case a week but it can be up to as many as 5. And this is for one centre in a small borough. Some of the things I have seen will haunt me for the rest of my life. They are the lucky ones. They’ve survived. But you would also be surprised by the amount of kids who get returned to their abusive parents, and even more surprised about the repeat offenders.

I live in Barrow and I'm absolutely horrified this happened in our town and nobody stepped in to stop it. We are a small town but our social services also covers a wide area. A friend of mine is a social worker she has far too many children on her caseload. She says herself they would rather be out in the community working with families. But she has to spend most her time at the office doing paperwork. She often has to write notes up at home and she has two children of her own

I hope that neighbour thinks about her inaction every day for the rest of her life. She heard a little kid being abused and did nothing because it might have been awkward!!!!

As for the father, how did he not get charged when his wife was telling him of the abuse and he did nothing.

Poor little lad.

I'm really upset that the husband wasn't found guilty of any charges. He knew that his wife was 'leathering' that poor little baby. 😔

The local paper have been giving daily court updates. I've no idea what's going on though there has been 3 children in the last decade killed at the hands of they're parents in Barrow. Another 8 week old baby in 2017 suffered life changing injuries. It's a small town no matter how well the majority of us get on with our neighbours we wouldn't stand by knowing a child is being mistreated. She would have known they were in the process of adopting that baby. I'm sure her life will be made he'll now as well as Scott Castle. He might have walked free but he will have to live with the guilt of what happened.

This idea that a baby should sleep, be settled all the time, instead of what they are which is nervous brand new people who have no understanding of the world. All they want is to be with their mummy yet all we're told is baby should be doing things by themselves without mummy from day one.

I always believed it’s incredibly hard to get accepted as adoptive parents. I’ve heard of potentially fantastic parents giving up because of all the hurdles they have to go through.
So how do unsuitable people get thought he process?

Cumbria County Council aren't fit for purpose in a number of ways.

Two new unitary authorities are starting next April. Whatever the thoughts on that move, I doubt they could do worse than CCC. Although children's services are being talked about as being across both authorities.

Laura Castle deserved that verdict and whatever is coming to her.

I hope Scott Castle is plagued by shame.

Did the police / CPS make a mistake in the charges against him? Would there have been a different charge that stuck?

He had joint responsibility for the care of that little child. He had joint responsibility for ensuring the zero smacking policy was upheld. He knew she was hitting the baby, he said in court he thought it was ok to do that. He encouraged her. She had told him she feared she would not be able to stop one day.

He broke his agreement with the adoption service in agreeing that hit a baby is ok parenting.

Surely he is guilty of something, in legal terms?

But whatever: Scott Castle we see you and you are a cruel, nasty child abuser.

I’ve wondered that too. We had fertility issues and I started to think about the possibility of adoption, but hadn’t realised how intense the ‘application’ process would be until I started reading about it. I was able to get pregnant eventually, so went no further, but did suspect we wouldn’t have got through the checks. So how did this happen?

There’s more detail in this article, which mentions that the adoption services did have some concerns

Detailed BBC article

I imagine a fee was brought in because of the number of people who started the process then dropped out, leaving CCC with a lot of expenses. So it was supposed to be a deterrent to people starting the process who weren't committed, not a deterrent to dropping out if you couldn't cope.

Like another pp, I also made the decision years ago to not try adopting because I've had mental health issues that I felt would preclude me being accepted. The process is supposedly gruelling, and I felt it might be too much for me, especially if I was rejected.

This case breaks my heart, that poor sweet little boy. First he has the trauma of being taken from his birth mum, he bonds with his first Foster mum who has him for 8 months, she will be mum in his eyes. Then he suffers another trauma of being separated from who he thinks is his mum and given to people who go on to abuse him on a regular basis and finally murder him for doing a normal baby thing. He must have been so confused and afraid in those last 5 months.

If social services didn't think the Castles were right to adopt him why didn't they remove him. Seeing as they both seemed to hate him why didn't they just give him back. Why wasn't she taught ways to deal with a baby when you feel angry, she could have just put him somewhere safe like his cot, made herself a cup of tea and sat somewhere she couldn't hear the crying for 10 mins to calm down before going back to him. Why hasn't the Foster dad been charged with anything, he knew what she was doing and even encouraged it. Why isnt this little boys tragic story getting as much coverage as other recent child murders.

I wonder if the lack of help for people with babies who are screamers is also a contributing factor to this death. When you have a baby who just screams all the time they are awake, you can't just put them in a cot and walk away. There is no way to calm down when the sound of screaming is drilling through your head especially if you are sleep deprived. You need to be outside the range of hearing it to be able to even start calming down, which is something you can't do if you cannot get someone else to look after the baby for even half an hour. I can fully understand why some mother's kill their babies during a moment of madness. We really need to get back to it takes a village to raise a child mentality to take the pressure of mothers with very young children.

Mayhe that would be mitigation in the case of a mother. This wasn’t a mother. It was a prospective adopter. She didn’t have PR for the child, and as such she had every right to walk away, and a lot of back up available to her.

£170 is what it costs to apply for the adoption order, which you can only do once the child has been living with you for 10 weeks. I guess they had just done this and felt it would be throwing away money to give him back once the cheque had been cashed. Utter madness.