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A short life of misery and pain
By John Murphy
BBC News
Two men have been found guilty of causing or allowing the death of a 17-month-old boy. The child's mother had already admitted allowing or causing the child's death.
The trial highlighted a catalogue of missed opportunities to save his life and the case has chilling echoes of the death of Victoria Climbie.
Baby P's clothes
The boy's mother denied knowing anything about bloodstains
On 2 August 2007 police announced they were dropping an investigation into allegations of child abuse they had launched the previous December.
Baby P's mother was elated and told social workers she would go home to hug her son and bake cakes.
The next morning he was dead.
Baby P, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was pronounced dead shortly after midday on 3 August at the North Middlesex Hospital in Edmonton, north London.
But it was already clear when an ambulance arrived at his Tottenham home 45 minutes earlier that he had been dead for some time.
His mother described him in her 999 call as "blue, cold and stiff." In his short life he had suffered repeated - and unexplained - injuries.
The post-mortem examination revealed Baby P had suffered:
• Eight broken ribs and a broken back, with another area of bleeding around the spine at neck level.
• Numerous bruises, cuts and abrasions, including a deep tear to his left ear lobe, which had been pulled away from his head.
• Severe lacerations to the top of his head, including a large gouge which could have been caused by a dog bite.
• Blackened finger- and toenails, with several nails missing; the middle finger of his right hand was without a nail and its tip was also missing, as if it had been sliced off.
• A tear to his fraenulum, the strip of skin between the middle of the upper lip and the gum, which had partially healed.
• One of his front teeth had also been knocked out and was found in his colon. He had swallowed it.
The jury was not shown photographs of the child's actual injuries because it would be too upsetting but was shown computer generated images of his injuries.
Baby P's head injuries, as recreated on a graphical representation
The jury were shown computer generated images of Baby P's injuries
His mother, who is now 27, told her GP in September 2006 that her son "bruises easily" and she was worried she might be accused of hurting him.
The following month she returned to see Dr Jerome Iqwueke and explained away bruises on the child, saying he had fallen down the stairs the day before.
On 11 December 2006 Dr Iqwueke saw the child again and noticed more bruises, none of which the mother could adequately explain.
He immediately referred Baby P to paediatric specialists at the Whittington Hospital, where doctors concluded the marks suggested non-accidental injury.
Haringey social services were notified, Baby P was put on the child protection register and a police investigation began.
Five days later he was released into the care of Angela Godfrey, a close friend of the mother.
At the end of January 2007 social services decided to return Baby P to the family home.
Dr Heather Mackinnon, the paediatric consultant in charge of Baby P's care at the Whittington, said she had been unable to attend various case conferences concerning him but had made her report available.
'Systemic failure'
She said she would not have supported returning the child to his family.
She also said she did not receive the minutes of any of the meetings until after Baby P's death eight months later - something she described as "clearly a systemic failure".
Dr Mackinnon said many of those involved in the case felt sorry for the mother and she said there was "a collective thinking that this was more likely to be neglect rather than deliberate injury - which was not my view".
The police officer investigating the suspected abuse, Detective Constable Angela Slade, said she had also been opposed to Baby P returning to the family home because her investigation had not been completed.
But she said she was told by social services the mother was working well with them and a delay in returning would affect the re-integration of the family.
Social services had also been given assurances - which proved worthless - that the mother was living alone and there was no man in the house who could have inflicted the injuries.
During the trial the mother admitted this was a lie.
Victoria Climbie
The death of Baby P has chilling echoes of the Victoria Climbie case
The court heard that her 32-year-old boyfriend, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was frequently left in charge of Baby P and the first injuries coincided with his growing involvement in the household.
Baby P was taken to hospital twice more, in April and June 2007, with unexplained cuts and bruises.
The mother lied to social worker Maria Ward that she was away, which delayed a home visit for another six weeks.
When Ms Ward saw Baby P for the last time, a few days before his death, she found him sitting in his buggy, with a sore ear, a gauze over his finger and chocolate smeared over his face and hands.
