Mother guilty of starving daughter to death:(

[TheLeftFelanji]

How does this happen...and go unnoticed by the community?

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article7040747.ece

I think there are so many failings here.

My mother often forgot to feed me when i was a baby. Social services were aware, but could not do a thing simply because my grandmother would feed me enough at the weekends to keep me going.

It shows quite how little food that poor child had to be able to starve to death.

It makes me mad that social workers can intervene so little in these cases yet won't leave some poor people alone who truly love and care for their children but have just lost their way.

There needs to be a complete shake up of the system, because quite simply it is failing too often.

SGB is right - this case has nothing to do with home edding and everything to do with the fact that someone was secretly and deliberately killing their child. No amount of state intervention in any given scenario is going to completely obliterate all vestiges of child abuse. You know why? because some people really, really WANT to abuse their children, and because some of those people - sadly - are very clever at concealing it. To see this case as a result of home edding is to be blind.

Absolutely awful, heart rending story; sounds like the other siblings were near death too.Thank Christ they were saved.

Riven - I was trying to frame my question in the fairest way I could. All I am saying is that there are checks and balances made on school education, whether it works or not, why shouldn't people at home have the same?

I am not having a go at home educators. Do you teach your own children?

This isn't about HE.

This is about b*stard 'parents' killing their child.

As others have said, it's so easy to 'blame the authorities', but I wouldn't be a SW for quids! I work in the NHS and god knows, I think some of the people I have contact with on a fleeting basis would make your toes curl! As a SW said after Baby P- 'You walk into so many houses with animal faeces dotted around the floor and stained mattresses propped against the walls, where do you begin?'. Do you put all those DCs in care? Incidentally, I recall Bay P's real father lambasting the SS.. Where the eff was he in all that?

I think demonising the SS is completely counter productive.

Throwing money at the service and improving the status of the job might do more good if we really care about the lives of these DCs.

Thanks Riven. So did you object to people checking what you were teaching your children and how you were teaching?

Or is it more that the people who are checking are not education specialists but welfare officers? Eg it's not your education methods that are being checked but the way you treat your children (and therefore and extra check that other parents don't get)?

To be fair to the school in this particular case, the deputy head called SS repeatedly and asked them to intervene.

Feel some sympathy for SS. Have had visits from SS myself due to some of dcs medical problems bearing more than one possible interpretation: what happens of course is that I open the door and let them in, I let them see what there is, and if they want to speak to the children on their own I let them do so.

If I didn't, if I smiled pleasantly and explained that dcs were asleep/away visiting grandma/at their club, they couldn't exactly push me over and break my front door: they would have to get a police warrant and police assistance to enter my home against my wishes. And to get a police warrant you have to be pretty sure that abuse is actually going on.

Totally agree with ampere. It's far to easy to blame SS. The fact is, there are people in society who want to neglect, abuse and hurt their kids.

If they really want to do it they will often find a way.

There was another v similar case reported on at length in the Guardian a few weeks ago, a little girl called Tiffany who starved to death in a locked room above a pub while her mum joked with punters downstairs. It beggars belief that any parent could do this, but these cases come up with depressing regularity.

I think there's a real disconnect on MN when it comes to SS - we're forever advising each other to ring SS and report a worrying neighbour, or child we know, and saying 'better safe than sorry' but in fact whenever it's any of us being called upon by the SS the instant and universal reaction is 'tell those bastards to fuck off, how dare they question you, you're a wonderful mother, don't they know how cruel this is when you're already down' etc etc.

We see other people as needing SS, but take it as the absolute worst insult when the SS might want to speak to us. The parent in this story told the SS to sling their hook, as I can only imagine many parents do - they'll be well used to it.

SS are demonised and seen as evil, interefering baby snatchers, not as people who can provide support etc and who need to make sure that people's kids are ok. That will never change in any meaningful way will it, so SS will always have a really uphill battle getting access to vulnerable kids.

MZ: I think this may be because what's happening is SWs who are poorly trained or not much cop at their job are being easily intimidated or fooled by aggressive parents or cunning abusive ones, therefore often bully and harass the parents who are just not coping or indeed who have asked for help. IE, the useless social worker makes a rapid retreat when confronted with huge pissed hostile parent effing and blinding on the doorstep, feels a bit bad about it but not bad enough to do anything about that parent - then the next household on the list has a depressed young petite teenage mother, or an apologeticly polite but not-coping middle class one and whooopee, here's someone the social worker can order around and feel superior to and pass those bad feelings right along...

