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Archive for May, 2008
Full Story: http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0834.htm
Eight years after Victoria Climbie died, the lessons of that terrible case seem not to have been learned The story of seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq who apparently starved to death in a house in Birmingham shocked the country this week. Amid calls for a full public inquiry, authorities in the city met on Friday and launched a serious case review. But questions are being asked as to how a child could be let down so badly, eight years after the death of Victoria Climbie. Emergency services were called to the house in Leyton Road in the Handsworth area of Birmingham last Saturday when Khyra suffered breathing difficulties. She was taken to hospital but died a short while later. Her five siblings, three brothers and two sisters, were reportedly found by paramedics lying next to her on a mattress in a weakened state. They have now been taken into foster care after a brief spell in Birmingham Children’s Hospital. Angela Gordon, 33, and Junaid Abuhamza, 29, who are believed to be the child’s mother and stepfather, have been charged with causing or allowing the death of a child. They appeared in front of Birmingham magistrates last Monday and were remanded in custody until their next appearance on 28 May. Police are still awaiting results of a post mortem examination and have said the cause of death is not yet known. But sources have said the girl was found in an emaciated condition and had apparently starved to death. The news stunned the local community and sparked much soul-searching as to how the tragedy was allowed to happen. Writing in The Independent yesterday, Deborah Orr said: “No one knows exactly what ghastly events led to poor seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq’s death from malnutrition, as her five siblings grew weaker alongside her. But it is self-evident that she was let down by every single adult who might have been able to make a positive intervention in her short life.” Daily Mirror columnist Sue Carroll wrote on Friday: “How this could happen in 21st-century Britain beggars belief and throws up terrible memories of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie’s death in 2000. “We were told, after she was found to have 128 injuries to her 3st 10lb body, that lessons would be learned. Now Khyra’s life can be added to the list of lonely and vulnerable children whose cries, yet again, fell on deaf ears.”
Full Story: http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0833.htm
Extra help for young foster children at risk of exclusion and failed care placements – Young foster children with emotional or psychological difficulties are to get extra support to stop them getting into trouble at school and help them settle in care placements, thanks to a Pfund3.8 million pilot project announced today by Childrens Minister Kevin Brennan. Eight local authorities will get Pfund400,000 each to set up a multi-agency team to help 7-11 year old foster children displaying early antisocial challenging behaviour, who have already had a number of care placements or interventions. The Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care Children pilots will involve multidisciplinary health and social care teams that combine high levels of supervision with intensive positive parenting training for foster parents. They will encourage the child into positive recreational activities, greater involvement in school and break contact with other children who are a bad influence. Early intervention should make it possible to reduce the numbers of older looked after children with complex needs who require intensive services and very high cost placements. Speaking at the Associate Parliamentary Group for Looked After Children and Care Leavers, Childrens Minister Kevin Brennan said: Evidence shows that many young children who enter care are already showing signs of developmental delay, behavioural difficulties and are at great risk of long term poor outcomes. If we are to make this country the very best place in the world to be a child, we need to give our most vulnerable children the same opportunities as their peers. We must intervene early and put all the support they need in place. The focus on younger looked after children who are presenting significant difficulties was announced in Care Matters and fits well with the Every Child Matters emphasis on early intervention and securing permanence and stability for children.
Full Story: http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0832.htm
The failings of social workers are putting children from broken homes at risk from abuse, a report has revealed. Children at the centre of divorce or separation cases, particularly those involving domestic violence or abuse, have been left vulnerable by a backlog of cases. The failings were uncovered by an Ofsted inspection of the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), the service set up to ensure that children’s views are represented in court. The report covering Kent, Surrey and Sussex found a waiting list of 150 cases, delays of six months for some families, inadequate assessments of the impact of domestic violence and a failure to refer cases to local authorities where there were concerns for the child’s welfare.
Full Story: http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0832.htm
The failings of social workers are putting children from broken homes at risk from abuse, a report has revealed. Children at the centre of divorce or separation cases, particularly those involving domestic violence or abuse, have been left vulnerable by a backlog of cases. The failings were uncovered by an Ofsted inspection of the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), the service set up to ensure that children’s views are represented in court. The report covering Kent, Surrey and Sussex found a waiting list of 150 cases, delays of six months for some families, inadequate assessments of the impact of domestic violence and a failure to refer cases to local authorities where there were concerns for the child’s welfare.
Full Story: http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0832.htm
The failings of social workers are putting children from broken homes at risk from abuse, a report has revealed. Children at the centre of divorce or separation cases, particularly those involving domestic violence or abuse, have been left vulnerable by a backlog of cases. The failings were uncovered by an Ofsted inspection of the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), the service set up to ensure that children’s views are represented in court. The report covering Kent, Surrey and Sussex found a waiting list of 150 cases, delays of six months for some families, inadequate assessments of the impact of domestic violence and a failure to refer cases to local authorities where there were concerns for the child’s welfare.
Full Story: http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0831.htm
Almost from birth, the service set up to represent the voice of children in the courts has been a target for attack from aggrieved parents and has suffered a troubled history since. With this years first Ofsted reports, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) has been exposed to official and independent scrutiny and found wanting. It is seven years since Cafcass was set up, bringing together 113 organisations including probation officers in family court welfare, social workers representing children in care and adoption cases, child protection agencies and welfare groups. The idea was highly acclaimed: to provide a national service handling childrens cases both public (care) and private (contact and residence disputes) and give a high and consistent standard of support in courts across England and Wales. Delays in court decisions were to be cut. But, like many new bodies in the public sector, it was set up too quickly and with inadequate funding. Merging 57 sets of pay and different working cultures proved a logistical nightmare. Within four years it had three chief executives. In the first eight months the original chief executive, Diane Shepherd, was suspended and then sacked in July 2002 over an unauthorised payment to a dismissed executive. By 2003 ministers had demanded the boards resignation amid claims that it had descended into chaos.
