A child in need

Published on Saturday 15 November 2008 18:42

THE little details were the most heartbreaking. The ripped off fingernails. The bite marks to the head. The way in which, when approached by his brutal stepfather, the 17-month-old would automatically touch his nose to the floor in an attempt to stave off another beating.

Even in a world where child abuse is practically endemic, where a grim litany of youngsters have fallen through society's safety net and died at the hands of their parents, the death of Baby P in the London borough of Haringey has shocked the country to its core.

In his short life, the baby – known to some as 'Smiley' – had been repeatedly punched, kicked and thrown around like a rag doll. At the time of his death he had eight broken ribs, a broken back, bite marks to his head and a deep tear to one of his earlobes, perhaps caused when someone tried to lift him up by the ears.

Worse, Baby P was not the child of stressed-out parents who had lashed out in frustration, but the victim of systematic torture carried out by a man who took pleasure in a baby's pain and a mother who failed to stop him. Yet social workers, health visitors and doctors – who visited him more than 60 times – failed to pick up on the degree of danger he was in or act to protect him.

Like so many children before him – Danielle Reid, Tiffany Wright, Khyra Ishaq and, of course, Victoria Climbie, who died in the same borough seven years earlier – Baby P was failed not only by his guardians, but by society at large and the professionals paid to root out and protect those at risk.

As his mother, her lover, and their 36-year-old lodger Jason Owen await sentencing for their part in Baby P's death, the tragedy has provoked unprecedented national soul-searching – the fact that details emerged during Children In Need week added to the poignancy.

The verdict has also prompted four separate inquiries and angry clashes in the Commons. Several ministers, including former health secretary Patricia Hewitt, have come under fire for failing to respond to the concerns of whistleblower Nevres Kamal, who, months before Baby P's death, had written to them claiming Haringey's children's services had failed to get its act together in the wake of the Climbie scandal, and insisting children were still knowingly being placed in danger.

But the problem is by no means confined to Haringey. On Thursday, two more inquiries were launched in Manchester when 21-year-old Jael Mullings was sectioned under the Mental Health Act after her sons Romario, two, and Delayno, three months, were found stabbed to death at her home. Mullings is said to have tried to abandon the older child at the A&E department of her local hospital in June 2007 and then again at a GP's surgery in November, yet social workers closed their files, saying she was capable of looking after the children with the support of agencies. "She was a lovely girl, but everyone said she needed help and she never got it," said neighbour Melissa Bell.

Closer to home a report into child protection services in Aberdeen found serious failings and suggested many children – particularly those with drug-abusing parents – were still at risk. So what drives someone to ignore the most basic human instincts and torture a toddler? Are we as a society failing to ensure the safety of our most vulnerable children, putting parents' rights before the welfare of youngsters? Or do horror stories like the tale of Baby P distort the picture? And is carrying out a raft of inquiries likely to improve the situation – or merely create another layer of bureaucracy until the next horrific case comes along?

Although in the midst of last week's hysteria some cautioned against scapegoating, the sheer scale of the failings in the Baby P case suggests there's something seriously amiss in the London borough of Haringey. A brief look at Baby P's mother's volatile background – and her history of post-natal depression – should have been enough to start alarm bells ringing in the wake of his birth. The 27-year-old – herself the daughter of an alcoholic – had moved in with her son's father when she was just 17. By the time she fell pregnant with Baby P in 2005, however, the relationship was already falling apart and the couple split when he was four months old.

By that time, she had already hooked up with her 32-year-old lover – a knife-obsessed sadist who collected Nazi memorabilia, who is known to have cut up live animals as a child and was once investigated for torturing his own grandmother in an attempt to force her to change her will. Within weeks, the illiterate odd-job man moved in and began using the toddler as a punchbag. But, throughout his campaign of violence, Baby P's mother convinced social services there was no-one else living in the house.

Baby P was first referred to social services in December 2006 when he was admitted to hospital with a two-inch bruise across his forehead and further bruises to his chest and shoulder. His mother and grandmother were arrested on suspicion of assault and he was put on Haringey's child protection register. But the investigation proved inconclusive and, on January 26 last year, he was returned to his mother – against police advice.

