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Parenting

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Original poster

witnessing child abuse, what should i do?

64 replies

Bubblz · 04/10/2007 20:39

Last night I went to my local Sainsbury's and heard a woman calling her daughter. The girl, who was about 13 years old, didn't respond. When her mother shouted abuse at her for it, the girl told her mother that she hadn't heard her. The woman grabbed the girl by the neck, threw her against a wall and said she was going to wring her f*?!ing neck. The girl managed to get away and ran into the supermarket. The woman had another daughter with her, probably about 2 years old, whom she treated just as appallingly as the older child.

I have never before seen anything like this, so after I'd scraped my jaw from the floor , I managed to catch the older girl on her own. She had a red mark on her neck where her mother had grabbed her. I didn't want to get her in trouble with her mother, so I hurriedly told her I'd seen what her mother had done and was very sorry about it. I also told her to keep her head up and hold on to the thought that she's a wonderful and beautiful child. She was very gracious, she smiled and thanked me.

I cried bitterly all the way home because that poor child was going home with that woman to be abused again and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I have thought of calling NSPCC but I don't even know the girl's name. I've even considered going back to Sainsbury's to ask if they can identify her from CCTV footage, but then what? I don't want the children to end up in care, courtesy of yours truly, yet at the same time they don't deserve the kind of life that they have now.

I don't know what they have in terms of support from family and friends. The woman was with a female friend of hers who witnessed the abuse but carried on as if nothing had happened. If someone that close can turn a blind eye, then those poor children must be going through hell. Please help, I can't get them out of my mind.

OP posts:

princessmel · 05/10/2007 12:46

Good for you bubblz

mrspnut · 05/10/2007 12:47

MrsMarvel - if that child's mother treats her like that all the time then SS most probably be aware of her already.

The school will know about it, as well as all the neighbours and the girl's friends.

The school has a statutory duty to report any concerns and I would hope that the beighbours will have done so out of concern for the child. All of those people would have been able to give the girls name and address so incidents can be looked into.

Not knowing the name or address of the girl will mean that SS won't be very interested. They do not have the time or staff to go off on a wild goose chase.
There is no point being overly sentimental when the reality doesn't meet the ideal.

mrsmarvel · 05/10/2007 12:49

I strongly disagree. The authorities often use lack of money as an excuse for letting children be abused. So do we say, "ok then that's fine, didn't want to trouble you". Of course we don't. I'm not even going to go there.

mrspnut · 05/10/2007 12:52

MrsMarvel - have you worked in many SS offices. Do you actually know what goes on?

mrspnut · 05/10/2007 12:57

It isn't solely a lack of money but more realistically that it would be almost impossible to trace the girl and the number of man hours involved to try to get CCTV footage and hope that you can pinpoint the girl, if the mother paid by card then to obtain the card number, then hope that the bank would disregard the data protection act and pass on the families details.

When you've been doing this investigation work, hoping that you haven't got the wrong person because that'd be potentially dangerous and you find out that the girl has a social worker and has been working woth the family for ages.

Yes, the new information would be useful to them but whilst you've spent all that time investigating you've neglected your own overburdened caseload and the children you're supposed to be helping (all 60 odd of them) are suffering instead.

Fireflyfairy2 · 05/10/2007 12:59

Bubblz. Was the older girl in a school uniform by any chance? If she was then this would give you a starting point

mrsmarvel · 05/10/2007 13:03

pnut - I don't work in a social services office and I dread to think what goes on.

You say that if the girl's on a cp list then the school and other statutory services would be reporting. It clearly hasn't worked as she's got to 13 years old and is being throttled by her mother.

Original poster

Bubblz · 05/10/2007 13:06

no, the girl wasn't in uniform, otherwise i'd have made a mental note of the school. i followed them around the supermarket for a while so i know exactly what they look like, and i know the exact time frame for purposes of cctv footage. i'm not giving up on those children. it may take a while but i'm determined to find them.

OP posts:

mrspnut · 05/10/2007 13:10

Marvel - how do you know that this hasn't just started recently? It may be as a result of undiagnosed PND. There may have been a bereavement that triggered the mother to behave differently?

It isn't easy to remove children from a parent's care however much the media like to portray otherwise, it takes a time and a lot of that is trying to get the family to engage with SS to make things better. It doesn't always work and in those cases the children are usually removed.

