What the hell is happening to our babies?

[Keef]

The system let the child down and questions do need to be asked so that this doesn't happen again (although I am sure it will).

Well yes, but the problem is they will ask questions and look for scapegoats, just as they did after Victoria Climbie, and nothing will change. They will have a report, and make more recomendations, and the government will win votes because it has made sure that certain things happen.

In reality, the councils, hospitals, education system, will all make these things happen on paper, and in so doing, have no time to actually do any proper work.

It's a rubbish situation, but it is unlikely to change.

[MadWorld74]

SMG...your constant level-headedness (is that a word)and ability to see things from the other perspective, to site delicately on fences....baffles me to the point that I want to slap you across the face with a particularly moist fish.

Do you ever let your emotions boil over, do you 'allow' yourself the joy of feeling your blood boil? Most of us feel it shows we are alive. Microbite feels these emotions and although they are upsetting, they show passion. Advsing Microbite not to make decisions in an 'emotional state' is just another way that we/society/they would like us to conform.

Blow your top, go on. You might like it.

[Moos]

Advsing Microbite not to make decisions in an 'emotional state' is just another way that we/society/they would like us to conform.

Is it? Seems to me the media are quite keen for us all to get as upset as we possibly can.

Edited to add: SMG, this might be the time to bring out the 'squalid' post. I jest of course. :-$

[MadWorld74]

Moos...it depends on what type of media you read/listen to....indeed pay any interest to.

[david_carnell]

MadWorld74 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> SMG...Do you ever let your emotions boil over, do you

> 'allow' yourself the joy of feeling your blood

> boil?

You haven't seen him when his XBox crashes unexpectedly have you?

Or that Brand/Ross thread?

To be serious for a minute though. Just because some people (myslef included) aren't prone to rash outbursts of hysteria, or indulge tabloid-led public lynchings do we have to be branded as somehow weird? Or worse, "sympathisers" with criminals. No one is excusing any crime but without trying to rationalise things or understand why they happened society doesn't ever progress.

[mockney piers]

hear hear D_C

[giggirl]

I'm sure that, as always, the media likes to whip people up into a frenzy - it sells papers. But you really can't get round the fact that this child had a horrible life / death.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Nope giggirl, you really can't. And nor would anyone want to

But Madworld I really can't see how I can be accused of sitting on a fence here. I'm not saying "hmm on the one hand this is a horrible horrible crime, but on the other there were mitigating circumstances"

But me venting raw emotion and giving in to what you seem to suggest is the "right kind of media" helps the child not one jot. And it demeans me. And by extension all of us if we give in. Or else it's no better than Lord of the bleedin Flies

If it reassures you MW74 I can let fly when I am affected directly, but you really wouldn't want to be on the end of it

[david_carnell]

Of course. And it's shocking.

I'm appalled that another human being could do such a thing.

But I'm not going to indulge in captial punishment fantasies or simply dismiss the incident as the work of monsters.

There must be a causality that needs to be investigated. But people's attention spans are now so short that that side of the story rarely gets an airing.

[mockney piers]

"But you really can't get round the fact that this child had a horrible life / death."

Nope, no you can't.

And your point?

Social services had already placed the child with a foster carer for a short time, but every child, if at all possible will be placed with the natural parent. There was some previous evidence of bruising and miscare, but the mother kicked up a real stink to get her child back, which she managed.

There was no evidence as far as I can see (in the hysterical press) that any abuse of this level was to be expected.

Now imagine for a moment that the child had died in the care of some dodgy foster parent who had somehow slipped by some check, because noone has the time or resources to really follow all these things through.

Witness the recommendations re hiring school staff following Soham, which have been fully implemented basically nowhere.

Plus a life going through care homes and foster homes can basically screw up an individual for life, even subject them to terrible abuse (Jersey or Catholic priests anyone?).

As someone said, damned if you do...

All told, terrible story, there will be an investigation and as Keef says recommendations will follow, but money will not be released to try and achieve this. Nowhere near the resources will be about to deal with poverty, mental health, drug/alcohol abuse that is prevalent in so many areas of the country. It's much cheaper just to talk in Parliament about "being tough".

There are bad people, neglectful people,screwed up people, and I'm sure the law and justice system will continue to operate and judge on a case-by-case basis, but what we really need is investment in the social net, not emotional flaggellation and shouts of bring back hanging, it won't bring this child back nor prevent it happening again.

[Sue]

Agreed. It's same old, same old.

No systems will ever prevent cruelty. It's built in.

All they can do is maybe prevent the effects of some of it.

[RosieH]

Whoa, I'm staggered to see Sean lambasted here for being the voice of reason. He certainly doesn't need me to stand up for him, but jeez, what he said, times ten.