In March, when social worker Maria Ward noticed a red mark on Baby P's face, she claimed he had hit his head on a side table and "bruised easily". Then, the following month, just after his first birthday, he was admitted to hospital again, this time with a large swelling and bruises on his head.

Once more his mother made excuses, Baby P was handed back and Ward recorded she had "no concerns". When the mother missed appointments with her health visitor in June, she was told to take Baby P to hospital for a child protection order check-up, where doctors reported 12 separate areas of bruising and scratches, including a 'grip mark' on his leg. His mother was arrested a further time on suspicion of assault, but, astonishingly, she was allowed to take her son home and continued to miss check-ups. Police twice asked for cross-agency meetings, but, in the week before Baby P's death, Haringey's lawyers said there was not enough information to begin care proceedings.

By now, Owen had moved in with the family, together with his three children and his 15-year-old girlfriend. He later revealed how four days before Baby P's death, the child's mother and stepfather smeared his face, hands and clothes with chocolate and nappy cream so Ward would not see his injuries. The day before he died, Baby P's mother was told police would not be pursuing the abuse allegations. Within hours, he had suffered a fatal blow to the head.

Police who searched the house found dog mess and human faeces on the floor and rat holes burrowed into the walls. Dead mice, chicks and pornography were found strewn around the place. But the fact that the child's violent and malevolent stepfather had been living in the home for the past nine months was a complete surprise to the authorities. The discovery, fatally, came far too late.

As details of Baby P's suffering emerged from the trial of the stepfather and Owen (the mother had pleaded guilty) the Government was besieged by calls for heads to roll. Tory leader David Cameron was among those who called for sackings at Haringey (so far two social workers and a lawyer have had written warnings, but no-one has lost their job), while Mor Dioum, of the Victoria Climbie Foundation, said: "For no-one to take responsibility for the lost opportunities to save Baby P is a betrayal of him and everyone who relies on these people."

But who should carry the can for the failings that have been uncovered? And is it really possible to create a fool-proof system to prevent similar errors in the future? On an individual level, of course, there were huge errors of judgment: paediatrician Dr Sabah Al-Zayyat failed to carry out a full examination on Baby P two days before his death because he was "miserable and cranky"; Ward accepted at face value Baby P's mother's assertion that there was no-one else living in her home; while the lawyers who insisted the appropriate threshold for the toddlers' removal had not been reached, also clearly erred.

As last week unfolded, it became clear that problems in the Haringey Council's children's services department were deep-rooted, well-known and completely ignored. Allegations that whistleblower Kamal's warnings had gone unheeded were followed by news that an 2007 Ofsted report had given Haringey children's services department a glowing report, even though it had known about Baby P's death and the revelation that the local ombudsman had dealt with 115 complaints about Haringey social workers since Climbie's death. Under fire from all sides, children's secretary Ed Balls ordered a review of children's welfare services in the borough by Ofsted, the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection and the Chief Inspector of Constabulary.

But there are many analysts who believe the problems besetting child protection go far beyond London and are as much the fault of central and local government as frontline workers. The problem, they say, is that the sheer scale of the problem is not being acknowledged. "Dedicated professionals successfully protect thousands of children every year, but frankly they are being overwhelmed by the scale of child abuse," said Wes Cuell of the NSPCC.

As a profession, social work is under-valued and under-resourced, turnover is high and morale is often low. In many London boroughs – including Haringey – vacancy levels stand at 30%, and, although recruitment problems in Scotland are not so severe, it is still regarded as a Cinderella service. "When you think that many of those who qualify in social work will have studied for six years – around the same time as a doctor or lawyer – and that they will be making life and death decisions, then the financial rewards are not high," says Doctor Joe Francis of Edinburgh University's school of social work.

The pressures are enormous, and social workers have often struggled to explain split-second decisions they made that allowed a child to remain with an abusive family. It is claimed social workers may be susceptible to "disguised compliance" where the parent pretends to co-operate, while continuing to put the child at risk. There are political pressures, too. Some of those who work in the field believe a resistance to state interference in family life combined with a drive to keep children out of the care system is what's putting youngsters in jeopardy.

