Baby P

[GeraldineMumsnet]

Hi, to make it easier for people who are finding this subject very distressing, we're going to keep all Baby P posts in one thread. If you'd like to discuss this subject, then here is the thread to do so. We'll go on the other threads and link to this one. Thanks very much.

It does go to show that gagging orders do work.
There has been hardly a whisper about it during the trial which I think is an absolute necessity for all concerned, particularly the jurors who must have been under tremendous strain.
And this way none of the defendants can argue they didn't get a fair trial due to public pressure or adverse publicity.

There are a few new pictures in The Sun online. One is a studio portrait, (warning - upsetting), but it is reassuring in a small way, to know that his gran valued and loved him enough to get them taken.

CM did report to social services.

Ninkynork I saw that picture, dont normally read the sun but am off work ill and DP bought one so read it and I have to say I thought 'awww' to start with... then I realised that was Baby Peter and then when I read it I started noticing the horrible little hidden bits in the picture.

But nice to know atleast his Gran loved him and his Dad.

I know its nothing to do with me and all but for some reason I really want to try and get some sort of memorial stone or soemthing where his ashes are wish there was a fund or something.

The thought of him being unloved in life and then in death makes me sick, I dont understand though why his gran and father havent got one for him?

Surely they could have saved something over a year and a half...

I wish the Sun would stop printing pictures. I don't buy it but when you walk into a shop it's there in front of you so you can't miss the pics. It is getting so voyeuristic now, this on top of the 15 year old's tell all account in the paper at the weekend. It is salacious and while I am not criticising anyone on here because in some ways I understand why you might want to see him having a relatively 'normal time' - it worries me, the way this is being discussed in general.

I suppose there is no getting away from people's interest in the macabre. Books on the Wests and the Yorkshire Ripper sell shedloads so am not suprised. However this is a little baby we are talking about.

How long is the Sun going to wring more sales out of his tragic life I wonder.

There is nothing that upsets me more than pictures. I get transported back to the same raw place whenever I see them. I find them intrusive and unnecessary.

I agree, and fiftot you made the point very well. It does help to see him being loved, but I do find the pictures disturbing. Disturbing in the way that blueshoes describes, and that they are spinning this out with sales first and foremost.

One of the tabloids practically gave away the location of P's resting place then in the next paragraph said how his father wanted to keep it a secret so that none of the people involved would ever go there and desecrate it by their very presence.

Discussion and reform are fine, but I don't think there is anything more we need to know about the details of this case until the sentencing, which hopefully will be just.

I agree Ninkynork, it's just getting beyond a joke the way people keep printing those pics, and going on about details of abuse. we heard it once, there's no need for it to be drudged up time and again. It's upsetting enough. Those tabloids just want as much papers sold as they can, and the best way is to print stories and pics of someone or a story that's 'hot news' at the moment.
Tbh,I don't buy any newspapers, I rely solely on the Internet and also BBC News to find out what's happening in the world. Thankfully the BBC have let it lie until 15th, instead they are concentrating on ways to improve child protection in general type reports, rather than focussing in on this young boy.

mamadiva - i know people who know the family and the gran and father are no where near as caring as they like to make out. Far too little, far too late imo

juju - I accept what you say about where the bar should be set but I do think it has to be a realistic one.
I know middle class Mums who'd have all overweight kids taken into care, or any kids of Mothers who smoke weed.
That said I do believe that too many children are currently being 'supported' within the home who should probably be removed but if they were to be taken into care where on earth would we put them?
The country is already short of thousands of foster placements and the outcomes from children leaving care is already woefully shameful.

jujumaman I agree I worked on an estate back home and was very shocked once to see a home where a child was walkind around the house in a nappy that was hanging off it was so full of shit and piss, dog crap on the floor and bare concrete walls and floors. The child was filthy and drinking milk that had gone off.

Too often people were too polite or pc to say anything but coming from a hard background myself I could be blunt and say you need to sort this out.

twinset - I seen a lot of cases where the kids were in a very bad state of neglect and the judge has directly asked why it took the local authority so long to bring proceedings. But when you ask the question it's always the same.
Where shall we put them?
Until we all volunteer to foster and adopt we're in a catch 22.