Of course this is a hugely emotive subject: it's hideous and heartbreaking and of course the case needs to be examined to see if it could have been prevented.

The sad fact is that there are many murders of children within a family that don't get whipped up into a media frenzy, that pass un-trumpeted in a single column story on a left hand page somewhere near the middle of the paper because perhaps they're not as horribly remarkable as a story like this one. But without examining what makes parents kill their children, and that means understanding the "monsters", how are we ever going to prevent it? Perhaps we can't, perhaps it's an inherent part of human nature, but that shouldn't stop us trying.

And Christ I'm going to sound like a bleeding heart liberal, but I've said it before elsewhere - a wish to inflict similar torture and death on the perpetrators - if someone really carried that out, how would that make them not a monster?

[Sue]

Yeh agreed again, of course we should do all we can to try to understand why it happens, and try and prevent it, and all the rest of it, and maybe we will succeed (we will never know will we, we only see what happens, not what doesn't happen) but - it will still happen. Sometimes.

And yes, if you want an eye for an eye that makes you just like them.

Which isn't to say that if I saw someone doing anything remotely like this I wouldn't beat the s**t out of them, but that's a knee jerk reaction of an individual, not the way society should "deal" with them.

In my opinion.

[giggirl]

mockney piers Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> "But you really can't get round the fact that this

> child had a horrible life / death."

>

> Nope, no you can't.

>

> And your point?

>

My point was that, notwithstanding the media wanting to serve its own ends by whipping up a bit of hysteria, there is no denying that this is a terrible story. Often when the media whip things up it is just a storm in a teacup with big headlines to sell papers. I have avoided the media coverage on this case as I don't want to know the details of how the child suffered. But the child did suffer. That's my point.

[MadWorld74]

SMG it would have been a very sweet and pretty fish....

As you were the rest of you.

[microbite]

The child in question was on the "At Risk" register, which I assume to mean she was at risk of being abused, how the hell did they miss that? how the hell, in this day and age and with all the "negative hysterical media coverage" following other recent cases, fail to spot the child was being severely abused, this was apparently reported to Social Services by the child's own part time childminder who'd raised concerns, you'd think that after all the other reports on cases like this and the amount of children who have been killed they'd have learned their lesson, you would have had a case for screaming "don't blame Social Services it's not their fault" had the child not supposedly been under their "protection",

[microbite]

Yes maybe the mother did lie to Social Services, (and also apparently covered bruises with chocolate each time Social Services visited?? to hide the fact he was bruised) but come on, at some point the penny should have dropped somewhere that things weren't quite right.

[kristymac1]

SMG said: I susppose you could talk about The Pete Townsend case as an example but from everything I've read on the matter I don't see him as a threat to children and think that was handled ok

What total junk - the guy admitted to paying to access child porn - how can this not increase the risk to children? In order for someone to pay for a 'service', someone has to provide that 'service'.

I'm sorry this is a little off-thread but I really couldn't let that comment go without response. Shameful.

As for my feelings on the Child P case, those untlimately responsible for the childs death are the mother, father and father's friend. They are not poor disadvantaged individuals they are sick and evil.

[SeanMacGabhann]

whoaahh there!

Can we have your considered opinion on what SHOULD have happened to him then? And what would have been achieved? You are basically saying that it was no one off and he would have moved on to more dangerous activities?

And you are genuinely saying that, for example his comments when interviewed at the time hold no water at all with you? (see below)

It sounds to me like a man with demons and he is trying to address them. He sounds more hacked off with visiting the site than anyone else. And of course you will say "he would say that wouldn't he" - but he was investigated remember

"Rock superstar Pete Townshend yesterday admitted buying child porn from an American internet site 'to see what was there', but insisted he was not a paedophile and was shocked by the prevalence of images of child abuse on the internet.

The dramatic revelation came in a statement distributed to journalists who gathered outside Townshend's mansion in Richmond, west London, after rumours circulated that the star was being investigated by police for downloading child porn.

Townshend made his statement following a report in yesterday's Daily Mail that police wanted to question an unnamed multimillionaire musician as part of the Operation Ore investigation into online paedophilia.

In the statement, the lead guitarist with The Who, who wrote most of the band's songs, expressed his 'anger and vengeance towards the mentally ill people who find paedophilic pornography attractive'.

He said: 'I am not a paedophile. I have never entered chatrooms on the internet to converse with children. I have, to the contrary, been shocked, angry and vocal (especially on my website) about the explosion of advertised paedophilic images on the internet.'

