A furore certain to run and run
Judging by today’s papers, there’s little chance that the furore about the death of Baby P is going to go away any time soon—it’s already expanding well beyond the facts of the case into a full-blown controversy on the state of society, the media and politics.
Before we all add our voices to the growing political row, however, we should remember one single fact. A vulnerable child, just 17 months old, died. Instead of being lavished with love and taken on all those outings that trigger healthy child development, Baby P had his ribs broken and his back broken. He was bruised, battered and lacerated, possibly by a dog. Some of his nails were missing and one of his front teeth had been knocked out. The child’s mother and two men have been found guilty of allowing or causing his death on 3rd August last year. They await sentencing and the government has set up an inquiry, led by Lord Laming, into his death.
Baby P had been the subject of a police investigation into child abuse, which was dropped the day before he was found dead. This had been triggered by visits to his doctor, in autumn 2006, when his bruises could not be explained. He was referred to paediatricians at the Whittington, who said that the marks suggested non-accidental injury. He was put on the child protection register in Haringey and was released into the care of a friend of his mother. At the end of January 2007, before the police investigation had concluded, he was returned home.
Since the conclusion of the trial, the head of children’s services in Haringey, Sharon Shoesmith, has refused to resign; the Prime Minister and David Cameron have clashed in the Commons about the case and various agencies and government departments have been engaged in a macabre game of buck-passing. And the media has done its level best to decide who or what best to blame.
But the point about the case is, in fact, simple. Whatever Lord Laming’s inquiry concludes, wherever the moving finger finally rests, the system failed baby P, as did Haringey, as did all those individual workers engaged in what we call “multi-agency workingâ€â€”who rang on Baby P’s mother’s doorbell, or met the family elsewhere, and failed to protect him from torture and death. It hardly matters who is most responsible. All of those in that system are responsible, to some extent because the system and those in it have a collective duty to safeguard children, and a child died in breach of that duty of care.
As to who should resign: of course Sharon Shoesmith must go—she is responsible for safeguarding the children of the borough of Haringey—and, sooner or later, she will. But all of those involved should consider their consciences—for we will probably never know what they suspected and failed to do. Shoesmith is, almost certainly, not the only one who should apologise and go.
My experience of many social workers is that they are overworked, highly stressed and very defensive. Many are also highly committed. They are up against a system that condemns them when they are seen to be too zealous—and condemns them again when they fail to remove children to a place of safety. They are also subject to the horrors of social work fashion, the current mantras being “good enough parenting and “capacity building†in families. This is all fine stuff, but it is founded on the belief that parents are (almost) always the best option for their children. This clearly isn’t true in a number of cases, and the risk assessment system is picking up too few. Social workers are also hampered because they know how inadequate and under-funded the foster care system is—and hesitate to remove children into a system which doesn’t guarantee good care. Despite all this—and I see the perils of their situation—they, too, should examine their consciences.
In life, Baby P was used as a punchbag by unscrupulous adults. Now, in death, his fate continues. He died: and he deserved far, far better than an unseemly political row. What matters now is for those who feel responsible to resign—and I, for one, don’t care if they knocked on the door or were part of the systemic failure at any of the agencies responsible for safeguarding the right of all our nation’s infants to a childhood safe from torture and untimely death.
Katharine Quarmby is a contributing editor at Prospect and was fostered and adopted in the late 1960s.
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Where is the honour? Where is the responsibility? Where is the accountability?
Sharon Shoesmith has acted with contemptible arrogance and a total lack of shame. From what I have seen and heard from her she has absolutely no conscience. The failures at her team were on her watch, she was responsible and should be accountable. In times gone by she would have been the first to throw herself upon her sword. But now, in this advanced and enlightened society of ours, the notions of such responsibility and accountability are lost. They are concepts foreign to the people who have put themselves above all of us.
I mourn not for baby P, there will be very many more like him who will not be written about. I do not hate and detest his mother or her partner, they are not the worst that has walked this earth. Nor will they be the last.
I do not even hate “the system” that everyone is talking about as if it was a living breathing creature, it is not. The system is made up of and operated by people. It is people that failed baby P, not some abstract “system” that is used to escape all of the above notions of a civilised world.
But I do grieve utterly for the clearly demonstrable and complete loss of common sense, of compassion, of duty and of care exhibited by Haringey’s children’s services.
