Will they never learn?

IT’S a depressingly familiar story. A baby suffers a litany of abuse at the hands of an adoptive or foster parent. NHS staff and social workers miss the obvious signs. Eventually the child is murdered.

Matthew Scully-Hicks shook and beat baby Elsie to death just two weeks after he and his husband formally adopted her.

She had lived with them for nine months before her death, during which time she suffered two leg fractures, deep bruising to her forehead and was hospitalised with facial injuries after allegedly falling down stairs.

Each time, Scully-Hicks managed to convince medics that the injuries were the result of accidents. And in 15 visits to the house, social workers found nothing out of the ordinary.

As with every heartbreaking case from Victoria Climbie to Baby P, we are assured lessons will be learnt from Elsie’s death. What a dark tragedy that history tells us otherwise.