Logan Mwangi

Referring to the 14-year-old defendant, Ms Rees said: "The prosecution say his young age was no object to his involvement in the death and cover up, in which we say he took full part

The victim's mother Angharad Williamson, 30, her partner John Cole, 40, and a 14-year-old boy who cannot be named because of his age are on trial accused of murder.

If the 14 year old is old enough to take part in a murder, he is old enough to be named.

Murderers of other children should not receive protection because they are children themselves.

Lessons are being learned, but these people change their tactics; covid was a clever one to prevent access. And social services never get credited for their successes, because they are unseen, only hounded for their failures.

I would expect professionals who are trained in safeguarding to be aware that abusers will block access.

Parenting and contraception as a core subject in all primary and secondary schools.

This may be very naive, but would it help if unwanted children could be handed to care homes with no follow-up unless the parents/carers wanted it?

I don't know how much of child cruelty is born of sadism, and how much is that the family can't cope, or that the child is (for whatever reason) unwanted. It seems that it's not uncommon for the victim to be one of a number of children, the rest of whom are not affected.

If the family could 'get rid of' the unwanted child, awful though that is, might it save more suffering and young lives?

I've said that for years Doodledog. If you don't want them, let someone else have them. The only reason they don't must be because they enjoy harming the child.
I can just imagine how people feel who for one reason or another can't have children, when they read about this abuse.

The lessons learned should be that children need removing from abusive and inadequate parents much, much sooner. They are left in the care of their parents in the hope that, with support, things will improve. If lack of proper care is a concern, the children should be removed, strange away.

I don't think it is fair to say the buck stops with social workers and to blame them. They are often doing their best with heavy caseloads and of course we don't learn of their successes, only the cases that go sadly wrong.

I think its entirely fair to question what was done to safeguard children who are under the watch of the agency whose job it is to do just that.

Take note of what Iam64 says

There is a desperate shortage of social workers, especially experienced staff.

This is a consequence of political decisions to cut Local Authority spending to the bone, and beyond. These decisions feed into people's daily lives and the deaths of vulnerable children are part of it.

Yet I wonder how many of those lamenting yet another poor child's death would be indignant about increased spending on social workers? And support parties which inflict the cuts?

The parents of children who are being abused can be very devious and possibly quite intimidating in preventing social workers actually seeing the child. Much better communication between different agencies is needed and any concerns need to be acted upon quickly. This might mean a Police Officer visiting with a social worker. Yes more resources are needed but blaming social workers or lack of resources solely for the horrific deaths of children is forgetting the actual people who committed the crime which in many cases is family members.

I have taken note of it, and it doesn't change my opinion at all.

If a social worker is engaged with a family, then what they so in the time they spend with them can make all the difference.

Hence the services being found after investigations (usually) to have missed opportunities to protect the children.
Hence, baby P's mum being asked to write an essay about her dreams and aspirations.

No one is defending poor practice. Given the views about s.w expressed here - who would encourage their child to go into the work?

Exactly, poor practice is very different from an understaffed, overworked agency missing a cue, or a child slipping through the net of red tape.
Sustained abuse of a child is rightly something to be questioned, and accounted for.

MissAdventure

Exactly, poor practice is very different from an understaffed, overworked agency missing a cue, or a child slipping through the net of red tape.
Sustained abuse of a child is rightly something to be questioned, and accounted for.

OK. Understaffing has nothing at all to do with poor practice... I get it ?

mumofmadboys

I don't think it is fair to say the buck stops with social workers and to blame them. They are often doing their best with heavy caseloads and of course we don't learn of their successes, only the cases that go sadly wrong.

I agree. Interestingly, I have was having a discussion with a person involved in visiting children in their homes, just this very morning, and she said that due to lack of funding and properly qualified experienced staff, the bar for intervention was being lowered all the time. Filthy houses, heavy smoking parents, 'accidental' bruising were not reasons for reporting concerns, so cases like this, and of Star and Arthur would not even make the list as the children appeared to be well fed, clothed, and living in a cared for home. We blame the wrong people if we blame social workers and social care departments, we should be blaming those political parties who withdraw funding for Sure start centres, and force local authorities to lower the bar so far for referrals.

