Baby Finley…the trial

Yes Saphire24, discussing the serious flaws in our safeguarding shouldn’t stop us putting responsibility where it should be, with these two ‘parents’

Sadly I live less than a mile from where they lived. It's awful to think of cruelty like that to any child, but even more so in one's own community. They both deserve everything they get and more!

It’s certainly a contributor MayBee.
The devastation of community charities when l.a. Funding had to be withdrawn as LA’s couldn’t meet statutory services is an issue. Drug/alcohol/mental health teams on their knees.
When I started in 1978 it was not unknown for dad to drink too much on pay day. Drugs were rare. By the time I retired, it was unusual for children in proceedings, or subject to a protection plan - not to have drug dependent parents.
Drug/alcohol misuse means chaotic, often violent home lives. Parents are emotionally unavailable.
The problem is huge

Iam64

We had child protection services that were respected by other countries. 13 years of austerity alongside a government that doesn’t value public services leave us in terrible situations.
We need to invest in support services. We need to recruit and train mature people. I was 30 when my training was funded and I got a very small salary from the home office to complete the 2 year certificate of qualification in social work.
When I became the manager of a team 5 years later, my team had 2 young graduates, 2 unqualified social work assistants (both excellent_, we had an ex probation officer, an engineer, a merchant sea man, a hair dresser and someone who’d been an admin worker to the team. All brought good life experience, all had their training paid by our local authority and had a very low salary during the 2 year training.
Now we have 18-22 year olds doing a degree in social work. They’ve no life experience and are thrown into safeguarding. Though our last group of students told us the course lecturers advised them to avoid work with children and families because there are no support services and ‘you might end up on the front of the Daily Mail

Why would anyone get into £70,000 of debt to be a social worker in the current climate

Isn’t child protection often the end result of lack of funding in education,housing, unemployment ( eg in places where there is no longer any industry but nothing replaced it job wise). Just as the NHS is crippled by treating people with illnesses that might be prevented if there was less poverty.

We had child protection services that were respected by other countries. 13 years of austerity alongside a government that doesn’t value public services leave us in terrible situations.
We need to invest in support services. We need to recruit and train mature people. I was 30 when my training was funded and I got a very small salary from the home office to complete the 2 year certificate of qualification in social work.
When I became the manager of a team 5 years later, my team had 2 young graduates, 2 unqualified social work assistants (both excellent_, we had an ex probation officer, an engineer, a merchant sea man, a hair dresser and someone who’d been an admin worker to the team. All brought good life experience, all had their training paid by our local authority and had a very low salary during the 2 year training.
Now we have 18-22 year olds doing a degree in social work. They’ve no life experience and are thrown into safeguarding. Though our last group of students told us the course lecturers advised them to avoid work with children and families because there are no support services and ‘you might end up on the front of the Daily Mail

Why would anyone get into £70,000 of debt to be a social worker in the current climate

I’d really like to hear what people think might help, what could change in terms of child protection to make these tragedies less likely. That’s the million dollar question we all want answered.

That poor 10 month old baby!

Oh great. When I asked the question above, should they be named, I never dreamt it would actually happen. The DM has obviously learnt nothing from the fallout of the Baby Peter disaster. Those poor magistrates.

The DM has named the two Magistrates involved. So far as I’m aware, Magistrates continue to be members of the public who volunteer their services. Legal qualifications are not required.
In my experience, usually three sit, one experienced, the others less so. I feel sympathy for the Magistrates, like Finlay’s family who weren’t involved in abusing him, they will live with the horrors subjected to this baby for the rest of their lives. So will the social work team, foster carers, contact officers etc and the Children’s Guardian who appears to have minimised or not fully investigated the risks.
Why baby Finlay’s case wasn’t transferred the the County court to be considered by an experienced family judge is beyond me.

Poor poor little Finley. RIP little boy.
I have read about the case, I wonder what the accused said about what they had done to Finley when they were interviewed, it is just beyond comprehension.
I have also tried to find research about why people do this to little ones in their care.
Absolutely dreadful.

This is an excellent (rather long) article about the aftermath of baby Peter Connolly’s death. It highlights how professionals were affected during the witch hunt that followed. Sharon Shoesmith had death threats and feared for her life. Incidentally, she is the only senior manager I have ever known who refused to blame individual social workers or to pass the buck.

The Sun newspaper had to issue an unreserved apology and pay damages to one of the social workers after publishing a string of lies about her practice. Not much comfort after having her name and photo splashed across the front page. I and most social workers of my generation will never forgive Ed Balls for the way he acted and how he threw Sharon Shoesmith and her whole department to the wolves. He directly harmed the profession and it has not recovered.