Baby P is now beyond the reach of his cruel carers. But think, all of you, look outside of your own grief and anger, and know that somewhere in Haringey, at this very moment, another Victoria Climbie, another baby P is surely being victimised ruthlessly. And meanwhile the Haringey children’s services are quietly and impotently standing by and doing nothing.
“All of those in that system are responsible, to some extent because the system and those in it have a collective duty to safeguard children, and a child died in breach of that duty of care.”
Should we not wait for the results of the inquiry before passing judgement?
One criticism that may or may not be levelled at the people involved is that they did not do a full enough assessment of the facts of the matter before judging level of risk and proceeding accordingly. Surely therefore, best for journalists and the general public to avoid similar errors? Surely best to wait for the evidence to emerge and be thoroughly assessed?
I do not know the facts of this case and I do not feel reading accounts offered by journalists are going to enlighten me. Two important factors which we should not rule are 1) that risk assessment only works for predicting factors which increase the incidence of violence or abuse at a statistical level, not for identifying the specific individuals or families who will actually engage in the violence, and 2) social services are woefully under-resourced up and down the country.
There’s an awful lot of moralising & ‘ought’ statements in your analysis and in the above comment. Well, ‘ought’ implies ‘can’.
I suggest your working assumption, until proven otherwise, ‘ought’ to be that people intended to do the best they could. Perhaps we will find out that social workers in Haringey are in fact evil and uncaring, as implied by your post? Perhaps not.
I mourn the death of baby P,the boy with no name and unloved by all of us to some degree.
To understand how the parent allowed this to happen,is the question for 2009.Perhaps there can be no answer to that query,
or maybe if we could all answer it,the next baby P might stand
some kind of chance.
If we could turn back the clock.Futile words that get us all off the hook.A final word for baby P.I’m sorry that you died.I’m sorry what happened to you.I’m sorry for my lack of love that you
couldn’t know or understand.
Just reading the tragic story of poor baby P made me weep. Surely there are several people who should be taken to task and should be made to pay for his death
One thing i can’t understand is… How come if you don’t pay your taxes you can face life in jail, and for killing a child you only have 14 years… I prefer Texas law, you kill you dead…. But this is not the first case , and will not be the last.
England is an evil country to bring up your kids… The government fault…
Bring all thoose who were in charges of this case into Jail. Everbody who was in charge is guilty! Hopfully all of them get what they deserve in Jail!
Surely Harringay childrens dept are guilty of a “allowing the death of a child”?
That Shoesmith woman should hang her head in shame, she’s as bad as the perpetrators with her fat salary and politically correct mumbo jumbo.
God will judge you all, even if no one has the balls to do it in this life.
I think that the social workers etc involved in this case should be charged with accesory to murder, they allowed an innocent child to be beaten and murdered. They cant even claim ignorance as they knew it was happening, otherwise they wouldnt have been involved in the first place.
google: The-Arrivals-pt30-The-Checkere d-Floor-and-The-Gods
It must have been convenient for the evil social worker to take a picture of him on the black white chequered floor board. wot is relaly hapening in the UK? torture and murder in london and UK ever other day ….so many CCTV but no safety… the police doctors etc cover up so much social disorder and abuse why?
do a google on The-Arrivals-pt30-The-Checkere d-Floor-and-The-Gods
to see wots really hapening in UK
see how the baby is on a chequered floor. such evil is rapant now…makes u wonder why. ##
i thinl what has happend to this poor littl boy is shocking. the social srvics should admit that there are in the wrong and that there should hold thr head up and tell ever 1 there are wrong
im so sorry baby p he did not deserve mabe they will realise what they did somdayIxx
I am organising the gathering/march in Exeter, one of many on December 13th 2008, in aid of Baby P and many other children like him. I will make this government listen. What kind of society are we living in, and yes the dr involved should be sent to prison, and all social workers to. I hope the lot of them rot in hell.
I hate Twats that behave like that, do they have no heart, how could they do this to a innocent child. HOW ???
You people have got no idea about any of this. You’ve just listened to the media and think that u know wots going on. my mother works for haringey council and i can tell you that they did what they could for baby P.
The government tells councils not to put so many children into foster caring as they are more likely to ‘be engaged in criminal activites’ when they grow older. SO what are they suppsoed to do .
And alos all u sick people that have littered that poor child’s grave with toys and cards. you didnt know that kid. Imagine if some people that didn’t even know ur child came and swamped it with gifts.
You people dont know jack shit just what you’ve heard from the media.
You all need to get a brain and stop harassing haringey council. you’re acting like there the ones who did this to that child.
You’re sick. end of