Child Protection. Freda Briggs

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СКАЧАТЬ Daniel “to stop him crying”. What shocked policy makers and the community was that just before his murder, Daniel saw 21 professionals – including GPs and doctors at the children’s hospital and, but only briefly, a teacher. When Daniel was taken to a doctor, with bruising around the eye, forehead and scalp, the doctor “ignored the obvious” and ordered blood tests to check if he had some rare blood disorder.

      When Daniel and his mother visited the primary school attended by his sister, a teacher noticed his blank expression, unresponsiveness and listlessness. She asked: “What’s the matter with you, mate?” When describing his response, she said, “He just stared into space … didn’t say a word. He didn’t even acknowledge I was there or that I had touched him. He didn’t close his eyes, he didn’t move his face. He didn’t do anything …” Five days later, Daniel was dead. Apart from one anonymous call to the after-hours Child Protection Service, no one acted to protect the toddler. Shocked policy-makers concluded that the voluntary system of reporting child abuse didn’t work and mandatory reporting laws were introduced.

      There is powerful evidence that media can influence change by publicising disturbing details of serious cases of child abuse, igniting public anger and apportioning blame to those responsible. However, unless authorities provide funding to employ a sufficient number of workers and unless those workers have been well prepared for communicating with children and have a sound knowledge of child abuse and child development, deaths will continue to occur. Nowhere has this been more evident than in England.

      The influence of media on government policy became most apparent following the death of 7 year old, Maria Colwell. Maria was fostered at an early age and her carers described her as a happy, normal little girl. Her case-workers insisted on family reunification however and, against the child’s wishes, she was returned to her mother and partner, William Kepple¹⁶. He had children of his own and blatantly discriminated against Maria¹⁷. Many abuse reports were made by neighbours and teachers but, although she appeared to be “a walking skeleton”, social services forced her to remain with Kepple¹⁸. On January 6th 1973 she was wheeled in a pram to a hospital suffering from brain damage and severe internal injuries. She died that day¹⁹. Aggressive media coverage led to a government inquiry²⁰. It was learned that numerous professionals were aware of the child’s plight but did nothing. Years later, her name remains etched in public consciousness and it is invariably invoked when similar deaths are exposed.

      An inquiry resulted in the introduction of a different system of child abuse management²¹. It aimed to put mechanisms in place for information to be shared by key professionals and ensure that they had the knowledge to recognise child abuse. Coordination between services was the key issue, social service departments were the “lead agencies” and social workers were the statutory professionals responsible for coordinating and operating the system. Area committees would coordinate the work and create policies and procedures for handling cases where children were at risk of abuse. Case conferences would enable professionals to share information, decide what actions to take and monitor progress. When a child protection plan was required the child would be placed on a register which could be consulted by other professionals.

      Subsequent inquiries showed that the recommendations were ignored. Within a decade there were 29 additional inquiries into horrendous deaths at the hands of mothers and/or their male partners²². These received considerable media attention focussing on the continued failure of the child protection system and inadequately trained case workers²³. Furthermore, it was noted that workers responded to the wishes of parents instead of focussing on the needs and safety of children. Parents are more articulate and more demanding than children and in some cases, workers had neither seen nor communicated with child victims.

      The intensity of political and media concern increased in the mid-1980s leading to government inquiries into the deaths of Jasmine Beckford (1985), Tyra Henry (1987), and Kimberley Carlile (1987), all of whom were under the watch of London social services. For the final months of her life Jasmine Beckford was chained to a bed in a tiny attic. She died from a savage blow that dislodged her brain. The pathologist noted 40 other injuries including 20 broken bones. The childhood histories of both parents made it unlikely that they would have sound parenting skills. Maurice Beckford was left in Jamaica when his parents emigrated to England. He joined them at the age of nine and was clearly unwanted. He slept in a freezing cold out-house and was so badly beaten by both parents that they were prosecuted. He was then sent to a special school where he met Jasmine’s mother. She had been abandoned when she was six-months old.

      Beckford previously came to notice when he was charged with criminally injuring Jasmine’s five-month-old half-sister Louise. He received a suspended sentence and a £250 fine. Three days after Louise was hospitalised, 18-month-old Jasmine was admitted with a broken femur and was detained for six weeks. They were placed in foster care but five months later, a case conference decided that both girls should return to their parents’ care. In July 1984, the mother found Beckford carrying Jasmine’s dead body. She had been dead for some time. The post-mortem findings were seven pages long and revealed an appalling catalogue of abuse. After breaking Jasmine’s leg, Beckford pinned her to a bed with body-building weights to stop movement. When he eventually hit her so hard on the head that she died, he tried to revive her with electric shocks from a piece of flex attached to a plug. When that failed, he refused to call an ambulance. He put her body into his sister-in-law’s car to drive to the hospital²⁴.

      In 1984, 21-month-old Tyra Henry died after being battered by her father while she was officially in the care of the local authority. A report showed that social workers distanced themselves from the parents for cultural reasons. Following substantial media coverage, new guidelines were published for the handling of child abuse cases²⁵. However, in 1984, Heidi Koseda starved to death in a locked room in West London. Another inquiry found that the NSPCC officer assigned to the case failed to investigate reports of abuse and later tried to conceal his negligence with fictitious accounts of visits to the child²⁶.

      In 1986, 4-year-old Kimberley Carlile starved and was beaten to death in Greenwich. Her stepfather, Nigel Hall, received a life-sentence and her mother, a 12-year sentence. The inquiry found that Kimberley’s death was avoidable and key social and health workers failed to apply the necessary skill, judgment and care²⁷.

      In 1987, Doreen Mason died after her mother and boyfriend bruised, burnt and broke the 16-month-old baby’s leg. She slept on the floor where the couple left junk food for her to eat. Importantly, the baby had been on the “at risk” register from birth. A report said her social worker was inexperienced and had no training or supervision²⁸.

      In 1992, Leanne White, aged three, was beaten to death by her stepfather who also made her sleep on the floor. Leanne suffered 107 external injuries and died of internal bleeding and repeated blows to the stomach. An inquiry concluded that her death could have been prevented if social services had responded to reports made by her grandmother and neighbours.

      In 1994, 6-year-old Rikki Neave was found strangled by his coat zipper. His drug-dependent mother was jailed after admitting the abuse of Rikki and two of his three sisters. She hit them, burned them, threw them across the room and locked them outside. Importantly, Neave had pleaded with successive social workers to remove her son, threatening that she would kill him if they didn’t. A report criticised senior social services managers²⁹.

      In 1999, Chelsea Brown, aged two, was battered to death by her father who already had a criminal record for violence against children. The case-worker visited the family 27 times in the 10 weeks preceding her death. She took Chelsea to a paediatrician who said that six out of nine areas of bruising “had no plausible explanation” and one was obviously deliberately inflicted. These findings should have triggered police involvement and a case conference (as required by regulations) but nothing happened³⁰.

      In 2000, 6-year-old Lauren Wright was found dead СКАЧАТЬ