Two prosecution witnesses claimed the mother and boyfriend had deliberately spread the chocolate on his face to hide bruises.
Baby P's final two weeks of life were marked by an escalation of the violence against him.
On 25 July Dr Iqwueke received a call from the mother, requesting his help to get social services "off her back".
When she brought the child in the following day the doctor noticed he was "withdrawn" and avoided contact.
'Miserable and cranky'
The prosecution claimed the child's back and ribs would have been broken before 1 August, when his mother took him to a child development clinic at St Ann's Hospital where he was seen by Dr Sabah Al-Zayyat.
In a police interview Dr Al-Zayyat said she had been unable to carry out a full physical examination because he was "miserable and cranky".
But in court she said Baby P only cried for a minute or so before she began her physical examination and he was in the room with her for over an hour.
Asked why she apparently changed her evidence she replied that the police had not asked her the right question at the time.
Dr Al-Zayyat denied his back could have been broken when she saw him.
It emerged during the trial that the mother had been placed on a parenting course, had been given stair gates, a fireplace guard and, even, shortly before his death, an offer of a seaside holiday.
This is not the first time Haringey social services has come under the spotlight.
In February 2000 eight-year-old Victoria Climbie was killed in Tottenham after a number of failings by Haringey social services and other agencies.
'I feel betrayed'
The public inquiry that followed, headed by Lord Laming, criticised the lack of communication between the different agencies and suggested an overhaul of child protection guidelines.
But Mor Dioum, director of the Victoria Climbie Foundation, says the lessons have not been learned: "I strongly believe this case is worse than Victoria Climbie.
"Personally I do feel betrayed by the agencies. Given the government's extensive reforms of the child protection system I never though I'd live to see another case so similar to Victoria Climbie. For the sake of public interest we ought to have a wider inquiry into this case to identify the mistakes made."
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in one religion the males can divorce their wives at will.without maintenance forcing the the unfortunate women into prostituion for survival
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Every religion gives the right of divorce, its not only the one religion, every community, every society and every religion has given the right of divorce! The religion towards which u r pointing the finger has given the option to remarry for the divorced wife or husband! and prostitution is prevalent in the countries like US, UK , China etc where the religion to which u r pointing is in very small minority, and its due to shattering of the social structure under the disguise of freedom and modernisim. The most no of cases of divorces takes place in US!
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Times Of India: 19 Nov 2008, 1028 hrs IST, AP
LONDON: The British government wants to make it illegal to pay for sex and is considering a plan to "name and shame" men who visit prostitutes, a
move critics say would turn back the clock to Victorian times.
The sex trade is already heavily restricted in Britain, unlike in many of its European neighbors where prostitution and solicitation are tolerated in some form. Denmark has even decriminalized the business.
But Britain wants to go its own way, marking yet another foray into human foibles by a government many people call overly moralistic.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the son of a Presbyterian minister, has already backed a series of sin taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, called for tougher drug laws and scrapped plans for Britain's first Las Vegas-style casino.
Officials say there is also a need for a crackdown on prostitution.
"Basically, if it means fewer people are able to go out and pay for sex I think that would be a good thing," Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told The Guardian newspaper over the weekend, before the government's announcement of the plan's details Wednesday.
Any changes will have to be approved by Parliament, where Brown's Labour Party has a 63-seat majority. Debate is expected next month.
The proposal would make paying for sex illegal and carry additional penalties for men who have sex with women forced into prostitution, the Home Office said. But it declined to give details on fines and other penalties before the formal announcement.
Men who frequent prostitutes could also be identified publicly, as they are in the London borough of Lambeth, where police send warning letters to the homes of drivers whose license plate numbers are caught on closed-circuit television picking up street walkers.
In addition, the plan would make it a criminal offense to pay for sex with a prostitute "controlled for another person's gain" and could bring rape charges against men who knowingly paid for sex with a woman forced to work as a prostitute.
Under current laws in England and Wales, it is illegal to loiter and sell sex on the streets or elsewhere in public. Keeping a brothel is unlawful, but a lone woman selling sex inside is not. Similarly, paying for sex is legal. But solicitation in public, commonly known as "curb crawling", is not.
