the case of Baby Peter
No doubt, by now, all of our UK members are thouroughly aware of the details of the case but for our non UK members i'll give some details of it
A little over a year ago a 17 month old boy died from child abuse in Haringey, London...his name was Peter and he died at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and their lodger through either their actions or inaction to stop the abuse.
The details of the abuse are quite horrifying and as such i'll put them in spoilers so that those of you how do not want to read the details don't have to
Spoiler:
the tip of one finger had been sliced off with several other finger nails being pulled out and the others blackened by injuries to the fingers. many cuts and bruises on the head and face as well as a partially detatched earlobe that appeared to have been pulled off. a torn fraenulum (the strip of skin that joins the upper lip to the gum (as if it had been pulled and torn. one of his front teeth had been knocked out and subsequently found in his colon after he had swallowed it. several large lacerations to the top of his head. one of which could have been the result of a dog bite. 9 broken ribs and a broken spine after he had been bent backwards over his cot (ultimately what killed him but not instantly...he suffered for a prolonged time after the injury including an inspection by a doctor who missed the ribs and back injury
what makes the case all the more horrifying is that in the time the abuse was taking place there had been over 60 visits by social workers to the family and recommendations by some social workers and doctors to have the baby removed from the mothers custody
the father of baby Peter had been forced by threat of prosecution, to give custody back to the mother after refusing to hand him over because of the injuries he was getting while in her care.
one Doctor at an emergency ward after baby Peter was admitted, did not want to release the baby back to the mother after telling his superiors that he believed the injuries to be deliberately inflicted...he was overruled
all of these blunders and acts of sheer incompetence led to this young boy's death...
in my opinion, the whole thing is a result of a society that has gone so far to be politically correct that everyone is fearful of making decisions or saying anything for fear of offending someone and being sued for making that decision....and as such noone wanted to say enough was enough and that the baby was clearly being abused...because if it turned out not to be the case then the person that made the call would lose their job and no doubt be sued for huge amounts of money
it is this litigation and compensation obsessed, fearful and PC society that we have allowed to get out of control that has resulted in the death of this boy
now i have no doubt there are people in the social work field who do everything they can to ensure the protection of the vulnerable in their area and do great work...and it should be noted that they are overworked and underfunded at the best of times
what is scary is that in the current economic climate, councils in the UK are struggling to balance the books and social work is usually the 1st public service to see cuts made to it in order keep spending in check...with this in mind, i will say here and now that we haven't seen the last example of a child dieing even though people knew of the abuse yet did nothing about it....baby Peter is just the unfortunate poster boy.