FAILED BY Our demands
I lost 3 gems at hands of arson killer
KIDS KILLED BY PARENTS: WHY
be granted if the ban was overturned by a judge – after the parent passed a strict risk assessment by domestic violence experts. The same rules would apply to those who have similar findings made against them in civil proceedings, such as family court hearings.
We probed the cases of nearly 150 children who had contact with abusive parents. We looked at deaths since 2004, when the Children’s Act was updated in the wake of the Victoria Climbie tragedy. Authorities GWYNETH Swain’s eyes fill with tears as she clutches pictures of the family she lost in a fire started by an abusive dad.
Her daughter Kim, 46, granddaughter Kayleigh, 17, and great-granddaughter
Kimberley, six months, were killed by merciless Carl Mills.
Gwyneth says: “Kayleigh had screamed for Kim. Kim said, ‘I can’t get to you, I’m on fire’. It kills me. I’d love to make him suffer in the way they did.
“You don’t get over it. You stop living, you just exist.”
Mills, serving 35 years for the compiled serious case reviews where children were abused or neglected, resulting in serious harm or death.
We studied thousands of pages of case notes to uncover the tragic stories we reveal today.
Victoria, eight, was starved and tortured by her great aunt Marie Therese Kouao, 63, and Kouao’s boyfriend, Carl Manning, 46, after agencies missed numerous chances to save her. She died in 2000 and her murderers were jailed for life.
The updated legislation was supposed to make it easier for local authorities to step in when they know murders in Cwmbran, South Wales, fathered Kimberley after sexually exploiting Kayleigh when she was 14. A child protection referral was made when Kayleigh fell pregnant in 2012 but authorities closed the a child is at risk. But few lessons appear to have been learned.
Most social workers currently receive training on domestic abuse as part of their degree course – but the content varies between universities.
Training can also vary between local authorities. Our probe threw up a raft of statistics that send a chill down the spine. All of the kids died at the hands of parents which either police, social workers and sometimes even family courts knew to be violent.
Fifty-two were killed by dads known to authorities for domestic abuse. Another seven were killed by both case. This came after police checks on Mills found “25 pages of offences of an aggressive nature on record” – including jail time and abuse of his mum.
A report into the deaths said: “The father’s predatory, controlling and abusive behaviour was not recognised as domestic abuse. Information about the background was not sufficiently considered.”
Gwyneth said: “It was just one cock-up after another. I don’t want anyone to go through the hell I have.” parents in cases where the dads had similar histories. This includes the six Philpott children who perished in 2012 after dad Mick, 63, and mum Mairead, 38, set their Derby house on fire with accomplice Paul Mosley, 52.
Mick Philpott had been convicted of attempting to murder an ex and was repeatedly reported for domestic violence. But he was allowed to keep all of the kids he killed in that fire.
Twenty-one of the children died at the hands of parents with at least one conviction for violent crime. In all but two cases, the previous victims had been women or children. In nine