The real tragedy was that a baby suffered horribly and died. But we need to be very careful how we respond to that and how we can try to make things better for other children. This episode only made things worse.

www.communitycare.co.uk/2017/08/03/ten-years-baby-p-social-works-story/

Beyond understanding why they should have contrived to get that poor little love back to them. Then to torture him. Sadistic, evil, monsters. One thing is for sure the prisons they go to won’t be safe places for them.

nightowl

Thank you for that Iam. Just for the record, I am not in favour of anyone being named other than the child and the parents. What do people want to achieve by it? Public hanging? Or will flogging suffice? There is a real chance it could lead to a lynching, but maybe people feel that would be justified. I can think of no other profession where this call to ‘name and shame’ is the knee jerk reaction whenever something goes horribly wrong.

I agree. Even though it seems to happen a lot these mistakes are still pretty rare and I’m not aware that social workers etc get much in the way of thanks when they do get it right. The media would have a field day if individual people were named and I dread to think of the consequences: pictures splashed across the front pages of the Sun/Mail/Express with captions such as ‘murderers’ or their favoured ‘enemies of the people’?When I worked for the council in my youth I toyed with the idea of going into social care and realised I couldn’t do it ( I don’t think many people could).

Thank you for that Iam. Just for the record, I am not in favour of anyone being named other than the child and the parents. What do people want to achieve by it? Public hanging? Or will flogging suffice? There is a real chance it could lead to a lynching, but maybe people feel that would be justified. I can think of no other profession where this call to ‘name and shame’ is the knee jerk reaction whenever something goes horribly wrong.

Why are the parent/s rights paramount ?

That is the real question.
Just because they have intercourse, produce a child, doesn't make such people (monsters imo) parents in any meaningful sense of the word.

The local authority placed unborn Finlay on a child protection plan. They removed him into care soon after birth. I don’t understand why this case was dealt with in the magistrates court, rather than before an experienced Family judge.

The cafcass Children’s `guardian saw this infant once. children’s Guardian’s used to be highly skilled and experienced. This seems no longer to be the case.m if the court goes against the recommendation of the Guardian, written reasons are needed
The social work team wanted a 4 month rehab programme, with regular drug testing. Tragically, that wouldn’t have saved his life because his parents murdered him in days

I wonder what assessment the children’s guardian did that had her in such disagreement with a social work team

It seems that there isn’t a drop of humanity in the parents of poor little Finley. How could they inflict such evil injuries on him? This wasn’t a momentary loss of control, it was systematic. Why did they even want him back? Did they never for a moment consider it was going to end badly? Did they think they’d never get caught?

I hope they never see the light of day again.

Grandma70s

Why do people want to read all the details? It seems a bit sick to me. Tickingbird above says she knows it’s ‘cowardly’ not to listen to the details, but I don’t think it is. Reading all the details won’t help anyone, and will cause great distress to the reader. A pointless act of self-punishment. We know the shocking outcome, and surely that’s enough.

It’s been on the news all day. I don’t usually listen in depth to such news reports but once the judge started to sum up the case I felt that I had to listen to it. It wasn’t a case of making a point of listening to all the details.

I cannot find any understanding as to why people feel the need to hurt maim and kill a defenseless baby/child. The child had already been taken from them and to hand the child back and place it with that evil pair once more is just beyond belief.
All the red flags had already been raised surely someone was
expertly trained to spot the dangers.

nightowl

Should the two lay magistrates who went against the local authority social workers recommendation and upheld the Cafcass recommendation for a shorter transition period back to parents also be named?

Yes, I do think they should be named. It was an appalling decision. The cruelty is beyond comprehension.

If you’re a coward Tickingbird, then I am too.

Oh I didn't see Tickingbird's comment that it's cowardly not to know the details Grandma70s. I don't need to know the details to know that this evil pair should never set foot out of prison again; if only.

Why do people want to read all the details? It seems a bit sick to me. Tickingbird above says she knows it’s ‘cowardly’ not to listen to the details, but I don’t think it is. Reading all the details won’t help anyone, and will cause great distress to the reader. A pointless act of self-punishment. We know the shocking outcome, and surely that’s enough.

I don't know the details but it's another massive and unforgivable failure of those who allowed this poor little mite to remain with these vile people.

I agree 3nanny prison's too good for them.

It is truly shocking.
How on earth can you put a tiny baby into the care of drug addicts? And every time "lessons will be learnt" they are not.