Logan Mwangi

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'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.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

Isn't it chilling to think that with their new identities, these people could be setting up home with parents of other children, babysitting, making decent, normal families part of their inner circle of friends...
It makes me totally, utterly sick.
We seem to be going backwards, never mind "learning lessons" in these matters.

The only thing learned is that you can torture a child to death and spend about 10 years incarcerated.

Curlywhirly

I can't read the story, too upsetting.
If children are being beaten/tortured, surely the neighbours must hear it? I'd just have to interfere - knock on the door, tell Children's Services, tell the police, record the arguments/crying, speak to the child, anything to find out what was going on and hopefully get it investigated.

My neighbour and I reported another neighbour many years ago to the NSPCC; her children had untreated injuries such as broken bones, burns etc. The three children still had some fight left in them because they locked her out of the house once but goodness knows what they went through afterwards. One child was adopted so social services must have been involved.

The thing was the mother looked so innocent and was very plausible.
We never knew the outcome as they did a moonlight flit.

What puzzles me is if they hadn't been discovered on CCTV throwing his poor body in the river how were these evil scumbags going to explain where he was. Do they ever think of the consequences of their actions ie what is going to happen to them or do they think they will get away with it. I'm fed up with these social workers failing to do their jobs properly because at the of the day the buck stops with them.

I bet th 14 year old will be out at 21 and given a new identity, probably to inflict his evil on his own children.

It beggars belief that we are so lenient in sentencing.

Sarnia

I agree with Maudi. The punishments these dreadful people deserve never fits the crime. When anyone takes another's life they should forfeit their own by serving a life sentence and I mean life, not a few measly years. This poor little lad must have suffered such pain at the hands of these 3 vicious people. I am not in favour of capital punishment but prison sentences need to be a deterrent and all this halving a criminal's sentence should stop.

I agree - the sentences meted out to those who murder small, innocent children do not fit the wicked crimes.
They should never be freed as there's always the possibility they could have more children and torture them too.

I cried and I’m also horrified that this just seems to be happening again and again, there was little Arthur and Star and so many more we know nothing about,this is the tip of the iceberg . For child killers I would open up the dungeons, the perpetrators would be kept in the dungeons with just enough food to keep them alive and to keep them alive for a very long time….

The suffering is impossible to imagine. Poor little lad.

I was talking to a friend this week. She and her siblings were violently abused and neglected by their mother back in the 1960s and 1970s. She said that it was only the ability to get out of the way to school, play, clubs etc that stopped their mother hurting them more. Her view was that if lockdown had happened when she was a child one or more of the family would have died.

Lockdown was a horrible and dangerous time for many children. There is a huge need to better protect children.

Urmstongran

His mother had pretended Logan had Covid and was isolating to put the social worker off in what were his last hours of life. So a telephone consultation took place, mainly discussing benefit allowances.

Forty years ago there was ongoing debate amongst social work teams about the way many families tried to draw us into discussions on benefits when the purpose of our initial/ongoing involvement was safeguarding.
I’m well aware thst poverty and lack of say disability benefits impacts on family life. One approach was to support a visit to CAB or involve a volunteer or family aid to make sure benefit claims were in order
It’s an effective distraction technique. Ten years ago I was on a mandatory and excellent course on latest research on domestic abuse. We had students on our team and invited us to join the three day course. The students had been encouraged at university to ensure families were getting all benefits. They’d also been discouraged from going into work with children and families

Again. That poor child. The report has just been published re the failings by Social Services in the death of little Arthur Labinjo-Hughes here in the Midlands. I don't expect anything to change sadly.

His mother had pretended Logan had Covid and was isolating to put the social worker off in what were his last hours of life. So a telephone consultation took place, mainly discussing benefit allowances.

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.

I can't read the story, too upsetting.
If children are being beaten/tortured, surely the neighbours must hear it? I'd just have to interfere - knock on the door, tell Children's Services, tell the police, record the arguments/crying, speak to the child, anything to find out what was going on and hopefully get it investigated.

I cried.

Very difficult to read the news reports from the trial, that little boy suffered so much as he was murdered by his family. It must have been a prolonged assault and highly unlikely to have been isolated.
I looked back to the news reports at the time his body was found. Neighbours and the parents of his school friends all reported Logan to be a happy boy from a ‘good loving family’.

It’s now reported the 14 year old boy repeatedly said he wanted Logan dead, to kill him. It isn’t reported why social workers were involved.
On average, the figure of Two children each week killed by parental figures has been recorded over many years. There is a desperate shortage of social workers, especially experienced staff. We need to invest in early years and return to the 80’s model of multi disciplinary approach, working together, effectively to assess risk and provide appropriate resources.
Care proceedings rose 50% during lockdown.

The pandemic has made things a lot worse as children have been left at home unseen and unmonitored. These tragic events are going to continue whatever steps are put in place but hopefully they can be reduced. More social workers, better training for teachers to recognise abuse, easier reporting systems for concerned neighbours, more health visitor monitoring, more help for struggling parents may help.Abused children often become abusers themselves.How can the cycle be stopped without it being a nanny state and all children monitored in possibly an intrusive way?

I agree with Maudi. The punishments these dreadful people deserve never fits the crime. When anyone takes another's life they should forfeit their own by serving a life sentence and I mean life, not a few measly years. This poor little lad must have suffered such pain at the hands of these 3 vicious people. I am not in favour of capital punishment but prison sentences need to be a deterrent and all this halving a criminal's sentence should stop.

I wonder what Johnson would do if God forbid it was one of their precious babies
The mother is every bit as guilty as the step father and (presumable) his son I would have given my own life to save my child
I don’t agree with the death sentence but I do agree with much more stringent imprisonment with no ‘nice’ parts ie imprisonment, not table tennis, TV s, phones, OU courses etc just fairly stark imprisonment
I also agree that SW are far too overworked with huge swathes of paperwork often completed in their own time it’s been on it’s knees for years and needs a complete overhaul It’s so easy to blame them but there is far too few to hold the case load up

It always amazes me how people in all consciousness can go on camera appealing for help in finding their child’s killer when they themselves were responsible. There will no doubt be an enquiry set up, but sadly it seems that lessons are never learnt. RIP Logan x