UK Social Services - Should Face Prosecution?
Why are social workers not held accountable for the decisions they take. If a pilot or train drivers causes an accident they can be held accountable for manslaughter. Why in this country billions or pounds are spent and these people are supposed to have the best training in the world fail to spot child neglect. Two high profile cases today, a four year old child and a 18 month old baby dead the little one had a broken back. Both children had been on the at risk register but nothing was done to save them as the social workers did not want to risk upsetting the families. Its about time everyone said we have had enough and started making these department accountable for children that die whilst on a social workers case load. They never seem to get it right ever. Makes me weep jasmine Beckford, Victoria Climbe and many many others and still the same mistakes get made. We learn and do nothing, The NSPCC should be shouting from the rooftops earning their charity money
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Court secrecy rules hide child abuse errors
By Ben Leapman, Home Affairs Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 2:36am BST 14/08/2007
Shocking failures in the child protection system are being hidden by the secrecy of England's family courts.
Even in cases where it has emerged that children were abused while monitored by social services and the NHS, judges' criticisms and recommendations have been withheld from the public.
In one secret court ruling, a judge warned that babies were being "missed by the system". Critics said the failure to inform the public of lapses could cost lives.
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The details of a case involving a four-month-old girl deliberately burned in a faked car crash, in an attempt to cover up scalds she had received days earlier, can also be revealed.
At a criminal trial, Timothy Mallard, 23, received a seven-year jail sentence for grievous bodily harm and Tracey Watson, 28, a suspended sentence for neglect.
During that public trial, no details emerged of how both the baby, who cannot be named, and Watson were seen repeatedly by doctors, health workers and Lincolnshire social services before the attack.
It is understood those details were raised at a closed family court hearing. Secrecy laws prevent full disclosure of the court's findings.
John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP and chairman of Justice for Families, said: "Mistakes by social workers and other professionals are covered up as a result of family court secrecy. Lessons go unlearnt, sometimes with fatal consequences."
Kate Carrington, Mallard's mother, a retired sociology lecturer, called for a public inquiry into the case. "There should not be blanket secrecy to cover up people's mistakes," she said.
Ministers abandoned plans to open family courts to public scrutiny this year.
The Sunday Telegraph has exposed a series of cases in which parents have had their children removed and put up for adoption on apparently weak grounds. The families are barred from speaking publicly about their plight.
In the Lincolnshire case, Mallard, a forestry worker, drove into a tree at low speed in 2005 before setting his vehicle alight and dangling the baby in the flames.
Doctors found her ribs had been broken weeks earlier, and concluded that her hands had been thrust into very hot water two days earlier, leaving her severely scalded.
At Lincoln Crown Court in April, Judge Michael Heath told Mallard: "I find it very hard to understand how you could do what you did."
At the trial, at which the defendants pleaded guilty, details of their involvement with the child protection system did not emerge.
Watson had been treated for mental health problems years earlier, sources say.
In the month before the incident, the baby spent 12 days in hospital
Watson was a psychiatric in-patient until she discharged herself a week before the car crash. Six days before the incident, a social worker visited her and the baby. Four days before it, they were seen by a health visitor.
Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Board is investigating the case behind closed doors. Its full findings may never be published.
Two inquiries are under way into cases of children killed soon after being seen by social workers.
The murder of four-year-old Leticia Wright by her mother and her mother's boyfriend will be examined by Kirklees Safeguarding Children Board.
In Ealing, west London, officials will investigate the case of 17-month-old Talha Ikram, who died after he was removed from foster care and returned to his father and stepmother.
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Mother released from care to kill her children
By staff and agencies
Last Updated: 2:15am BST 02/08/2007
A mother with a severe mental illness killed her two children after being allowed unsupervised access despite the warnings of their father, a court heard yesterday.
Vivian Gamor, 29, was detained indefinitely after admitting two counts of manslaughter at the Old Bailey.
The children's father, Jimi Ogunkoya, blamed social services for their deaths after he was encouraged to let them stay with her despite bizarre behaviour that had led to her being sectioned.
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"I obeyed the law and let them go," he said in a victim impact statement read out in court. "I wish I had not done that.
"The system that I obeyed has frog-marched my children to their deaths.
"They assessed her and found nothing wrong. This is pure negligence, which will not be tolerated."
Sentencing Gamor, Judge Peter Rook told her: "On the face of it, this terrible tragedy could have been avoided if you had not been allowed unsupervised access and the children's father's grave concerns had been given weight."
Gamor, from Hackney, east London, bludgeoned 10-year-old son Antoine with a claw hammer and suffocated daughter Kenniece, three, with cling film in January.
Jonathan Rees, prosecuting, told the court that she then dialled 999 and told the operator: "I kind of lost it, I snapped." When police arrived they found the bodies of her children lying in her bedroom, with a blood-stained hammer lying next to Kenniece, and Antoine crouched in a defensive position between the cupboard and the wall.