To be fair, both of these approaches are underpinned by genuine concerns. The Cleveland, Orkney and Ayrshire scandals – where hundreds of children were snatched from innocent parents in dawn raids on their homes – looms large on the collective conscience and cautions against the removal of children without compelling evidence. And – as far as the care system is concerned – there's a wealth of evidence to suggest "looked after" children fare badly in later life.

Yet Kathleen Marshall, the Children's Commissioner for Scotland, believes social workers should be encouraged to "interfere" when appropriate. She wants to ensure children's rights to survival and development come first, to "make sure that it is understood there are times when early interference is absolutely appropriate, especially when you are talking about under-threes who can't speak for themselves". Marshall also said she felt an emphasis on developing working partnerships with parents might also be impacting on social workers' judgment. "The message that goes out to workers is that it's the partnership with the parents that's the priority, where you have to balance that by saying there are cases where you really have to have to act," she said.

Victoria Climbie's death in 2000 (she too was the victim of frequent and sustained attacks, in her case by an aunt and her lover) was supposed to mark a watershed in child protection in the UK.

The Laming report into what went wrong made 17 recommendations about how to improve information-sharing. Professor Susan White, of Lancaster University, who has studied everyday practice in five authorities in England and Wales, believes the Integrated Children's System – a data system introduced as a direct result of Laming – has pushed social work towards a tick box and form-filling exercise. White says social workers are now spending 60-80% of their time in front of computers.

"Walking into a social work office now is like walking into a call centre," she says. "It used to be that people would come back from visits and discuss what they had seen – and that was an important part of the process – but now they just get on their computers and start typing. You can see how the priorities in the Baby P case were all wrong. I'm sure the team did get a three-star rating, but they still had a dead baby on their hands."

The Laming recommendations have had less impact in Scotland, but it, too, has had its fair share of children who have fallen through the safety net, triggering high-profile inquiries. Three-year-old Kennedy McFarlane, from Dumfries, died in 2000 after a blow from her mother's boyfriend caused her to smash into the leg of a bed. The following year, baby Caleb Ness, from Edinburgh, was killed after being released from hospital into the care of his brain-damaged father, who had previous convictions for violence and drug dealing and his drug-addicted mother Shirley Malcolm.

Yet last year an HMIE report said children in Edinburgh were still being left in high-risk situations rather than being removed from their home. Their plight of children with drug-addicted parents was underlined in the most horrific way by the death of Scott Saunders in 2002. The two-year-old who was born into a family of drug addicts in Rutherglen, South Lanarkashire, was deprived of food and water, beaten and sedated. He spent the last week of his life screaming at the window of his home and died of pneumonia after being locked up naked in an unheated room for days.

First Minister Alex Salmond insists action to tackle the inadequacies of child protection – particularly in relation to children with addict parents – is underway in Aberdeen, but is it any wonder we have a bleak sense of dj vu?

The murder rate for babies in Britain has plunged over the last quarter of a century and now ranks as one of the lowest in the world. New research published last month calculated the infant homicide rate in England and Wales at just 17 in a million at the turn of the millennium, fully 74% lower than 25 years before. Scotland has routinely recorded slightly higher infant homicide rates than England and Wales. The World Health Organisation, however, in 2003 found Scotland and England both lagged behind other major European democracies in figures for violent, accidental and unexplained deaths of infants. America's child murder rate is twice that of Britain's. These figures, however, cannot become an excuse for complacency.

Court restrictions on publishing pictures of Baby P were lifted on Friday. In one photograph, taken at about a year old, he raises his brilliant blue eyes towards the camera with a faint, slightly crooked smile. Looking at his chubby features, it is almost impossible to imagine that just seven months later he would be shaven-headed, bruised and emaciated.

Last week, Baby P's natural father spoke for the first time about his love for his "bouncing and affectionate" boy. Yet even as Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged to do his best to ensure such a tragedy never occurs again, there were those who doubted that it was possible to come up with a failsafe solution. "Sadly there will be those who will continue to kill and seriously harm children," said Maggie Atkinson, president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services. "Not every tragedy can be prevented, but we must continue to strive to do so – we owe this child and those who loved him that much."