Full Story: http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0830.htm
Children in divorce and separation cases are being left at risk of abuse because of serious failings by social workers dealing with their cases, according to a watchdog. A report seen by The Times discloses how a backlog of cases is leaving children vulnerable, particularly in family breakdowns involving domestic violence and abuse. An Ofsted inspection of the service, set up to to ensure that childrens views were represented in family courts, uncovered a catalogue of failings in the South East region. It found a waiting list of 150 cases, delays of six months for some families, inadequate assessments of the impact of domestic violence in most cases and a failure to refer cases to local authorities where there were concerns for the childs welfare. A separate report identified serious failings in another part of the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass) in the East Midlands region in February. The latest inspection will fuel fears that similar findings will be uncovered during inspections of the remaining eight regions in England and Wales. The inspection of Cafcass operations in Kent, Surrey and Sussex found that in some cases, to determine which parent a child should live with, the records of work were illegible. In one, the clearest account of a meeting was written not by a social worker but by a mother who sent her own record to Cafcass officials. The criticisms focus on the services work in private law cases, in which parents who have separated cannot agree on where the child should live or about arrangements for contacting and meeting children. The waiting list in the South East included some delays of six months, no prioritisation, and no analysis of the risks involved in delayed cases. As a result, Cafcass cannot demonstrate that children on the waiting list are not left at risk, the report said. Inspectors also could not report that safeguards for childrens safety or welfare were adequate. This is a serious deficit. Whilst allegations of domestic violence were a common feature in cases, its impact on children was assessed adequately in only a minority of cases, the report said. In one case, it found that there had been no assessment of the risk to a six-year-old child who had witnessed domestic violence. Nor had there been any attempt to follow up information about child protection with the local council, the report said. The report also criticised recommendations to the courts based on optimism or which had not been agreed with the parties involved.
31
May
08
Seven-year-old girl was visited by social services just four months before she starved to death
Full Story: http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0829.htm
The seven-year-old girl found starved to death at her home had last been visited by the authorities four months before her death, it emerged yesterday. Khyra Ishaq was visited in January by police officers carrying out a ‘welfare check’ as well as a teacher from her school, but the visits were not followed up. She had been removed from school in December and is thought to have been last seen by social services at her home in Handsworth, Birmingham later that month. She died on May 17, hours after being found by paramedics with her five emaciated brothers and sisters lying on a mattress at the inner-city terrace. Khyra’s father Delroy Francis had moved out of the rented house three years previously. The children lived with their mother Angela Gordon, 33, and her boyfriend Junaid Abuhamza, 29, who moved in eight months previously. It is believed he had assumed joint responsibility for the children. The couple appeared in court yesterday via videolink accused of ‘causing or allowing’ Khyra’s death. Gordon – dressed in a black outfit which revealed only her face – could be seen on camera at Eastwood Park jail in Gloucestershire dabbing away tears during the ten minute hearing at Birmingham Crown Court. Abuhamza, who is being held at Blakenhurst prison, Gloucestershire, wore white robes and headgear and remained impassive throughout. They are accused of committing the offence between May 9 and May 17 and spoke only to confirm they understood the charge. No application for bail was made and they were remanded into custody until a plea and case management hearing on September 1. A serious case review has been launched by the Birmingham Safeguarding Children Board into the circumstances of Khyra’s death.The mother of a seven-year-old girl who died after allegedly being starved at her home appeared in court via video link today. Angela Gordon, 33, and her partner Junaid Abuhamza, 29, are both accused of ‘causing or allowing’ the death of Khyra Ishaq. The pair, who lived together with Khyra and her siblings in Handsworth, Birmingham, appeared at Birmingham Crown Court charged with the offence contrary to section five of the 2004 Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act. The defendants were not required to enter a plea at today’s ten-minute hearing, and spoke only to confirm that they understood the charges against them. They will next appear in court on September 1 where they will enter a plea.
31
May
08
Children as a commodity
Full Story: http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0828.htm
There has been much written on these pages about the fact that children these days are born or discarded at the whim of the parent, but thus far, such children have been dispensed with before birth, when they are, as far as the parents are concerned, invisible. Todays news brings the horrifying story that an elderly mother of 59 and her husband, who at seventy two is hardly a youthful father, have abandoned twin girls born as a result of IVF in India, because they wanted a son to carry on the family name. I have grave misgivings about IVF for all sorts of reasons, and the idea that a mother well past the age at which nature would have allowed her a baby crossing continents to have somebody elses (she may have borne it, but these little girls are not her flesh and blood) is something that arouses disquiet. That she should then be able to abandon them because they are the wrong sex is, I suppose, no worse than getting rid of them before they were born. I wonder whether the hospital staff who were so horrified that these girls were left behind in hospital would have been quite so affected had the mother come in at twenty three weeks and some days pregnant, and said that at her age, she had reluctantly decided that actually, she couldnt go through with the birth after all. As a society, we cannot have it all ways. If we are to allow parents to have or not to have babies as and when they see fit; if it is possible for parents to take themselves off to India or Russia or elsewhere in the less regulated world in order to have a child of the sex of their preference (and then expect the National Health Service to pay for the expensive bit of looking after an elderly mother to be, and the cost of the almost inevitable Caesarian section that will be required) and then the expected boy turns out to be a girl, why should we be surprised when it is metaphorically speaking left behind in the shop as faulty goods
BAAF; British Association of Adoption and Fostering 
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