Liam Fee's murder...

[Behooven]

I have been following this horrific story through the media. I know it's still in court so shall 'haud ma wheesht' until the verdict...
But on the evidence presented so far - shocked and sickened

I hope if they have any more children that those children are removed from them forever. That poor boy.

Hopefully they will be given such long prison sentences that they are far too old to have any children. I don't believe this pair can ever be rehabilitated.

Liam had a named person it's being trialed in Fife.

I thought I had read that somewhere cdtaylor

I don't agree with that policy but aside from that I honestly think in such extreme evil cases like this, with such devious cunning bitches, they would have been hard to stop.

A pp wondered if they had a bit of kid glove treatment because of their same sex relationship, the lady who whistleblew about her suspicions said that she was fobbed off with some kind of "different parenting styles" excuse - so maybe that did have some affect on why they weren't investigated more closely.

she was fobbed off with some kind of "different parenting styles" excuse Did anybody actually examine the poor little soul? Or look at how he was living?

People like Nyomi Fee are very aggressive characters. Are social workers up to challenging them? I'm sure others had suspicions about how all these children were being treated but did nothing because they did not want to stir up a hornet's nest. What about the other children? Were they school age?

You are right actually, it is not the SW's inaction that killed him, it was this evil pair. It is just so very sad when he was known to Social Services and so many red flags went up, but nothing saved him from these two evil women.

I would not sully myself thinking any more about the evil pair. I hope they are well served in prison. I suspect there will be more "justice" inside for them.

That's interesting, Magnum. I hoped the legislation about named persons would stop poor wee souls like Liam falling through the system ie that there would be more co-ordination rather than different agencies acting in isolation?

According to several people, Fife was involved in the Named Person pilot and Liam Fee had a named person. Just shows that despite the SNP bleating about how it's all about child protection, the system is obviously crap.

I posted this on another thread but was wondering in anyone had any insight:

What I still can't get my head around was why at the end they actually phoned the emergency services. I appreciate they thought they could beat the murder charge by blaming the other child, but they already knew they were facing prison for neglect. Their previous behaviour would lead me to think that they would have disposed of his body and up sticks and moved or tell people he'd gone to live with his dad or whatever to buy time for them to disappear. Did one of them have an attack of conscience? Was one under the power of the other and finally got her shit together to think enough was enough?

I know it's all academic as none of those answers would bring Liam back and would have left the older boys still stuck in an awful situation so I'm glad that that phone call was made, I just wonder why finally?

I didn't know Fife was one of the councils involved in NP.

I think they waited quite a while before they made the call onemagnum
It was in the trial that they had been tidying up like crazy, hiding things, googling about sharing a cell, and most chilling - they forced the other wee boy to push his little fist into the dead mouth to make sure his dna was in him.
Utterly disgusting and nothing to do with a chink of conscience, they just built on their web of lies to try and cover it up. (Also fabricated the crying and grief in the call to the emergency services, it was all put on)

The named person scheme if it goes ahead will be a tick box exercise. For the majority of children it is an irrelevance. For those at risk it probably increases the risk.

What can work though? Is it more social workers? Different processes for social workers? I'm genuinely baffled at how these cases happen. When concerns have been raised but action not taken. Fair enough we probably never know how many children are saved by interventions, but how do we protect those who currently slip through the net?

This is probably really stupid, but I envision something like the national crime database but for children at risk. All reports are logged in against the data base and all updates are done live via laptops/mobile devices which frees up social workers to be mobile but update the records at the same time. There could be trigger marks or dates that push things into a Social Workers work list so they don't get missed and there could be a team of desk based staff that review cases on a regular basis to make sure that nothing has been overlooked. As it is something that all SW depts would have access to, then moving areas or someone being off sick wouldn't matter, it would still get highlighted somewhere.

That is probably full of flaws and contrary to human rights legislation but I think I know what I mean even if I haven't explained it very well.

Like an electronic file, so photos and videos could be added as appropriate rather than relying on notes written up.

There will always be human error but anything that could help would be good.

