Baby P: Stay Circumspect
There seems little need to add further moral commentary to this case; it has been expressed by others already. The case is tragic, but if we are to prevent it from happening again, we must resist the urge to let our natural instincts and passion rule our heads.
If anyone reading this has, or is contemplating, violating the injunction on revealing the names of those involved in the case, I urge you not to. The injunction exists because the accused are to be tried on other charges. Widespread publication of their identities would be so prejudicial as to likely result in their acquittal. If you believe that they deserve more than fourteen years in prison, the best thing to do is protect their anonymity.
There is also the danger of letting hindsight form an absolute vision which we seek to impose retrospectively on all decisions made. We must remember that what appears obvious now, may not have done so at the time of the events in question. Those involved were fallible people, inside a system constrained by competing demands and limited resources. People who now seem prescient or absolutely correct, may at the time have appeared to be very wrong. A courtroom is a vastly different environment to that of the social worker and police officer. Our judgements should therefore be tempered by this understanding.
Likewise we have to accept the grim fact that deaths such as these can never be fully eliminated. The perverse imagination and ingenuity of the killer is always one step ahead of that of those who would seek to protect us. Man’s ability to deceive is limitless, and may outpace our ability to discern the truth in a constrained environment. Murders are inevitable, and to entertain the idea that they are not would be to invite injustices elsewhere and build systems based on a hubris that would lead to ignorance. That is not to say that we should not try to improve the system, but we must do so aware of our limitations.
Those who cry that the council in question has blood on its hands, or seek an easy target to blame, though understandable, should acknowledge that Baby P died not because of their actions, but in spite of them. That is not a justification for people to remain in office, or to do nothing, but a reminder that those who might have been able to save the child did what they believed was in its best interests. Blame may lie with nobody but those convicted.
There have also been problems raised with the narrative the mainstream media are promoting in this case that warrant further scrutiny. I recommend you read Unity’s piece over at Ministry of Truth on the matter before assuming that the account is set in stone.
Nonetheless there appear to be severe shortcomings. This is, after all, the same council that had Victoria Climbié under its supervision. However, we ought to be under no illusion that the history of parental infanticide started there and continued here with nothing in-between or outside Haringey. These murders are all too familiar; what made this one notable was its location and the level of brutality involved.
The figure of sixty visits should also be regarded with some suspicion. These do not mean sixty in-depth examinations or inspections by social workers. Once again, I refer you to Unity’s piece:
of the much quoted sixty occasions that the family had contact with health and social care workers in the 8 months from December 2006 up until the child’s death in August 2007, only 18 of those contacts were actually with social workers, a little less than half the number of contacts with health staff (37, including three visits to the family home), and the family (minus the boyfriend one assumes) were also seen five times at home by staff from the Family Welfare Association, which is now called ‘Family Action’ and there were another eight occasions that the child’s mother took her son to see health professionals including the two occasions on which the child’s injuries raised suspicions of abuse.
Any set of reforms will involve trade-offs. Although some are questioning the effectiveness of a decision-making model that involves all agencies, the alternative has problems of its own. Bringing all the agencies together can cause a diffusion of responsibility. But keeping them separate in the decision-making process can prevent one agency from receiving vital information from another. Anyone who has been involved in dealing with multi-service operations will be aware of the difficulties inherent in such a situation. A balance needs to be struck between the models, and safeguards made to minimise the risks associated with whichever is favoured. For every child that might have been saved were it not for a multidisciplinary model, there may be one that was saved precisely because of it. We should not be so quick to dismiss it.
These systems evolve over time and, while flawed, are of an immense complexity and difficulty that lend themselves to no glib or easy solutions. Radical overhaul can be as bad a solution as the problem it purports to fix. Though there appear to be serious failures in the system, solutions should be sought with a full awareness of their imperfections and pitfalls. Reforms will likely be piecemeal and incomplete. This simply reflects the reality of our inhabiting an imperfect world. It may be neither satisfying nor cathartic, but it is the best that can be done.
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