How can parents do this?

It's awful. I'm not brave enough to read it though. What can be done?

My heart goes out to the jurors.

Calistemon I think it is the way the system is now. All softly, softly approach. I can't remember which case it was because sadly, there are so many but some years ago a social worker calling at a house to check on the at-risk child who lived there was refused entry as the child was asleep and the social worker went away! Can't they insist of entry or get the police to accompany them? Sad to say this all came out when the child in question died at the hands of its parents. Nothing appears to change.

Yes, I realise that; friends had children who were 'accident prone' and I've been with them when accidents have happened.
I'm accident prone myself.
However, there is a difference between a bruise, a broken wrist in a healthy, robust child who has good interaction with a parent and these abused children.

But, like Daniel Pelka, starved, beaten and died 9 years ago, this boy was at school. Daniel's teacher knew he was starving but was hoodwinked by the wicked mother.

I could list cases I remember which people will have forgotten but I can never forget.
It happens time and again and lessons are never learned.

Yes I've read about some dreadful cases in the past which have stayed with me. I don't know why I read them.

sob

I can't even read it all. How come there was CCTV?

Poor poor lad

Some parents are I can't even write it

Where were the other four children while this was happening?
Were they younger, didn't realise?

After reading it and yes it’s heartbreaking but if we don’t know about these things and get moved by these things how can we ever know they are still happening or ever have the courage to help a child the social worker who dismissed the concerns needs to also be taken to task
The parents should rot in jail

I've found this story so distressing. Poor little boy, how could they do that? Truly evil. I couldn't read the whole article. I'm sure he's in a better place now.

Whole life sentences for each of them. They’ll have a dreadful time in prison. Child killers are the lowest of the low. Didn’t Ian Huntley lose an eye?

I don't think the proposed Daniel's Law was ever passed after the death of Daniel Pelka.
These two did not think mandatory reporting of signs of abuse was necessary:

Nick Clegg, then Deputy PM and Children and Families Minister Edward Timpson said mandatory reporting was "not the answer" to providing better protection for children against physical and emotional abuse and neglect.

So what is?

Clegg has gone on to more lucrative opportunities, Timpson is still an MP.
I doubt it has registered on their radar.

I can’t bring myself to read this either. Calistemon - I remember reading about Daniel Pelka one morning, in a cafe. It was horrendous in print and tears of anger and sadness ran down my cheeks.
Such evil in the World.

I can’t read it either, the headline and picture are enough for me.
It makes me think of all the other children who could be going through the same type of cruelty.

SS often seem to get it wrong! We hear too often of children being returned to abusive carers and what happens- the abuse is repeated ! In this case the child had not been taken into care and I am aware that social workers have to abide by rules- the rules must be changed.

It surprised me to see how apparently neat and tidy the house was. Somehow I expected squalor.

I can't bring myself to read it - it really makes me wonder about the human race.

Completely agree BlueBelle we need to read and be horrified so that we do something. We must have the courage to speak out and protect children.
Sometimes the authorities get it wrong which results in an uproar and creates a more softly softly approach.
Maybe it’s time the few mistakes become the collateral damage and not all the abused children.
I know there should be no collateral damage but life isn’t like that.

I couldn't read any of it, too upsetting; so obviously I don't know the details, only that it was horrific abuse. What I do know though is if one of my friends or a family member was abusing their child I would harangue the authorities day and night, shout it from the Town Hall steps if need be. If still nothing was done I would go to the house (easy enough to do if it was a friend or relative) and remove the child myself (probably get arrested, but it would certain highlight that something was dreadfully wrong). I just couldn't stand by a watch a child suffer day in, day out. Same with animals. I hate confrontation and am very easy going, but child or animal abuse just make my blood boil - no way could I keep my nose out.

Kate1949

My heart goes out to the jurors.

A good point Kate1949. I did jury service recently. While it wasn't as harrowing as this case (hard to think of anything that is), it did involve sexual abuse of a young child. The jury were given no preparation, warning or support. When you think of all the warnings given with TV programmes nowadays, I was quite shocked by the lack of support - we were basically given a leaflet with the Samaritans phone number on it and sent on our way!

It's absolutely haunting me, I couldn't read either, I know it's burying your head in the sand but if there was something I could do I certainly would. I always remember losing one of my children when out shopping - some idiot had seen my son toddle towards the doors of a shop and opened it for him! A security guard found him outside, I was a total wreck, I just don't know how people can hurt children.

Calistemon

Where were the other four children while this was happening?
Were they younger, didn't realise?

The article doesn't really say they moved into the home, it says the stepmother did - which vaguely suggests they stayed with their Father/s

I'm a bit boggled though that the child of a biological Mother arrested for murder and placed with the Father, wasn't followed up by social services after being placed there.

I think it's a bit unfair to blame the hairdresser. A lot of people are too frightened to speak out. I reported someone to social services recently (discretely via my daughter's social worker) but felt I might be labelled some sort of nosey parker but I felt I needed to do it but I've worked in support work and just felt I couldn't let it go iykwim

I have just cried watching this.
That poor unloved boy. He must have been so frightened and in anguish living with those monsters.

And that huge bruise over his left scapula?
‘Normal rough and tumble’ according to the social worker.
My arse.
That poor lad will have been in agony with that, never mind the mental trauma re-living how he got it in the first place.

Grandma took the photograph and tried to show it to the authorities but ‘they were not interested’ as she wasn’t the legal guardian.

WHAT?

That little boy had a voice.
Sadly nobody heard him. And then it was too late.

Daniel Pelka's mother killed herself in jail after two years of her thirty years sentence. His stepfather killed himself in jail six months after that.
His story was the case study on my recent safeguarding training course.

Who installed the cctv in their house? Social Services ?

Calistemon

^Katie1949. It was followed up by Social Services but the person that visited didn’t feel there was anything to worry about.^
I missed that too, tickingbird

Not fit for the job.
Another gullible person like those who sit on parole boards.

That is shocking if the grandmother and uncle were told that by a police officer. Another person not fit to hold down a job like that.

Yes, I know the vile parents are to blame but why are others so easily hoodwinked and frightened to act?

I remember a case year ago that my friend, a health visitor at the time, was asked to attend a child who continually had lice by the social worker.
She found the 7 year old was covered in bruises and called the social worker who said she didn't want to take th child away from her mother.
My friend called the police and they took the child into care.
As she was leaving the mother said to the health visitor that she was glad the police had taken the girl as she was going to kill her.