Baby P bungler: We did good job

Social workers had a foster family ready for Baby P seven months before he died.

But their plans were overruled after an angry showdown at Haringey Council.

He was placed with a family friend for five weeks, against police advice, and then returned to his mother.

Child safety campaigners condemned the decision in January last year, calling it effectively a 'death sentence'. The fair haired, blue-eyed toddler was found dead in August last year.

He had suffered months of horrific abuse at the hands of his mother, her sadistic boyfriend and their lodger - agony which would have been prevented if warnings from police and social workers had been heeded.

Baby P's grandmother, who last saw him days before he died, told how she had also alerted social services that he was being abused.

Speaking out for the first time, she said: 'They didn't want to know. I will never forgive social workers for what's happened.'

Her daughter, 27, even lied that the defenceless toddler's injuries had been caused by the grandmother, who was subsequently arrested.

Fighting back tears, she told the Sun: 'I was exonerated the day before he died. If I had realised things were so bad I would have done more to stop it. I blame myself.'

The BBC programme Panorama will tonight claim that the decision to return Baby P to his mother was taken by Clive Preece, head of Haringey's Children in Need and Safeguarding Service.

But the council has issued a statement categorically denying that he had taken the decision. It insisted Baby P's fate was decided by 'a multi-agency meeting' which drew up a plan for his return home.

Mor Dioum, director of the Victoria Climbie Foundation, said: 'This boy was given a death sentence and Haringey cannot be allowed to get away with it.

'There needs to be a public inquiry into the failings which let this boy down. We have all failed him.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1086397/The-ruling-cost-Baby-P-life-Council-bosses-REJECTED-plea-new-home.html

Baby P's grandmother, who last saw him days before he died, told how she had also alerted social services that he was being abused.

Speaking out for the first time, she said: 'They didn't want to know. I will never forgive social workers for what's happened.'




Why didnt she take him home with her then?????????

Ambersuz wrote:Baby P's grandmother, who last saw him days before he died, told how she had also alerted social services that he was being abused.

Speaking out for the first time, she said: 'They didn't want to know. I will never forgive social workers for what's happened.'




Why didnt she take him home with her then?????????

My mum keeps threatening to take my sisters baby away when she shouts at the babe. This woman above is now feeling guilty and trying to justify herself. I'll bet she got paid for the statement too.

[quote="Ambersuz"]Baby P's grandmother, who last saw him days before he died, told how she had also alerted social services that he was being abused.

Speaking out for the first time, she said: 'They didn't want to know. I will never forgive social workers for what's happened.'




Why didnt she take him home with her then?????????[/quote

Because like alot of families they close their eyes to it all. Any loving grandmother would of just gone in and taken the baby.

[quote="lincs"]

Ambersuz wrote:Baby P's grandmother, who last saw him days before he died, told how she had also alerted social services that he was being abused.

Speaking out for the first time, she said: 'They didn't want to know. I will never forgive social workers for what's happened.'




Why didnt she take him home with her then?????????[/quote

Because like alot of families they close their eyes to it all. Any loving grandmother would of just gone in and taken the baby.

I'm amazed at all these people ringing SS yet doing nothing more to protect baby P. Even as a student, if i felt that worried about a child I would just take him. One of my tutors did just that. She did a home visit and was so disturbed by what she saw which included a dead dog rotting under the child's cot that she she left the house with the child. It's not professional but sod that if you think a child is in that much danger. I would happily lose my job for the sake of saving a child. This child was finally adopted and when he was 18 wrote to my tutor thanking her for taking him that day

Poinsky you are so right, and good on your tutor.

When Mental Health, Childrens Dept. and Welfare Dept. were all combined in 1971 to form the Social Services Dept., I was sent on a 2 week course run by the NSPCC to teach me about child care. We were shown slides of children with the most horrific injuries, cigarette burns etc. and then given lectures on the various Childrens Acts and what action we could legally take. At the end of the course we were asked for our comments and the tutors were visibly shocked when I told them I hadn't been helped one bit. If I were to ever be confronted with a child injured in the way their slides portrayed then I wouldn't give a toss about what the law said I could or couldn't do. The fact that I was a human being would require me to take the child away with me.
Needless to say I didn't get a very good report and I don't think I would have ever got a job with the NSPCC, but when I retired I did so with a clear conscience, and with the respect of my bosses.

Coconut wrote:

Ambersuz wrote:Baby P's grandmother, who last saw him days before he died, told how she had also alerted social services that he was being abused.

Speaking out for the first time, she said: 'They didn't want to know. I will never forgive social workers for what's happened.'




