General Chat

That was starved to death, the picture of the poor little mite to me shows in his eyes crying out for help, that picture sticks in my mind, tragic. lost for words.

I'm afraid I'm with you McB on this the look in his eyes says it all and like you keep seeing it in my mind . Mother got 15 yrs in my opinion not long enough!

and they say "lessons must be learned" - makes my blood boil - back in the early seventies there was the case of little Maria Colwell - thngs like this must never happen again they said, and yet, year after year it keeps on happening

Sadly, it probably is Ann . . . now, at this moment, little, defenceless, children are suffering somewhere . . .

Adults who abuse or hurt children should be automatically either castrated or sterilized .......... human rights taken away from them

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,

The mother should be left in a cell to starve.

There's something in that McB eye for an eye ...Yep!

It must have been evident to many that this woman was an alcoholic who was not coping with the care of her family.

Unfortunately there is a convenient belief that all is well within a family even when it quite evidently is not.

the mother obviously had severe mental health problems and in spite of what she did, which no way am I condoning, she needed help too

I can't get that picture out of my mind either McB - those big sad eyes. How could people have looked at that child and not seen it?

I have personal experience of Social Services (and other agencies) being aware of a situation and doing nothing - thankfully it was sorted out but no thanks to SS! I know they are damned if they do and damned it they don't but these highlighted cases are really just the tip of the iceberg.

If, just as a member of the public, you see a child evidently being abused or neglected, there is never any guidance published as to how to report the problem or, better still, how to intervene.

Some very good posts on this thread. It has been a very disturbing case, but doubt it is as isolated as we think, or hope. There must be a way of teachers and neighbours flagging up problems to social services without any repercussions - and social services must intervene professionally.

In this case, I think it required a crack team to go into that house late in evening and take children into care and then investigate circumstances. Doubt all authorities have those sort of trained workers, but your average day social worker would have not wanted to deal with an alcoholic and plausible mother - and would have accepted what she said. Nobody visited from social services even though police were called 6 times for domestic affray and Miss Hutton missed atending doctor's appointments and was struck off from her local surgery.

The father apparently took that harrowing photo when boy was with him - and he said he was a happy little boy at time of photo. Does the little mite look happy :-0

I have lost count of how many children have died from neglect and abuse over the past 35 years, every time one of these tragic events happens. governments of all persuasions, local authorities, social workers, police, and others involved in the protection of vulnerable children, tell us this must not be allowed to happen again.

After every incident they all cosie up to each other and carry out what they call a serious case review, which in my opinion is nothing more than a blame passing exercise. After they have finished blaming each other. they tell us lessons have been learned and new procedures put in place to ensure that it does not happen again.

However. despite all their serious case reviews, it does happen again, time after time, and it is still happening, innocent children are dying as a result of neglect and abuse. We need action "NOW" not serious case reviews, enough is enough, learn lessons, stop blaming each other, and put a stop to the needles suffering and deaths of innocent children, protecting their interests are more important than protecting your own.

This may sound cruel, but surely where there is serious concern about the welfare and well being of a child, the protection of the child must come before all else, the child must be removed to a place of safety until such times as the concerns have been fully investigated and the concerns are either proven or not proven.

I admit that there have been cases where children have wrongly been taken into care, and that has been very distressing for everyone involved, that said, surely that risk is far better than allowing the possible risk of a child coming to serious harm and dying.

i am sorry to say
some child is been abused or neglected
and that child lives near us all

keep your eyes peeled and report if in doubt
you could be saving a child's life and childhood

those that say nothing are equally guilty :-( :-(

we once reported a tiny baby been left alone all night
we even went in and removed the baby one night
only for it to be returned to the mother the next day
nothing was done

RIP Jolene died age 10 months

I have removed my post and reported another post. Sorry, folks. But I posted a genuine post at 9.14am which I felt was supportive of the views expressed in Opening Post. And it had been a good thread up until then.

It still is, with OFITG and a couple of others posting.

this happens far to often, my heart goes out to the little lad,

but how can the authorities police everyone, they just havent got the resources too, so kiddies do slip thro the net and its wrong so wrong, :-(

Do Social Workers have the right to see a child or gain access to a property without a Court Order? We really need someone with current practical knowledge to give their views.

Over hearing a conversation, the young professional was telling her companion about her ‘shadowing’ experience. One child who she thought was not in danger was removed, another which she thought was, was left with the parent(s). When the SS worker was asked at what point the child would be removed, when was enough, enough, the worker refused to give an opinion.

We hear time after time that SS workers are over worked and don’t have the time to make follow up visits. There is a better chance of saving a child from its parents when it is old enough to go to school where it will be seen by teachers or its absence noted. Even then children can fall through the cracks like the little boy with Polish parents.

I agree with Ann, The Mother had problems and needed help to. But what is sticking in my claw is the Father who is now getting his bag of silver with the press, if he was that concerned then he too should of acted upon his concernes he also had an equal parental responsibility to his son ( sorry about spellings) . So before the social services get slated so should he.

I can recall a sort of safeguard - when my brother, my sister, and myself were children, up to the age we went to school what was called the District Nurse visited families with children under school age on a regular basis, mark you I am going back to the late 1940's early 1950's, do they still exist and if not, what happened to the old style District Nurses?