Baby “P”-WHY?

I have delayed commenting on this for a couple of days in order to let the “furore’” die down a bit.

I had a poke at it in the “Cupid Stunts” awards, but that’s all it was-a poke.

Rita Pal has written an intelligent, excellent, well thought out and cutting article -Here

I am not exactly known for intelligent and logical, well thought out writings, more like ramblings, and I tend to look at things from a personal point of view.

So here it is.

I find myself asking the question “WHY” more and more lately; perhaps I am regressing to childhood, but I seem to be increasingly confused and bemused by the actions and attitude of people.

Especially those people in positions of “Power”.

Baby “P” was subjected to months of abuse, by her “mother” and other “people” that lived with her, apparently there were 60 visits in total by four different social workers from Haringey Social Services, he was visited two days before his death by a Doctor, all of whom failed to notice 50 injuries, including a broken back and eight broken ribs.

Six months before baby “P” Haringey Council was warned about the “lax” attitude of social workers-Ministers were given abuse warning months before Baby P death - Times Online.

Nothing was done; nothing was done when baby “P” was being abused, nothing was done six months before, nothing was done On February 16 last year, soon after a social worker was allocated to look after Baby P, Mr Davies wrote to Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary: “Statutory child protection procedures are not being followed. Child sex abusers are not being tackled.”.

And this isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened at Haringey.

Obviously the “people” directly responsible for the death of baby ”P” are the so called “Parents”, who it appears to me are not human but inately evil.

But the resposibility cannot stop there, the blame must ascend the “chain of command”; the social workers involved, the doctor involved. The social workers bossess’, the Coucil, the Health Secretary, the Secretary of state for children and ultimately the government.

Apologies have finally been given, this not acceptable, and is far too little too late.

Apologies do not stop the pain do not stop the torture and did not prevent the death of a small child.

Apologies are a way for those responsible to assuage their own guilt and, do nothing for the victim.

This sad case is far beyond the apology stage, there needs to be action, the “chain of command” needs to be dismantled and an accountable, caring system that works needs to be put in place.

Heads should roll, from the so called social workers, to the council, to the members of the government involved, the rest of the world needs to see that we can and will protect the most vulnerable, and the weakest members of our society.

We need to see that no one can behave the way these “people” have and no body notices or cares.

There will be excuses, “we were over worked”, “we believed what the parents told us”, “we didn’t think there was a problem”, these are not acceptable, the child protection social workers have one purpose-to protect children, and it seems to me that they failed in the worst way.

Now every one is calling for a “review” of child welfare, and the question again raises its head-WHY?

Why now? Why not six months ago? Why not a year ago?

As usual the only times the government gets it’s arse in gear and pretends to be concerned is after something like this happens. We have a government which is reactive, this attitude is endemic throughout the “Powers that Be”, it is in the NHS, and the legal system, it is in the financial system, it is prevalent in all sectors of “government”, what we want is for someone to stand up and actually do something BEFORE people die, not after.

That’s what I think anyway.


Angus