Child Protection. Freda Briggs

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СКАЧАТЬ collapse. An inquiry found that inter-agency coordination was “ineffective” and social workers had not acted with “due urgency”³¹.

      In 2002 at Plaidstow, East London, Ainlee Labonte, aged two, was starved and tortured to death. The toddler had 64 scars on her body when she died and weighed only half the normal weight for her age. An inquiry found that health and social workers failed to intervene because they were afraid of the parents³².

      Massive media publicity following the death of 8-year-old Victoria Climbié (2000) led to yet another government inquiry and the greatest changes to child protection policies. Victoria died from hypothermia and 128 injuries after months of horrific abuse. Her great-aunt, Marie Thérèse Kouao, and Ghanian partner, Carl Manning, were jailed for life. Victoria, the fifth of seven children, was sent from Africa’s Ivory Coast to live with her aunt in France for a better chance in life. Victoria travelled to Paris on a false passport in November 1998³³. The abuse began immediately. Her school issued a “child-at-risk notification” and a social worker became involved. Kouao fled to London in April 1999 after she was found to have wrongly claimed £2,000 in child welfare benefits. Over the next two months, she visited Ealing social services fourteen times seeking housing and financial assistance. Staff noticed the child’s injuries but did nothing. Kouao found work as a cleaner leaving Victoria with an unregistered minder. She met bus driver Carl Manning when she boarded his bus and went to live with him in his one-bedroom flat. The abuse of Victoria then increased³⁴.

      On June 18th 1999, a relative reported Victoria’s injuries and said she feared for the girl’s life³⁵. She rang again a few days later, and gained the impression that social services were dealing with the case. They were not³⁶. Three weeks later, social workers visited Victoria’s address, but there was no reply and no further action was taken^37,38. On July 13th 1999, Kouao asked the unregistered carers to accommodate Victoria permanently because Manning did not want her in his flat. When the carers saw her injuries, they took her to hospital. Doctors alerted police and social workers and she was detained under a police protection order. Despite the family history, paediatrician Dr Ruby Schwartz accepted Kouao’s explanation that the child had injured herself while scratching scabies. Schwarz allegedly made the diagnosis without speaking to the child alone³⁹. A ripple effect followed; a junior doctor informed social services that child abuse was not involved⁴⁰, and child protection officer Michelle Hine downgraded Victoria’s level of care⁴¹. Both Schwartz and Hine later told the inquiry that they expected social services to follow up the case although they had given the “all clear” message. Police officer, Rachel Dewar, then allowed Victoria to return home. By law, the police officer was obliged to tell Victoria that she was under police protection, but she failed to interview her or Kouao and Manning⁴². Kouao took Victoria home on July 15th 1999. Nine days later the child was hospitalised with severe scalding to her head and other injuries. There was no evidence of scabies. Consultant Mary Rossiter suspected that Victoria had been abused but recorded “able to discharge” ⁴³. Another doctor said that Victoria was exhibiting signs of neglect, emotional and physical abuse. Rossiter said she expected police and social services to investigate the case and “discharge” did not mean that Victoria must be sent home. Two African social workers were assigned to the case but failed to make a visit because they heard that the child had scabies and were frightened that they might be infected. The inquiry also heard that Police Constable Karen Jones failed to inspect Victoria’s home for fear of catching scabies from furniture. When they eventually met Kouao, workers accepted her explanation that the child’s injuries (including scalds) were self-inflicted⁴⁴.

      From October 1999 to January 2000, Manning forced Victoria to sleep on a garbage bag in the bath in her own excrement. By this time a number of workers were involved, none of whom saw the child. Kouao then took her to the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God claiming that she was possessed by the devil. Pastors recognised the abuse but didn’t report it. On February 24th 2000, when Victoria was semi-conscious and suffering from hypothermia, multiple organ failure and malnutrition, the mother caIled a cab to take her back to the church. The driver was so horrified by her condition that he took her to the hospital. She died the next day which was the day planned for the church ceremony to cast out her devils⁴⁵. The inquest found 128 separate injuries and scars, cigarette burns, evidence of being tied up for more than 24 hours, hit with bike chains, hammers and wires and the pathologist described it as “the worst case of child abuse I’ve ever encountered”⁴⁶. Victoria’s plight was known to four social services and three housing departments, two child protection police teams, two hospitals, an NSPCC* centre, and a few local churches, all of whom noted abuse and did nothing to prevent her death. The trial judge described this as “blinding incompetence”. A public inquiry found that there had been at least 12 opportunities for protection agencies to have saved her life and none did⁴⁷.

      Administrators revealed that child protection services were under-staffed, under-funded, and poorly managed. A chief executive conceded that her department was “seriously defective”, that many cases were closed inappropriately, that children were placed unaccompanied in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, and children in need of care were turned away⁴⁸. Child protection had a low priority in funding and Haringey Council diverted £18.7m to more popular projects to gain votes while Brent Council diverted £26m. Both authorities under-spent their budgets for children’s services by £28m and Haringey Council admitted failing to assign social workers to 109 abused children in May 1999. The CEO had restructured the department which, according to the union, paralysed child protection services⁴⁹.

      You would have thought that all the local authorities in the country would have put their child protection services in order after Lord Laming’s (2003) 400 page damning report that made 108 recommendations for child protection reform⁵⁰. The report led to the introduction of Every Child Matters: Change for Children, a framework to improve the lives of all children; the introduction of the Children Act 2004 51, that provided the legislative base for reform; the creation of ContactPoint, a database that would hold information on all children in England and Wales; and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner with a Commissioner for Children. Regional and local committees for children and families were to be set up, with members from all groups involved in child protection⁵². Each local authority managed their own child protection register and no national register existed; this, combined with their tendency to suppress information about child abuse cases, led to the recommendation to establish a national database. Two organisations to improve the care of children, the General Social Care Council and the Social Care Institute for Excellence, had already been set up by the time the report was published.

       ^{* National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children}

      The reforms introduced by the Every Child Matters: Change for Children paper were expected to be in place by 2008. Before the year ended however, the horrendous death of “Baby P*” (Peter ConnoIly) exploded into the media⁵³. It became clear that changes to government policies do not necessarily translate into changes in practice. In 2007 and 2009, the British public was shocked yet again by the brutal death of the toddler and the trial of his mother and her partner Steven Barker (aged 33). Baby Peter was born to Tracey ConneIly on March 1st 2006. Barker then moved in with her. In December, a GP noticed bruises on Peter’s face and chest. His mother was arrested and Peter was put into the care of a family friend, returning home a few weeks later. Over the next few months, Peter was admitted to hospital twice suffering from injuries, bruises, scratches and sweIlings on his head. ConneIly was arrested again in May 2007⁵⁴. In June 2007, a social worker again observed signs of abuse and informed police. A medical examination confirmed abuse and the baby was placed with a friend. On August 1st 2007, Peter was examined at St. Ann’s Hospital in North London by locum paediatrician Dr Sabah Al-Zayyat⁵⁵. Two days later, he was dead. The post-mortem concluded that the doctor failed to notice more than 50 injuries, a broken spine, eight fractured ribs and the fact that Peter was paralysed from the waist down^56,57. He was punched so hard that he swaIlowed a tooth⁵⁸. His СКАЧАТЬ