Leiland James Corkhill - heartbreaking interview with his birth mum. Obviously upsetting content relating to physical abuse of a baby.

[LastThursdayInJuly]

I can’t post the link but if you Google Leiland James and BBC news the interview will come up.

Of course, some children can’t stay safely with their parents but this case really doesn’t seem one of them. I’m not commenting on what happened to Leiland James afterwards because it’s obviously practically unheard of for adoptive parents to murder their children.

But I am concerned that people like Laura Corkhill are not treated fairly by SS and are not really able to navigate the system properly. I also agree with the woman who observed that it further punished women suffering domestic abuse by taking their children from them.

Do we know that?

There should be much more support for women leaving abusive relationships and that includes counselling and financial support. The people involved in providing this help should help not simply impose hoops for women to jump through. The example of expecting someone to move areas - surely this is punishing the victim? Expecting someone to give up work to go on a course? Surely there should be efforts made to provide courses that someone who needs to work can access or financial support to allow someone to take time off work? There should be a requirement for police and social services to put pressure on the perpetrator not the victim.

Sorry PP, I can see there was an exchange of texts between the couple in the september that admitted “leathering” him - but the post mortem seemed to suggest all but one of his injuries (bruise on his chin) were caused at the same time as the injuries that killed him. He was seen by a practice nurse for his jabs on 23 December, 2 weeks before he was killed, but there was no record of any injuries reported then, or at least it’s not reflected in the coverage or the review.

Yes I think their violence was so normalised and justified that they probably thought a fall of the sofa was a reasonable explanation. Probably thought LJ is too young to speak so no one will ever know.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-61249538.amp

Quite from the pathologist:

Mr Brady said a pathologist claimed the injuries were like those caused in a "high-speed" car crash or a "high level multi-storey fall".

Theres nothing I can see in the review about missing bruises or not seeing bruises, or any indication of how regular he was being seen.

What you’ve quoted is reference to the injuries which caused his death. The pathologist also said:

”the combination of injuries was "inconsistent" with Leiland-James falling from a sofa and all but one, a yellow bruise on his chin, were caused at around the same time on 6 January with "considerable" force needed to have been used.” Link

He was seen at the statutory minimum - once every 6 weeks - which the review is critical of given the concerns about placement breakdown. It wouldn’t surprise me if the adopters were conniving enough to only hit LJ in places that would be hidden by nappy/clothing, knowing the social workers would be unlikely to see him unclothed. But it’s odd the practice nurse didn’t notice anything when giving him his jabs given you would have thought he’d at least be undressed from the waist down.

Completely agree with this

@ChuckBerrysBoots yes and maybe because the abuse intensified in the winter months they were able to cover bruises in warm clothing.

Poor little baby. Why didn’t they just hand him back?! From what I understand, SS are supportive when placements break down and it’s not uncommon

Absolutely no way would she not have been told that he would be removed. There is much more to this. We had a case at work where a new adoptive parent broke her child's leg quite seriously. He was an absolutely lonely kid but could have challenging behaviour, and she lost it and threw him on the bed. Fortunately the adoption other had not been granted at that time.

I saw the BBC documentary, it was heartbreaking. The video of him crying has haunted me for days.

Regardless of the mother's actions or inactions, the outrage is that he was left in that house with social services aware of the fact that the atmosphere and her parenting was amiss. Additionally, the fact she has never had an apology and that they wrote the eulogy for her was absolutely disgusting.

Social services are tied up in a rigmarole of paperwork, they are completely overworked and underfunded. Given the conditions social services work under I am surprised there isn't a Leiland-James every single month.

The entire welfare system needs a rehaul and until it happens we will add this little boy onto the ever growing list.

Victoria Climbie
Arthur Labinjo-Hughes
Peter 'Baby P' Connelly
Daniel Pelka
Logan Mwangi
and now Leiland-James Corkhill

They're the ones I can list off the top of my head. How many more never reach the news? Nothing will change until more staff, more funding and more support is made available.

The average length of social worker's career is eight years until they simply cannot do it anymore - there is a reason for that.

Regardless of the mother's actions or inactions, the outrage is that he was left in that house with social services aware of the fact that the atmosphere and her parenting was amiss. Additionally, the fact she has never had an apology and that they wrote the eulogy for her was absolutely disgusting

I think the council have refuted writing a eulogy for him haven't they? There's quite a bit of Laura Corkhills version of events that seem a bit... muddled.

If you read the report the only indication that social services had that there were issues was that Laura Castle had stated she was worried she wasn't bonding with him which is a very normal concern expressed by adopters. In itself it should have raised a concern (and it did) but wouldn't have warranted his immediate removal from their care.

All the stuff that came out at her trial about her drinking, mental health, physical chastisement of the older child etc was completely unknown to social services because the agencies social services asked for this information hadn't shared information with each other and also didn't share what they did know with social services.

I think the council have refuted writing a eulogy for him haven't they? There's quite a bit of Laura Corkhills version of events that seem a bit... muddled.

They did admit to it but said ultimately the words were up to Laura and she wrote her own in the end

Completely agree his Mum's account seemed very shall we say 'white washed'.

I DESPISE the narrative that social services simply 'swoop in' and take children. My husband, sister and best friend work very lonely with vulnerable families and they unanimously agree that the situation has to be DIAR for social services to intervene and even then the decision is ultimately made by the courts.

I think there is certainly more to know about Ms Corkhill's journey as there must have been certain reasoning for why social services blankly refused to return her baby. That being said, no mother deserves what she went through and I hope she manages to find some peace. I cannot imagine what she is going through.

closely* not lonely

So I've just watched the short programme. It just wasn't balanced at all and demonstrated complete complete ignorance about the complexities of taking a child into care and what that entails.

Aside from the real tragedy of this poor child's death and the grief of his mum, there is a knock on impact of this type of one sided reporting as it stops other people from trusting services and seeking help.

I have a lot to say about the disgusting lack of support for victims of DA but I don't have time right now.

The BBC article mentions her first two children being removed, but she actually had two more kids before Leiland (her FB page is public and she has their names/ages all posted in her bio). They were removed, too. There is obviously more to her story than in the article.