Failings by Poppi social workers left more toddlers to face abuse
OFFICIALS involved in the Poppi Worthington case were criticised again yesterday after a Daily Express investigation found other children have been left to suffer in the same town.
Echoing the failings over 13-month-old Poppi, it is claimed the same safeguarding team have failed two more young children in Barrow, Cumbria.
Damning documents seen by the Daily Express show social workers were warned the sisters, aged two and 10 weeks, were suffering abuse.
The girls slept in cigarette buttlittered beds and went without clothes and food.
Horrified health visitors witnessed their troubled mother tell the children to shut up and urine and beer were found in the baby’s bottles.
But it took 38 social worker contacts in 11 days before police acted because social services chiefs kept insisting the girls should remain with their mother. The girls are now safe with relatives.
Disgrace
A friend of the family, who passed us a shocking report from Cumbria Partnership Strengthening Families Team, said: “What those children went through is a disgrace.
“After all the much-publicised failings over Poppi, you would have thought the safeguarding team would act decisively and quickly in new cases. But children in Poppi’s home town are still not being immediately protected.
“Something needs to be done. I don’t blame the social workers who visited – it’s the management.”
The family, who cannot be named, moved to Cumbria last summer and by July concerns were raised.
Relatives reported the mother would smack her two-year-old across the face and wake her in the night to make her care for her newborn sister.
The mother, criticised for her “promiscuous sexual behaviour”, also called her traumatised child “a weirdo”. But when concerns were raised with Cumbria’s Safeguarding Hub, it is claimed they declined to help because the family were new to the area.
Eventually police were forced to intervene, prompting a child protection review. The report explains how the family moved to Cumbria from another part of the UK, where they were already known to social services. On July 14 last year shocked staff were alarmed by the state of the mother’s flat. The report states: “There was no baby formula, no nappies or Moses basket for the baby or bed for the older child. The flat had no electric or gas and smelled strongly of animal urine.
“The mother showed no interest or inclination to prioritise the children’s needs. Family are concerned as to the welfare of the children. They have found cigarette ends in bed and urine in the baby’s bottle.
“The mother disappeared with the two-year-old last week and on her return the toddler was dressed in nothing other than a pair of tights. She appeared starving, cramming food into her mouth. The family were advised to contact the police with their concerns.”
The lack of urgency in the social workers’ response has chilling echoes of the handling of Poppi’s case.
A coroner and High Court judge claim Poppi was sexually assaulted by her father Paul Worthington, 50, before she died in 2012.
A damning 2016 Cumbria Safeguarding Children Board report said agencies failed to spot 50 years of warning signs in Poppi’s troubled family where three generations had all been in care. It added that several agencies, including midwives and child safety experts, failed to protect the little girl.
Even when X-rays revealed Poppi had died with two broken bones in her legs, her siblings were allowed to stay in her parents’ care.
In 2014 Mr Justice Peter Jackson ruled Poppi died after being sexually abused by her father and criticised police and social workers. But the county council won a two-year order to cover up their shameful failings – arguing “disclosure might be unfair to the agencies”.
It was only in June 2016 that the full details surrounding their failures were published.
Despite the publicity, no health or social workers were sacked.
Cumbria County Council said yesterday: “We cannot comment specifically on an ongoing case. However, when issues of concern are raised, all partner agencies review practice to ensure any lessons are learned.”