Gamor told officers: "I don't care, they aren't mine."
She had been previously been sectioned after claiming the children were not hers, that she was the son of God and Jesus was her twin. But Gamor was later released from care after doctors concluded she posed no risk to herself or others.
She was later allowed limited, supervised contact with her children but their father was worried about the prospect of unsupervised overnight stays.
However, his attempts to stop her seeing the children were rebuffed and he was told he would not be allowed to come between them and their mother.
When he voiced concerns about the overnight stays to a social worker, she told him: "She is their mother." After Gamor killed her children, tests showed she had not taken her prescribed anti-psychotic drugs for 10 days.
Mr Ogunkoya said: "My heart hurts and the pain brings out the tears for the loss of my two little angels. It was horrible, a horrible nightmare that I still haven't woken up from."
Gamor, who has been diagnosed as suffering from schizoaffective disorder, stared blankly ahead as the details of her children's deaths were read out in court, while relatives sobbed in the public gallery.
Hackney council has launched an independent inquiry following the deaths and a report will be published next month.
Mr Ogunkoya, who was separated from Gamor, felt that he "didn't have a leg to stand on" in trying to take the children away from her, Mr Rees said.
He said all the professional bodies he had contacted told him he "could not stand in the way of the children's mother".
One day when Mr Ogunkoya had picked the children up from a visit in 2005, he found that she had shaved the hair off the side of their daughter's head.
The following year she said she no longer wanted to see them, believing her own children had in fact been stillborn and that Antoine and Kenniece had been swapped with them at birth.
She was sectioned in September 2006 after lunging at her half-sister with a knife, but discharged a month later. Diane Ellis QC, for Gamor, told the court: "There have undoubtedly been failures among the professionals caring for her."
The judge said: "This was a truly appalling tragedy and has led to unimaginable suffering for the children's father and grandparents."
After the hearing, Fran Pearson, chairman of the City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Board, said the board had launched an inquiry to "look thoroughly at the involvement of all public agencies with this case".
She said: "Mental illness is often unpredictable, but if there are any lessons from this which will help us to protect children better in the future, then they will be learnt, and any necessary action implemented."
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so what i am asking is cant social services get it right at all?? they seem to let mums and dads kill/abuse they're children, they let mothers and fathers see they're children even when they know they are a danger to them! Also why is it that people are raped in social services care? cant they get it right? should they all be re-trained? or sacked and start again with people who ahve an ounze of common sense?
Why are social workers not held accountable for the decisions they take. If a pilot or train drivers causes an accident they can be held accountable for manslaughter. Why in this country billions or pounds are spent and these people are supposed to have the best training in the world fail to spot child neglect. Two high profile cases today, a four year old child and a 18 month old baby dead the little one had a broken back. Both children had been on the at risk register but nothing was done to save them as the social workers did not want to risk upsetting the families. Its about time everyone said we have had enough and started making these department accountable for children that die whilst on a social workers case load. They never seem to get it right ever. Makes me weep jasmine Beckford, Victoria Climbe and many many others and still the same mistakes get made. We learn and do nothing, The NSPCC should be shouting from the rooftops earning their charity money
-------------------------------------------------------------
Court secrecy rules hide child abuse errors
By Ben Leapman, Home Affairs Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 2:36am BST 14/08/2007
Shocking failures in the child protection system are being hidden by the secrecy of England's family courts.
Even in cases where it has emerged that children were abused while monitored by social services and the NHS, judges' criticisms and recommendations have been withheld from the public.
In one secret court ruling, a judge warned that babies were being "missed by the system". Critics said the failure to inform the public of lapses could cost lives.
advertisement
The details of a case involving a four-month-old girl deliberately burned in a faked car crash, in an attempt to cover up scalds she had received days earlier, can also be revealed.
At a criminal trial, Timothy Mallard, 23, received a seven-year jail sentence for grievous bodily harm and Tracey Watson, 28, a suspended sentence for neglect.
During that public trial, no details emerged of how both the baby, who cannot be named, and Watson were seen repeatedly by doctors, health workers and Lincolnshire social services before the attack.
It is understood those details were raised at a closed family court hearing. Secrecy laws prevent full disclosure of the court's findings.
John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP and chairman of Justice for Families, said: "Mistakes by social workers and other professionals are covered up as a result of family court secrecy. Lessons go unlearnt, sometimes with fatal consequences."
Kate Carrington, Mallard's mother, a retired sociology lecturer, called for a public inquiry into the case. "There should not be blanket secrecy to cover up people's mistakes," she said.
Ministers abandoned plans to open family courts to public scrutiny this year.
The Sunday Telegraph has exposed a series of cases in which parents have had their children removed and put up for adoption on apparently weak grounds. The families are barred from speaking publicly about their plight.
In the Lincolnshire case, Mallard, a forestry worker, drove into a tree at low speed in 2005 before setting his vehicle alight and dangling the baby in the flames.