Why didnt she take him home with her then?????????

My mum keeps threatening to take my sisters baby away when she shouts at the babe. This woman above is now feeling guilty and trying to justify herself. I'll bet she got paid for the statement too.

I believe she got a handy payment too.

Haringey Council's leader has tonight offered a "heart-felt and unreserved" apology for the events that led up to Baby P's horrific death.

Members of the public shouted "shame" and "how many more must die?" during the highly-charged council meeting in north London.

But council leader George Meehan refused to stand down - and said there had been failings by all the agencies involved in the case.

He added: "We are very sorry for the events which led up to the death of Baby P; sorry for the suffering he endured; sorry for the failure of all the child protection agencies involved...to save his life."

The toddler died in a blood-spattered cot after suffering more than 50 injuries at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and a lodger - despite repeated visits by the authorities.

Haringey children's services is accused of failing to protect the 17-month-old child.

But Mr Meehan said he would wait for the outcome of a Government review before commenting in detail on the case.

It came as Whitehall announced new laws to protect vulnerable children - even though Children's Secretary Ed Balls admitted the legislation would not have saved Baby P's life.

The legislation will require every local authority to set up a multi-agency Children's Trust Board.

Mr Balls said the new measures would bring a "strengthening of accountability" to child protection around the country.

Children's Minister Beverley Hughes told Sky News the new measures shows that the Government agrees more needs to be done.

"It's a continuous process of interrogating the system, making sure it's as good as it can be," she said.

"From our work over the last year or so, we are clear that some areas are doing this well, others are not, and it is that variability in practice now, to ratchet up everybody to the standard of the best, that convinced us of the need for further legislation."

But the plans have been criticised by a leading child abuse expert.

Dr Ray Jones, professor of social work at Kingston University, told Sky the plan will not prevent the fate of Baby P being repeated.

"This might sound a bit strange but we don't want too much action on the part of the Government because we don't want a lot of organisational change being introduced again - which takes people's eyes of the real task they've got, which is protecting children."

Mr Balls played down growing calls for a public inquiry into Baby P's death, although he has not ruled it out.

He said the ongoing investigations into child protection in Haringey and across the country were the best way of responding to the tragedy, adding: "What people want is action rather than endless reviews."

Its too late for sorry's like its too late for Victoria Climbie....they could have learned from that enquiry and they didnt....

I'm sure there are many more deaths of children too but the public havent heard about them!!

They mean to say "sorry we were caught again"...thats what they bloody mean! Why were they not sorry last August when Peter died...why now?

They make me sick!

Ambersuz wrote:Its too late for sorry's like its too late for Victoria Climbie....they could have learned from that enquiry and they didnt....

I'm sure there are many more deaths of children too but the public havent heard about them!!

They mean to say "sorry we were caught again"...thats what they bloody mean! Why were they not sorry last August when Peter died...why now?

They make me sick!

Amber if there are 4 deaths a week as I just saw on the child related news then you are right, the public dont hear of names.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2030367.ece

BABY P social services bungler Sharon Shoesmith called for her staff to be COMMENDED following the tot’s death through abuse, it was revealed yesterday.

In a report six months after the tragedy she tried to block a full review, saying it was not needed because of her department’s “good performance”.

Shoesmith, 55, claimed it would not “add value” to anything.

She was head of children’s services in Haringey, North London, when Baby P died last year. The authority had known he was at risk of cruelty and abuse.

Shoesmith was told to produce a report by Haringey’s scrutiny committee to help decide whether a full probe should be launched.
Improving

After boasting about how quickly assessments were carried out, she wrote: “In the light of the good performance in this area . . . the committee agree that a full review would not be beneficial or add value to the service at this time.”

Instead, she insisted that her staff should be “commended” for improving services rather than investigated for any shortcomings.

Shoesmith, sacked this week without a pay-off from her £110,000 job, singled out those responsible for safeguarding children for particular praise.

Her report, dated from February 25 this year, was padded with meaningless statistics and relied on a discredited Ofsted paper written by an ex-Haringey employee who worked under her.

The document was uncovered by lawyers working for whistle-blower Nevres Kemal, who warned four government ministers and Ofsted that Haringey social services was a basket case six months before Baby P’s death.

Nevres’s lawyer Lawrence Davies said: “This report is shameless and demonstrates a clear conflict of interest in Shoesmith making recommendations to the council about their own department.”

Baby P was 17 months old when he died at the hands of his mother, her partner and a lodger.

She has some nerve

I hope she can live with herself! Stupid arrogant woman!