Baby P

[BrilloPad]

I’ve always found this sort of thing shocking but it never really upset me until I had a child of my own, it changes your outlook on life in a way that I never thought it would.
My little girl has had us up every night for weeks with teething pain and I get upset when I see how distressed she gets, the thought of someone deliberately hurting a defenceless baby really is beyond comprehension.

It seems that my understanding of how children end up in care is completely wrong. I really hope this one of a few isolated cases, I mean there could be thousands of kids being seriously abused if this the level of attention social services are paying.

Quite incredible how having a child changes everything - almost entirely in a good way......

[Cyberman]

Yet more results of HMG incompetence !!

The employee that complained had written a letter to ministers. Due to REORGANISATION of the Department by HMG, the letter got lost in the system.

Reorganisation seems to be Labour's achilles heel, because we all know what reorganisation of the BofE and regulators achieved with regard to the credit crunch.

[ratewhore]

For anyone to do this to a defenceless child I think they must be mentally ill...

I can't agree with that, Some people do have the capacity for evil, and I think these people do.

[Beefy198]

Definitely agree wholeheartedly that having kids changes your whole outlook. I've never got this wound up about other similar news stories before.

I can't stand Brown's usual dour demeanour towards this issue. He should have read the mood of the general public and been hopping up and down when speaking about this - a bit like Cameron at PMQ the other day.

As it is, we just get "it is very tragic but we have to wait for the results of the in-depth investigation".

I'm not demanding a witch-hunt and spurious firings, but we need passion from those up top and a real feeling that they are actually going to do something about this.

Haringey Council are really pissing me off too. They've issued an injunction to stop the former social worker who raised concerns from speaking out and steadfastly saying "there is nothing more we could have done to prevent this"

Issue one: if they're saying this before the conclusions of the investigation then to me it just means that they are saving ass and will try to hinder any meaningful change

Issue two: the job of the social workers was child protection. If a child dies in circumstances like this, they have failed. It doesn't matter if procedures were followed, if a child dies like this when procedures are followed then the procedures are wrong and need sorting out ASAP.

Stop hiding behind press releases and trying to save your own careers. SIXTY times they visited this child.

[BrilloPad]

I was unlucky enough to read the guardian yesterday. they accused joe public of hypocracy. either we want no nanny state or nannies everywhere - they claim.

personally I just want social workers to do their job.

[barely_pointless]

I read about this online last friday and had to go home early to hug my kids as I felt almost physically sick. after I put my little ones to bed I had a large stiff drink or three - which only made me cry.

Looking at the times today made it worse as he was a beautiful little boy.

If a senior Policeman and senior hospital consultants are ignored, then really what on earth can be done ?

Was there no continuity/persistance on the part of the Social Services ?

[oracleslave]

It is likely that the mother and both men were themselves abused as children and thus part of an unbreakable circle of degradation and violence.

That's a pretty depressing outlook DA as it implies there is no hope. I prefer to think no matter how dark some things are there is always a way back.

[stingman123]

The only time Gordon Brown ever really cared about child welfare was after his missus miscarried. Suddenly he cared passionately about child welfare, the NHs etc. Then his missus had a kid and he went back to being a politician

[Cyberman]

I was unlucky enough to read the guardian yesterday. they accused joe public of hypocracy. either we want no nanny state or nannies everywhere - they claim.

personally I just want social workers to do their job.

All we want is for these useless Social Workers to do their job. This kid was seen 60 times and injuries were visible on just about every occasion. Why pay them 100,000 quid for doing nothing!!

[Cyberman]

The worst thing is that there'll be others (probably dozens) undergoing the same thing. How the council legally gagged the employee is beyond my understanding.

Official Secrets Act I would imagine. This is to protect our incompetent HMG, make no mistake!!