Don’t give up on allthe other Declans

PERHAPS the saddest thing about the photographs of toddler Declan Hainey’s squalid, rubbish-strewn home is that in among the rotting milk cartons, the empty vodka bottles, the cigarette ends and the soiled, months-old nappies are glimmers of the life he might have led; dinky little outfits on hangers, their labels still attached, unworn stripey socks and slippers and one of those swinging seats used to rock a crying baby off to sleep.

So what were the obstacles that stood in the way of his realising this alternative, sunny existence with a mother once thought of as capable and loving? Heroin? Almost certainly. Mental illness? Most likely. A reluctance to interfere? Perhaps. And, as always, a system so clogged up with dysfunctional families it’s impossible to help them all, or to assess which one poses the greatest danger.

As we now know, by the time these photographs were taken, 15-month-old Declan had been dead six months, his body left to rot in his sheetless cot, his mother’s sense of right and wrong so warped by drink and drugs, she pretended he was still alive, and sold his clothes and toys to fund her habit. Last week, Kimberley Hainey was jailed for a minimum of 15 years for her son’s murder, but the most important questions remain unanswered. How could a child die like this in the 21st century? And – as with Victoria Climbie, Baby P and countless others – how are we going to stop it happening again?

If you take Declan’s case in isolation, it is impossible to understand how he could have slipped through the net. Given the appalling circumstances into which he was born, red lights should have been flashing all over the place. Hainey was a long-term heroin addict, who had met Declan’s father while they were both in-patients in Dykebar mental hospital in Paisley and fallen pregnant soon after. Her partner was never interested. Asked at her trial how supportive he had been, he was brutally frank. He had never seen Declan, hadn’t contributed financially, didn’t know when his birthday was. His son, he agreed, was not a priority for him.

And then there was Hainey’s isolation. Moving into a house of her own, pushing friends and relatives away, failing to turn up for health visitors’ appointments. OK so she was plausible, always providing a reasonable excuse for her son’s absence, ready with an anecdote about what was happening at his nursery. But she was staying out all night, her breath smelled of alcohol and her family hadn’t seen Declan for ten months. With Hainey’s history, shouldn’t someone have seen the signs?

They should. But when you set it in context, it isn’t really so surprising they didn’t. Safe in our middle-class bubble, we may convince ourselves that chaotic lifestyles like Hainey’s are rare, but in some parts of the country they’re ten a penny. The latest figures suggest 65,000 children in Scotland now live with drink or drug-addicted parents, with 18,000 of them at risk. Those who say they should be removed from their homes are missing the point; even if sticking them in care was the best way forward, we’d need to build hundreds of homes to house them all.

The best that hard-pressed child protection agencies can do is to keep checking such parents continue to provide a basic level of care. But it isn’t easy. Hainey’s health visitor had 320 other cases to deal with and, for the first year of her son’s life, Hainey did seem to be a good enough mother. On a methadone programme, with a support network around her, she presumably appeared to present no more of a risk than many and (with no history of violence) a good deal less than some. It is, after all, only when a child actually dies, that you can say with absolute authority: “Of course, that’s the family we should have been watching out for.”

Last week, a report suggested one in five children in Scotland are living in poverty, with one family in two struggling to keep the house warm and put food on the table in some parts of Glasgow. And, while no-one is suggesting financial hardship is inextricably linked to neglect on the scale Declan Hainey faced, studies by the NSPCC suggest children in poorer households (particularly those in which the parents have split up) are significantly more likely to face abuse.

The danger is that, as the problem spirals and resources dwindle, we will see a shift from zero tolerance to harm reduction. Last year, Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service asked teachers to encourage children of drug and drink-addicted parents to leave a snack out for them at night, to discourage them from cooking while under the influence. That’s sound advice, given how many fires are caused by unattended chip pans, but is this the best we can do to help vulnerable young people whose parents are failing to look after them?

Given the scale of neglect, it must be tempting to throw in the towel; to say we can’t turn back the tide, let’s try to limit the damage to the worst affected. But we must keep fighting to eradicate, not merely contain, the risk posed by drink, drugs and deprivation. Not only because if we don’t, the problems will multiply with each generation, but because every child deserves more than just a glimmer of what their life could be. «

[email protected]