Agree, disagree, roll your eyes.
No skin off my nose.
I work in a sector that is chronically understaffed and underpaid.

I don't abuse anybody though, and I know the signs to be aware of.
Standard practice.

I haven’t read the details of this case and I’m not sure I want to, though I remember the wee boy going missing.

My dd runs services for schools in a LA in Scotland and during lockdown she and her team managed to keep tabs on almost all their At Risk children, getting them into school and making sure they were fed and generally keeping them safe.

Unbelievably, her council was then taken to task and criticised by the Scottish government for spending too much money on these children! I cannot tell you how angry that made my daughter. She was working 17 hour days at the start of the pandemic to keep ‘her’ children safe and especially the vulnerable ones and then to be sh*t upon by our esteemed (not by me) leaders was just extraordinary.

No wonder these poor children die. ?

I remember when this case first happened and then it was the three of them that were accused of murdering that innocent little child.
That disgusting thing that does not even have the right to call herself a mother I hope the jail sentence is long and she rots in
hell forever tortured for the part she played in his death. Her partner and step father to the child I hope the same for him let him rot. The fourteen year old is the biological son of the step father he sounds a vicious depraved psycho and he should be locked up for long time.
All punishment is too good for them they are loathsome filthy scum of the earth not fit for any compassion or anything else. Wrap their bodies up in plastic and have them dumped right out at sea with no chance of survival dump them like rubbish which is what they done to that poor little boy.

M0nica

Curlywhirly in several recent cases parents and neighbours were reporting their fears and knowledge to Social Services and doing the other things you mention, but nobody took any notice of them.

Sadly this seems to be happening more and more. However, I'd be like a dog with a bone if it was my neighbour's child. I would get my local Councillor involved (having worked in Local Government all my life, I can tell you that usually gets Chief Officers attention, they don't half move if a Councillor gets involved), write to my MP, shout it from the Town Hall steps, anything to make the authorities re-visit the situation - I just couldn't let it lie.

I haven’t read if this child was being monitored by SS and if so for what reasons ?
I m sure it is the father 14 year old son 3nanny6 but as far as I m aware it hasn’t been made public knowledge that he is related although it certainly sticks out like a sore thumb that he is and was perhaps the instigator of the beating
What did that beautiful little boy ever do to deserve even one hit let alone the massive beating he took
I firmly believe in life meaning life.for these vicious, vicious people and that includes the 14 year old

MaizieD

MissAdventure

Exactly, poor practice is very different from an understaffed, overworked agency missing a cue, or a child slipping through the net of red tape.
Sustained abuse of a child is rightly something to be questioned, and accounted for.

OK. Understaffing has nothing at all to do with poor practice... I get it ?

I despair that so many say they shed tears for these children, talk about the revenge they’d like to take on the 3 responsible for murdering this little child, yet have no interest in why 2 children each week die at the hands of their carers

It’s not SWs who abuse the children, it’s the parents/step parents. The social workers can only work within the constraints of the job and unfortunately because of inadequate funding, children cannot be removed soon enough. That’s the nub of the problem.

My niece is a social worker specialising in child care. She left the service for a variety of reasons and now works on a freelance basis doing assessments prior to court cases. The SWs are underpaid, over worked and poorly supported.

Curlywhirly

M0nica

Curlywhirly in several recent cases parents and neighbours were reporting their fears and knowledge to Social Services and doing the other things you mention, but nobody took any notice of them.

Sadly this seems to be happening more and more. However, I'd be like a dog with a bone if it was my neighbour's child. I would get my local Councillor involved (having worked in Local Government all my life, I can tell you that usually gets Chief Officers attention, they don't half move if a Councillor gets involved), write to my MP, shout it from the Town Hall steps, anything to make the authorities re-visit the situation - I just couldn't let it lie.

Those actions don't help the people who actually have to do the work. There are too many cases of child abuse (and adult abuse) and not enough SWs to go around.