I agree Litchick, I would love to foster or adopt but doubt I would be allowed due to illness.

When I was teaching in a very hard school very often I would come home in tears and say to dp I wish we could just bundle about half a dozen kids in a car and drive off.

Haven't been reading all of this but just wanted to add - does anyone else think our view of 'family' is a bit sentimental?
Given that current policy seems to be to keep kids with 'family' no matter how bad some of them are.

Also - re: identifying mother & stepfather etc - I believe there were 3 other children in the house and there are court cases pending re: them, that's why it's being kept under wraps, although easily found on the 'net.

Damned if you do damned if you don't.

One poster points out 'I know middle class Mums who'd have all overweight kids taken into care, or any kids of Mothers who smoke weed.'

A poster further up the thread states the reason that many children are left in unsuitable families is because 'middle class do gooders leave them to rot' (or similr, cannot be bothered to scroll back and find it.)

So the middle classes are entirely to blame for these situations?

I'm afraid I agree with juju 'The political correctness that wants us to be "understanding" of such lifestyles makes me furious'

I cannot see how having dog (or human) excrement on the floor (to state a tangible example) is a suitable environment for any child to be brought up in, whatever their 'class'.

Of course, litchick - and I'm not saying the naked child wandering around should have been taken into care. Necessarily. But I don't think we should "be respectful" of people who live like that. They need support to help them live another, better way but I also think a good dose of shame wouldn't go amiss.

It is an incredibly complex area. IMO so much of this comes down to the fact we live in a greedy, money-grabbing society where jobs like social working, or the jobs of council officials, are not valued and badly paid.

Also, to be clear, I am not saying that such families have their children taken into care.

I think that education (parenting skills), support and a bit of honesty instead of beating around the bush wouldn't go amiss.

Child abuse isn't a class issue. There are plenty of outwardly respectable middle or upper class homes where children (and women) are abused.

I know child abuse insn't a class issues, I am middle class with, sadly, a first hand knowledge of that.

I am just pointing out that is is easy to blame a section of society for the ills that can affect us all.

For anyone interested the Executive Summery of the Serious Case Review regarding baby P is here.

Makes sad reading. More than anything it talks about the absence of concerns before 2006 and how the older children did not give cause for concern - attended school daily, no school concerns etc. All of which lulled people into a false sense of security.

I deal with families where children are subject to a child protection plan. I am asking myself if I would have been reassured by the positives and missed the negatives in the way people did in this case. Scary.

I agree edam that abuse is not a class issue but I have spent enough time working in areas of deprivation to realise that there is an underclass in society where to be charitable neglect is common and abuse certainly happens.

Now you could maybe say that if middle class familes had people wondering in and out of there homes we would realise it was happening there too. I don;t know,

But i do know from firsthand society that there is a sizeable section of society that has opted out of any kind of social responsibility and the children are not having a childhood that I would want for any child I cared for.

I am not blaming a class, but something has gone wrong in the way society is working and the middle classes tend to be in those jobs.

There is an underclass though and they very often genuinely don't know about nutrition or hygiene, why would they if they've never been in acceptable home environments?

I taught in a school which served the worst estate in one of the most deprived areas of the S.E. We were discussing future jobs and only one child in the class had ever given it a thought. Work? He was the brightest boy there and his ambition was to get a job in Asda because of the low prices.

I would get all Jamie Oliver about the pasty-looking and malnourished children who lived on crisps, chips and white bread and who would return to school and school dinners in September visibly smaller. They ate crap, yes but they were being fed. Some people think that's fine because they know other parents who are too wasted to bother giving food to their children in the evenings at all.

Hmm. That raging rightwing loony who writes for the daily mail whose name escapes me, wrote an article on Sunday (which I haven't seen but was referred to by Janet Daly on Broadcasting House) in which he opined that if Baby P's mother had been middle class and articulate, the baby would have been whipped into care as quick as you like. In other words, that SS lower their standards for working class / underclass households. If that is the case, then that is the most lamentable snobbery and deeply insulting to anyone who is not middle class and articulate.

I'm not sure if it is the case though and he does have a big axe to grind.