Again, the answer is more training, funding and support for SWs and getting rid of the ones who are either lame and thick or petty tyrants who are in the job because they love the power.

What is actually happening is that there is now a lack of social workers willing to work with children -MorrisZapp has the problem-they can't do right. I, for one, wouldn't do the job.

Clara May I ask you something?

I realise you are obviously happy that the way you chose to parent your children is the right way, you are giving them the best childhood you can etc. Presumably you have some sort of experience of parenting or have some help to know what to do?

However, how do you know all parents are also experienced enough? Is there not a possibility that some parents really have no idea what they are doing, even if they think they do, and their children are in danger of getting such a poor childhood that they will never gain the positive experiences they may need in life?

People join SS for the power? Do they really? I've never worked in SS myself but imagined them to be much like teachers ie hard working, dedicated, caring, and desperately hampered by underfunding, understaffing and crippling paperwork etc.

I recognise that many SS will be too 'wimpy' to take on a scary drunk - personally I can relate to this as I would find that intimidating too.

But do they really then go an and bully non-threatening clients? Surely if this happens it's the exception.

Some do Morris. Thought it was well-recognised that in any 'caring' profession you some get people who are drawn to it for the wrong reasons. Like the old-fashioned petty Hitler teachers who liked being able to boss smaller, weaker people around. Or people who were originally well-intentioned but get jaded or start to enjoy wielding power a little too much. Or people who are down-trodden, stuck in a shitty department with a shitty boss and take it out on the clients.

To take a different sector, look at Mid-Staffordshire Hospital. Stuffed full of people who presumably went into medicine, nursing or the therapies for the 'right' reasons but ended up treating patients with horrible cruelty, so bad that between 400 and 1,200 people died who could have lived.

Another reason why they can't recruit social workers MorrizZapp. At one time it was well know that they were idealistic people not interested in earning lots of money-the worst they could be called were 'do gooders,' now they accused of being 'little Hitlers'. This is the double standard. If someone phones them with concerns they expect action-if the concerns are unjustified all hell is raised by the person they called on. All it needs is for the person who feels it is unjustified to open the door, invite them in, have a cup of tea, be polite and clear it up. Children will continue to suffer if people are put off voicing concerns.

Mistakes and terrible things happen when people are overworked and can't cope.

Piscesmoon: some social worker ARE little Hitlers, bossy, bullying petty tyrants. PLenty are overworked, stressd out, decent people doing their best, of course, but any job which involves wielding authority over others attracts a percentage of bullies and power-junkies. (It's also true that social care/mental health jobs attract some very abusive people, who feel that as long as they themselves can come across as respectable and decent, they can abuse 'nutters' or 'difficult patients' with impunity as most people will believe the nice well-dressed doctor over the filthy, foul-mouthed self-harming patient who claims the doctor raped her...)
But there is a real danger in telling people they must just submit blindly to AUthority, that Authority knows Best when it is demonstrated over and over again that the State does not necessarily have people's best interests at heart, nor id the machinery of the state never wrong.

I dare say that you are right SGB, but it shows why they can't recruit social workers-there is absolutely no way that I would do it- and why social workers are leaving in droves. It is a thankless task for those who are not 'little Hitlers' and want to make a difference and help people.

Mrs wobble - oh god no I think there should be a lot more help for parents. I do my best, we all do, but there is a lot of guess work involved. And I also think there are plenty of people who should not be allowed to have children - however I'm not allowed to say things like that, am I?

By the way you phrased your question, you obviously think I have said something wrong?

This is just so sad. My brother taught her older siblings and I know his school were also in contact with SS about the state of her older brother

There is a bill going through at the moment that states (i think) that the education people should have a right to visit HE families at home once a year and see the child is receiving an education.

But I dont understand why people think that forcing a home education person to visit would have saved this girl - it wouldnt.

This was an evil mum - if after the child was removed from school an EWO came round to see her - she could have sat child down and said this is what we are doing etc etc - the child would have been too scared to say a word - thats it visit over for another year - the girl was dead by then anyway.

In this case she was known to SS and they failed her, as well as her father who failed her and all the neighbours and everyone else that knew her and the family - but mainly this evil horrible mother watched her own flesh and blood starve to death

I cant for the life of me work out why she wasnt charged with murder - why does her depression mean that was only charged with manslaughter - was there more to it