Admitting he had used his credit card once to pay for images from the internet, Townshend said he was researching a book and investigating paedophilia as a result of his own 'recovered' memories of childhood abuse. 'I believe I was sexually abused between the age of five and six and a half when in the care of my maternal grandmother who was mentally ill at the time,' he said. 'I cannot remember clearly what happened, but my creative work tends to throw up nasty shadows - particularly in Tommy [the band's rock opera].

'Some of the things I have seen on the internet have informed my book which I hope will be published later this year, and which will make clear to the public that if I have any compulsions in this area, they are to face what is happening to young children in the world today and to try to deal openly with my anger and vengeance towards the mentally ill people who find paedophilic pornography attractive.'

Townshend addressed the issue of child abuse in 'Fiddle About', a song from Tommy in 1969. In it the 'wicked' Uncle Ernie boasts of abusing a deaf, dumb and blind kid played by The Who's singer Roger Daltrey, who goes on to become a 'pinball wizard'. Townshend, 57, is married to Karen Astley and has two daughters and a son. He won the Ivor Novello lifetime achievement award for his contribution to music in 2001. Last year The Who played two highly successful charity shows at the Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Sources close to the Operation Ore said 1,500 people had now been arrested in raids across the country including teachers, care workers and at least 50 police officers.

Townshend is by far the highest profile person to be caught up in Operation Ore, although Detective Constable Brian Stevens, the police liaison officer in the Soham murder inquiry, was charged with making indecent images of children and indecent assault after his details were passed to the investigation.

Townshend's credit card details were passed to British police along with 7,200 other subscribers to an internet 'portal' in the US that gave access to more than 6,000 child abuse websites, mainly based in Russia and Indonesia. The site, part of a child porn business run from Texas, was smashed in 2001 after an investigation by the US postal service.

Officers involved in Operation Ore believe it could lead to a 10 per cent rise in the number of people on the Sex Offenders' Register.

John Carr, internet adviser to children's charity NCH, said: 'This is a much bigger problem than people were previously prepared to admit. This will force us all to rethink our attitudes. We are no longer talking about the dirty old man in the raincoat in the local park. We are talking about our neighbours and trusted professionals.' "

[kristymac1]

My considered opinion is that what should have happened to him is in fact what did happen to him - his actions were exposed, he was investigated and the authorities dealt with it - I have no interest in entering into a debate at this point about whether the punishments in place for paedophiles are right/sufficient etc.

My post was directed at your considered opinion that he was of no threat to children. What if a million people

pay to access child porn just once, just to see what's out there? Where are all those images, that individuals want to pay for just once, going to come from? I'll tell you, from children who continue to be abused because there is a market for it, and that market is contributed to by all those individuals who just once, want to see what's there.

To say that anyone who purchases vile abusive images of children (however infrequently) is no threat to children, is shameful.

[SeanMacGabhann]

So as far as his punishment/investigation goes we are in agreement then? I raised his case as a reply to people suggesting they all get off lightly or with a slap on the wrist and I used that one as a possible example of what they meant. But if we largely agree then how am I shameful?

Yep, I'm aware of the supply and demand issues as well - but these sites aren't in business catering for the one time hits are they- even an arbitrary million. Just as heroin supply chains don't exist for someone who dabbles once and then realises they have made a mistake.

[kristymac1]

It's shameful because you believe that a person who purchases child porn is no threat to children. I think its obvious now that I don't care whether the person purchased it once or 100 times (also arbitrary), nor do I care if the main reason these sites are profitable is because of frequent visitors. One time visitors contribute to the industry sufficiently for them to be investigated and dealt with by the authorities.

Nor do I care that Pete Townsend won the Ivor Novello lifetime achievement award for his contribution to music in 2001 or that last year The Who played two highly successful charity shows at the Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

[????]

Everybody moans about lack of funding, and you can have as many enquiries you like, but until they are prepared to answer the basic fundamental questions like why a social worker seeing a helpless baby in obvious distress ignored it. It?s much easier to talk about budgets and failures of systems and procedures. So there were SIXTY visits and no one spotted anything, and no one's at fault??!!!!

Bollocks, some people dropped the fucking ball on this on and they need to pay with their jobs. He paid with his life.

[Huguenot]

Quids, you're not thinking it through. Nobody in social services was malicious here, I doubt anyone was lazy or negligent. These things aren't always straightforward.

If you pursue vicious vendettas against people striving to do a good job faced with manipulative and deceitful parents in difficult circumstances, then guess what... nobody wants to do the job.

In that respect you could argue that it's actually people who 'want to make someone pay' that have contributed to this disaster in the first place.

I wouldn't go into public service, I wouldn't want the vengeful, slavering mob as my boss.

[????]

Ok lets look for causality - I'd quite like to know what % of babies killed by their parents/carers whilst under supervision from social services in the last 10 years were from Haringey........