The number of times I have seen people askng for advice on forums because they are concerned about a neighbours or family members children and then completely ignore most of it and not bother calling social services beggers belief. They are the people really failing children.

mrsmarvel · 05/10/2007 13:47

So are you(pnut) suggesting people should call social services when they see a problem, or they shouldn't?

mrspnut · 05/10/2007 13:52

I'm suggesting that people should call social services when appropriate - if you know the childs name (even first name will do) and preferably either the school they go to or their address then SS will be able to find them.

My original point on this thread was that SS won't be able to do anything on the information that the OP had and there isn't the facility to do the kind of investigation that has been suggested on this thread.

I strongly believe that protecting children is the responsibility of the entire community but sometimes there isn't anything you can do and you have to hope that someone somewhere is doing their bit to help.

mrsmarvel · 05/10/2007 14:36

I don't want to get into an argument but I think that saying it's not worth phoning social services is not doing social services any favours either. They may not be able to do anything about it immediately but they will be able to record the call and use it in their statistics to get more money (among other things) and refer the person concerned on to anyone.

claricebeansmum · 05/10/2007 14:43

Bubblz - you did a fine thing.
At least the girl knows that there are decent caring adults in the world.

I would go to the NSPCC - they might already be known to them...

In hindsight - so clearly 20/20 - I might have urged her to call Childline to talk it through...but I wouldn't have thought of that in the heat of the moment

mrspnut · 05/10/2007 14:51

Telling people that SS won't be able to do anything is being realistic. I know because I have been that SW on the other end of the phone listening to people reporting a mother for hitting her child in a post office.

The person calling thinks that I can stick a little flashing light on the top of my car and zoom round to the post office, question the worker behind the counter until they come up with a name and rush round to the child's house and take them away from a life of misery.

In reality, I tell the caller that if they don't know who the child is or where they live then there's nothing we can do and that hopefully someone else who does know the family have reported their concerns already.

There is no recording of details other than a few notes in my notebook which are then shredded at the end of the day. It's hard enough keeping accurate records without making it complicated, and in order to enter the child onto the computer system a name would be needed.

Calling the NSPCC is a good way to raise concerns but all they do is pass information onto the SS team. They have no lists of children and don't do any investigative work. Again without a name, all SS will do is tell the NSPCC they can't do anything and NSPCC callcentres know this.

mrspnut · 05/10/2007 14:52

Substitute child in post office for child in any shop you like, or even on a train which was another call I had.

cluelessnchaos · 05/10/2007 14:53

bubblz, the fact you stopped and spoke to the girl is going to be huge to her at the moment, when you are an abused child you think all adults agree with your abuser because they dont react around you. The bit you have done already will keep her going for quite a while, well done.

mrsmarvel · 05/10/2007 14:58

I can't believe social services notes are shredded at the end of the day!

mrspnut · 05/10/2007 15:15

The notes I make whilst I'm on the phone are shredded after I've actioned them.

The notes I write up in someone's file aren't shredded (they're scanned and added to their electronic file) and the paper file is locked back into the cabinets. I use my notebook to help me remember what I need to add.

So not all notes are shredded at the end of the day but the type I mentioned are.

mrsmarvel · 05/10/2007 16:50

So a call from an innocent bystander would be logged in your notebook and then actioned. What would actioned mean in this case?

lisad123 · 05/10/2007 16:55

have you thought about calling local police? I know SS wont be able to do anything without a name ( i work for SS), but what you witnessed was an assult. The police might be able to get something off cctv. I know there has been a big thing about domestic volience being everyones problem and people are encouraged to report it, dont see why this is any different.

You did what you could at the time.

lisad123 · 05/10/2007 16:58

Notes that arent filed in children's files have to be shredded, but MUST be written up before notes are allowed to be shredded. It is made difficult, when there is no way of identifying the child, but notes can be saved under an address instead.

mrsmarvel · 05/10/2007 17:03

So ultimately it's worth reporting to SS because the record will be made somewhere for future reference? I'm just trying to clarify what pnut said.

mrspnut · 05/10/2007 17:03

So a call from an innocent bystander would be logged in your notebook and then actioned. What would actioned mean in this case?

In this case, I'd have told the caller that it would be unlikely that we could do anything without a name and address. When I got time during the day I'd mention the case to the duty manager and make sure they agreed with me before shredding any notes I'd made.

I can save things to an address only but not usually a supermarket.

mrspnut · 05/10/2007 17:06

What future reference can be made from a call where there is no name and no home address.

If you're really lucky someone in the SS department may recognise the description of the family but that's only slightly better odds than winning the lottery.

mrsmarvel · 05/10/2007 17:15

There would be lots of future uses, such as if it happened again and the manager of the supermarket called social services to check and the description was the same. In these days of modern technology there's no excuse not to log information and to just bin it.

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