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.

There would be paperwork from court, reports and court orders

Free legal advice doesn't equal good legal advice though!
My friend had legal aid initially - they were useless. They stuck rigidly to the line of not challenging social services and working with them. But social services were not working with my friend. They definitely had an agenda.

The legal team that her family paid for immediately went on the attack to social services. They challenged everything! They knew what they were doing and what to look for. It took them 3 months to get her child back. They had been gone over a year by the time they took the case on.

Firstly we are only hearing from the birth mothers perspective of course she is going to say that she was innocent and the child removed for nothing. SS are not able to step forward and list why they removed the child due to confidentiality so there's only the another's word.

Prior to removal there would have been months and months of assessments and work with the Mother including multi professional involvement also her own family brought it to see what support she has who all combine the make the decisions, it would have had to meet the threshold to go to court and a Judge decides. She would have been fully aware of this process and would have her own legal representation throughout this.

Therefore the risk to the child being her care must have been extremely high, and this would not be based on just her past. Who is the current Father to this child? Is he also a perpetrator of DV therefore proving she is unable to make good choices for her own welfare based on her past. Perhaps police call outs prior to conceiving if this child! Was this child's Dad threatening her. Was she seen with a potential abusive partner. How has her mental health and own self care been during this time? Has she engaged to address the DV past?

There is so many things we don't know because again we are only hearing the Mothers view. Social Workers do not enjoy removing children it's devastating and would have been the courts decision once all evidence is reviewed.

Also it would have been a completely different team and social work who placed Leiland into care with that particular family and not the SW who removed him.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62290696 bbc news article here.

I note with dismay that children's services attempted to write the baby's eulogy for Laura to read at the funeral, including this mind bogglingly awful and cruel phrase "Leiland I am sorry I was not able to be the parent you needed" wtf.

The woman was unable to demonstrate she was able to change.

Change what? Having been a victim of DV in the past? How do you change that?

Cumbria County Council’s children’s services were also in special measures not so long ago. They were officially failing - so I really am inclined to believe they are still failing parents and getting things wrong. Why do people find that so hard to believe?

How many times have she been a victim of DV though. If she is unable to make good choices going forward based on her past, did she not utilise any work done regarding DV to help her. How is it fair on a child to leave them in a potentially abusive or high risk situation if the Mother chooses not to leave after multiple times and SW involvement to help her. There is more to this story, it goes hand in hand with neglect and emotional abuse.

That is sickening @FlibbertyGiblets

When considering ‘what might happen in the future’ sometimes the past is obviously going to be relevant. But removing a baby from his mother at birth is an act of immense cruelty. It should not be done on the tenuous basis of ‘she might meet someone in future and he might be violent.’

PPs are spot on with regards to misogyny and I think also some snobbishness.

It raises some excellent questions about treating birth parents fairly. What is clear is that Laura Corkhill had no right of reply. I doubt she will ever get over this. Would you?

Child remained in birth mum’s care. She manages to remain away from abusive men for a year. She then allows an abusive partner into her house. He is violent toward her, and the child, the child sustains serious injury at his hands or dies.

But why would that be the assumption that that would happen? How is that assumption less risky than placing a child in care where unequivocally the outcomes are almost always negative ones and stats consistently show being in care is linked to poverty, crime later in life and the cycle of being ‘in the system’.

I think engaging with the charitable organisation was evidence that she was trying to change, @GreenIsle , as was the fact that she was single and was prepared to raise the child alone with support from the charity.

I would have been on the “there must be more to this story”- camp, until I had witnessed SS in action up close. A family member spent an absolute fortune and lost his house fighting SS in court. He won and SS got a big slap by the judge but so much damage had already been done by them. Cannot go into details as outing, but my God I have never witnessed so much incompetence in my life. Scary how much power they have!!

That’s the only thing I find hard to comprehend in this case - she will have received a PLO letter which outlines their intention to at least consider removal. However the onus is on the parent to get legal representation and show up, children’s services won’t chase you on this. And not everyone is in the right frame of mind to do that. I wonder if she more buried her head in the sand hoping it would go away and no one from SS was absolutely clear about the process (I can believe they weren’t) or bothered to explain it to her properly.

This highlights that there must have been other significant concerns separate from the DV to do with her ability to actually provide care for a child, the mother is always going to dispute this. What other factors were involved with the previous childrens removal (neglect, emotional abuse etc).

Was she only engaging with this charity because SS asked her to when she was told the child may be removed. How long should a child be made to exposed to risk and potentially harm whilst a parent repairs themselves, when they have had years to do this prior to conceiving again. Who is Leilands Father and does he have a risky background which confirms the Mothers is still making poor lifestyle choices.

It’s horrific isn’t it.

And people think these are nice folks who just want the best for children. They not, and in Cumbria they are especially diabolical.

Regarding the legal representation and if they went to Court and the Mother did not use legal representation then the Judge would question this first of and stall. It has to be stated on all paperwork if the Mother did not obtain legal representation because the Social Workers solicitors have to liaise with the families solicitor as due process. The Mother would have be called for multiple meetings to outline each stage including the start of the court process to remove.