Doctors found her ribs had been broken weeks earlier, and concluded that her hands had been thrust into very hot water two days earlier, leaving her severely scalded.
At Lincoln Crown Court in April, Judge Michael Heath told Mallard: "I find it very hard to understand how you could do what you did."
At the trial, at which the defendants pleaded guilty, details of their involvement with the child protection system did not emerge.
Watson had been treated for mental health problems years earlier, sources say.
In the month before the incident, the baby spent 12 days in hospital
Watson was a psychiatric in-patient until she discharged herself a week before the car crash. Six days before the incident, a social worker visited her and the baby. Four days before it, they were seen by a health visitor.
Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Board is investigating the case behind closed doors. Its full findings may never be published.
Two inquiries are under way into cases of children killed soon after being seen by social workers.
The murder of four-year-old Leticia Wright by her mother and her mother's boyfriend will be examined by Kirklees Safeguarding Children Board.
In Ealing, west London, officials will investigate the case of 17-month-old Talha Ikram, who died after he was removed from foster care and returned to his father and stepmother.
------------------------------------------------------------
Mother released from care to kill her children
By staff and agencies
Last Updated: 2:15am BST 02/08/2007
A mother with a severe mental illness killed her two children after being allowed unsupervised access despite the warnings of their father, a court heard yesterday.
Vivian Gamor, 29, was detained indefinitely after admitting two counts of manslaughter at the Old Bailey.
The children's father, Jimi Ogunkoya, blamed social services for their deaths after he was encouraged to let them stay with her despite bizarre behaviour that had led to her being sectioned.
advertisement
"I obeyed the law and let them go," he said in a victim impact statement read out in court. "I wish I had not done that.
"The system that I obeyed has frog-marched my children to their deaths.
"They assessed her and found nothing wrong. This is pure negligence, which will not be tolerated."
Sentencing Gamor, Judge Peter Rook told her: "On the face of it, this terrible tragedy could have been avoided if you had not been allowed unsupervised access and the children's father's grave concerns had been given weight."
Gamor, from Hackney, east London, bludgeoned 10-year-old son Antoine with a claw hammer and suffocated daughter Kenniece, three, with cling film in January.
Jonathan Rees, prosecuting, told the court that she then dialled 999 and told the operator: "I kind of lost it, I snapped." When police arrived they found the bodies of her children lying in her bedroom, with a blood-stained hammer lying next to Kenniece, and Antoine crouched in a defensive position between the cupboard and the wall.
Gamor told officers: "I don't care, they aren't mine."
She had been previously been sectioned after claiming the children were not hers, that she was the son of God and Jesus was her twin. But Gamor was later released from care after doctors concluded she posed no risk to herself or others.
She was later allowed limited, supervised contact with her children but their father was worried about the prospect of unsupervised overnight stays.
However, his attempts to stop her seeing the children were rebuffed and he was told he would not be allowed to come between them and their mother.
When he voiced concerns about the overnight stays to a social worker, she told him: "She is their mother." After Gamor killed her children, tests showed she had not taken her prescribed anti-psychotic drugs for 10 days.
Mr Ogunkoya said: "My heart hurts and the pain brings out the tears for the loss of my two little angels. It was horrible, a horrible nightmare that I still haven't woken up from."
Gamor, who has been diagnosed as suffering from schizoaffective disorder, stared blankly ahead as the details of her children's deaths were read out in court, while relatives sobbed in the public gallery.
Hackney council has launched an independent inquiry following the deaths and a report will be published next month.
Mr Ogunkoya, who was separated from Gamor, felt that he "didn't have a leg to stand on" in trying to take the children away from her, Mr Rees said.
He said all the professional bodies he had contacted told him he "could not stand in the way of the children's mother".
One day when Mr Ogunkoya had picked the children up from a visit in 2005, he found that she had shaved the hair off the side of their daughter's head.
The following year she said she no longer wanted to see them, believing her own children had in fact been stillborn and that Antoine and Kenniece had been swapped with them at birth.
She was sectioned in September 2006 after lunging at her half-sister with a knife, but discharged a month later. Diane Ellis QC, for Gamor, told the court: "There have undoubtedly been failures among the professionals caring for her."
The judge said: "This was a truly appalling tragedy and has led to unimaginable suffering for the children's father and grandparents."
After the hearing, Fran Pearson, chairman of the City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Board, said the board had launched an inquiry to "look thoroughly at the involvement of all public agencies with this case".
She said: "Mental illness is often unpredictable, but if there are any lessons from this which will help us to protect children better in the future, then they will be learnt, and any necessary action implemented."
---------------------------------------------------------------
so what i am asking is cant social services get it right at all?? they seem to let mums and dads kill/abuse they're children, they let mothers and fathers see they're children even when they know they are a danger to them! Also why is it that people are raped in social services care? cant they get it right? should they all be re-trained? or sacked and start again with people who ahve an ounze of common sense?