Magnum we used something similar which multi agencies could log in and see if they were involved. For example one mum kept cancelling appointments for the home visits with us. While she was missing appointments that her nurse updated on too!

So I'm not being completely stupid then? I just remember how the formation of the national Crime Database revolutionised the solving of crimes when they were committed across different areas as it could match up similar sounding crimes that might otherwise get missed, I just wondered if there was something similar that could be formed for child protection.

To me that would be better than money spent on named person though I appreciate it would probably costs vast sums to set up.

I really struggle with this case - it is really heartbreaking to read about...and I really can't understand what was going on in the mother's head.
Some of the things I've read suggest the one who wasn't his mother seemed to be doing most of the abuse -but the mother let it happen and also at times participated.
She took Liam out of Nursery because they'd involved social services - she was worried about them taking him off her ...
How could you worry about 'losing' a child but let them be abused?
The other children seemed to be an 'inconvenience' - why be desperate to keep them? I do wonder what else is going to come out now...
As to named person - I agree it is a box ticking waste of money - there is a petition here no2np.org if you want to sign it.
I would not be surprised that Liam had a named person - all that would happen is they would inform social services and they already knew. They really did let him and the other children down.
I know I was surprised with DD2 that they no longer had as many development checks with HV as DD1 - there was a big gap - maybe it was 18 months to 3? where they weren't necessarily seen by anyone. Apparently so that HV could target 'at risk' DCs but to me that was screaming out for children to fall through the gaps (although I realise that didn't happen in this case).

I know someone who used to work with children in Dundee a few years ago and they had multi agency abuse centre - with police, social workers and teachers etc in a unit together sharing information. I believe that is the most effective way forward. But that does depend on them taking action.
I thought after Victoria Climbie social workers were supposed to interview children without their 'guardian' present -surely if that had happened in this case the child who was desperately trying to run away would have said something - and were the older children going to school?
I know the blame lies with those evil women but still ...how can we still be letting children down so badly?

What a beautiful beautiful baby boy. Who could do such barbaric things to children. The pain this child must have been in for months before his death. I have no words. This child couldn't take anymore. He's with god now. I weep for this baby. Those barbaric evil, sadistic animals should die in prison. There is not enough punishment available for these absoloute vile callous demons! Rest in peace little liam. The angels will take care of you now. 😢

omething similar which multi agencies could log in and see if they were involved. For example one mum kept cancelling appointments for the home visits with us. While she was missing appointments that her nurse updated on too!

That would be sensible. One computer database where any concerns raised by anyone can be logged - whether those concerns come from health professionals, child care workers or neighbours and friends.

However, I can see massive issues with it - who would manage the database (common sense would say the Police), people or families being put on teh database for refusing to get their children immunised, or home schooling, worries about teachers being able to get information about criminal convictions or medical history etc etc etc.

It's always the same with these dreadful cases, everyone gets very upset and comes up with ideas of how to stop it happening again, then time passes, everyone gets on with their lives and nothing changes.

I used to work with the One Database, which I thought was a very good system.

I could access the lower ranges of it (education professional) - other professionals had higher access. Very few people in the locality overall had access - doctors, police, social workers, EWOs, the locality team. It was ideal - I could put in contact with parents, actions I was taking etc and Health, the police etc could see this. It also had the benefit of a very clear paper trail.

Although in theory people could have looked at the wrong bit, there would have been a record of that and you'd have a heck of a lot of explaining to do and probably a lost job - much like the worry people have about doctors' receptionists, I suppose.

Tories binned it, of course

I used to work with the One Database, which I thought was a very good system. This sounds ideal. Why the fuck was it binned?

Because people (and they probably had a point) were worried about confidentiality and 'Big Brother' - nanny state, all that. It was a popular move on the Tories' part, binning it. I think it was a mistake - yes, it wasn't a perfect system, but where people are involved there never will be a perfect system. But it was better than where we are now.

I was shocked that the non bio 'mum' worked with small children at one point. Can you imagine realizing that she had had contact with your child? It beggars belief.

I feel so sorry for the other children too. Those poor kids will need years of support and psychological care.