Do you realise how hard, and dangerous, it is to leave a violent relationship? Especially with zero support and nowhere to go. And how do you assess a new relationship- unless you’re psychic you cannot tell if your next partner is going to be abusive. The fact is she DID leave a violent relationship and moved on and this doesn’t seem to be seen as a positive.

PPs are spot on with regards to misogyny and I think also some snobbishness.

Definitely.

West Cumbria is a place of high poverty and deprivation, and certainly in Poppi Worthington’s SCR it was mentioned that classism played a big part in the failings of social services. That kind of working culture doesn’t change overnight

But then when a child dies at the hands of a step parent, we all cry "why didn't social services see this coming"? They can't win - take the child away and we'll never know if the child would have been abused, or leave the child there where child is abused and get lambasted for it.

Do people not realise that a Social worker does not and cannot make this decision alone.

People involved would have been

• mothers doctor
• maybe mental health professional
• support organisations involved
• her own family
• health visitors
• police
• very senior social workers
• other medical professionals such as midwives.
• legal representatives who advise the social worker and always want to go with the least interference to the family.

The overall evidence is looked at by a judge and if something is not right or missing then al involved are sent of to do further work before any decisions are made. Their would have been a. Very lengthy report created to establish the concerns.

I wouldn’t put my hands in the fire for SS either. The only contact I had with them they immediately assumed the worst and treated me like a criminal until I loudly pointed out that the abuse she was talking about had never happened, so the SW said sarcastically “so why the report says this???” I just said read it back, no one other than you has mentioned that! (no SW had any contact with the child either) so she back tracked and became all sweet when she realised she had assumed the worst out of stereotyping (or probably being confused with another case).

I wish universities could be more selective with SW students but then, I guess, we would not have enough social workers.

They can’t win

I think most people - social media bayers aside - actually do have a great deal of sympathy with this. I don’t blame SS for placing Leiland James with murderers. That is on them: they lied and then they hit and hurt and frightened and intimidated a helpless baby. (Although note the husband is free. Misogyny again.)

But as with our nurses, teachers, doctors, police, sympathy for the individual and the difficulty of their role shouldn’t mean questioning the system is an attack upon an individual.

We can say that women who are in abusive, violent relationships need support and safety, not faced with further terror with having their children removed from them. It’s pointless and wrong to provide things as a tick box sort of nod towards acceptability - oh, but she had the right to legal aid - but that legal aid needs to do its job properly.

As a Social Worker I have worked with a parent who had her previous child removed and placed for adoption. She came to me a few years later as she was newly pregnant, I completed a thorough and fair assessment of her situation in preparation for a Child Protection Conference prior to birth.

I could see the many positive changes this mother had made, all good family support systems in place which we involved in the process to be open and transparent, willing to engage with supports prior to birth which she fully committed to and excelled at. I was so happy to hold the conference and advise that her current circumstances did not reflect her past and the child would remain with her and supports in place. It's a few years on now and she is no longer involved with Social Services because it was no longer required.

As a Social Worker I want to keep a child with their family aslong as it is safe to do so. I have cried after working with families when they just won't take feedback onboard and work with organisations to help them keep their child in their care, it's devastating and nobody wants that outcome. I can't even read the details of this case because as a parent myself I want to murder the Foster Carer and her smug face. That poor little boy I just want to pick him up and hug him. I honestly feel for the Mother but it's a shame she was unable to sort herself out for her son.

But to assume that the mother would definitely shack up with a new man who happened to be a murdered does not warrant putting a child into a system where they are almost certain to have a difficult, traumatic and impoverished and possibly crime-driven life.

Those professionals will have been invited to give their opinion, they don’t all have to. Police won’t have got involved with Leiland-James because there’s no criminal case attached to him.

I really can’t comprehend why people don’t consider that SS fail parents all the time. Yes judges make the final decision but aside from the fact they often ‘side’ with SS, you have experienced professionals vs vulnerable people who are often not terribly bright and often alone, and have little understanding of the process. The system means they don’t stand a chance.

That’s good @GreenIsle but it’s also not really relevant to the discussion. Sorry if that sounds abrupt but it’s as I said above. No one is criticising individuals. No one is saying all social workers are bad people. Many will be amazing, plenty will be terrible, and most will fall somewhere between those two extremes.

However, at present, we have a system where a newborn baby can be taken from its mother on a very shaky, very dubious belief that she might do something and she might do it with someone who might do something.

That isn’t right. That is wrong, that is ugly, that is repugnant. It punishes women for mens crimes and it makes it harder for women to ask for help, not easier.

I suspect the reason we are so keen to insist that this actually isn’t what is happening is because it’s happening to women who are (mostly) young, poor and with basic, if any, education. They can’t speak for themselves and when they do, they express themselves clumsily. There’s also a concealed yet still just visible view that even if the removal of their child was perhaps not quite right, the child was still better off with a different family anyway.