Some 80,000 prostitutes are estimated to be working in Britain, the same as during the Victorian Age, an era when a raft of laws were enacted in a vain effort to curb the flourishing sex trade. These days, cards advertising purported escort services and erotic sites on the web are plastered inside the country's iconic red telephone booths.
Sex workers criticized the government's proposal. They said they might be put at greater risk if they had to ply their trade in remote neighborhoods or to work alone.
"The plan is puritanical," said Cari Mitchell, spokeswoman for the English Collective of Prostitutes.
"If they make solicitation illegal and start outing clients, men are going to be more nervous and women will be forced to make hasty decisions to survive economically. As Britain and the rest of the world face dire economic circumstances, the government should try to help women rather than make things harder."
Britain made global headlines in 2006 when a man murdered five prostitutes in Ipswich, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) northeast of London. Recent headlines, however, have focused on police raids on brothels where women from eastern Europe, Asia and Africa have been forced into the sex trade.
There is growing debate on whether a crackdown would lessen violence or cut down on human trafficking.
Scottish cities such as Edinburgh used to have "tolerance zones" where prostitutes were allowed to work freely.
But when the zones were scrapped in several cities years ago and curb crawling was made illegal, reported attacks on sex workers increased because prostitutes were forced to work in more isolated areas, according to the Scottish Prostitutes Education Project, which represents workers in the sex industry.
In the Pacific nation of New Zealand, where prostitution was decriminalized in 2003, sex workers said the change has given women greater legal protection.
"I do think it's extraordinary that the UK is considering such a dreadful turn," Catherine Healy, national coordinator for the New Zealand's Prostitutes' Collective, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "We know from a lot of research ... that sex workers in this country are feeling much safer, better protected."
The Home Office said the government's plan was put together after top officials visited Sweden, where selling sex is legal but paying for it is not. Norway plans to introduce similar legislation.
Prostitution also is illegal in Britain's closest neighbor, France, but it is largely tolerated in Austria, the Netherlands, Spain and Greece.
The sex trade is legal in many parts of Germany. In Cologne, the first German city to introduce a prostitution tax, the government collected more than $1m in revenue in 2006.
In London, sex workers expressed opposition to the government plan.
"We all support measures to protect prostitutes, but this isn't the way," said a 36-year-old prostitute in London who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the risk of prosecution.
In the United States, where prostitution is illegal except at a few brothels in Nevada, authorities have recently taken aim at cracking down on prostitution arranged over the internet.
As part of Craigslist's agreement with attorneys general around the US, anyone who posts an "erotic services" ad on the Web site will be required to provide a working phone number and pay a fee with a valid credit card, which would make it easier for authorities to track them down.
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how many divorces are getting remarried
how an unemployed,unskilled women will survive when divorced without maintenance allowences from exhusband
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I havnt done survey.. If I find any survey done by any1 I'l surely post it... U r talking about the few no divorcees... there are very few cases of divorces in the one religion abt which u were pointing.
Its about being other woman ... then how can she survive when she becomes other woman without any rights in property and without any help ... nor will she have children who will support her!!! this case is with most of the other womans... while in countries where the divorce rates are high I have already given u proof that they are western due to the immorality and lack of family values! few unfortunate pairs who are divorced in this part of world ... gets married and out of the remaining few who dont its there personal choice as religion has never stopped them!
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until the divorcee gets remarried,the exhusband shoud give maintenance for her and chidren,other wise the the unfortunate women will be in flesh trade
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Alright just 4 argument sake lets agree that divorcee should get maintenance! but tell me how can the other woman survive? does all the other woman does the flesh trade for there livelihood?
Do u mean to say all the woman who are getting divorced and not getting remarried are becoming prostitutes? The cases about which u r talking are rare and for that u want to destabilize the whole system which is perfect and even if the divorcee is poor she is free to re-marry and even if she does'nt then the religion has got several options to save her from this situation and one of them is Zakah... and there r many more solutions
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recently i have been to malaysia
men who divorce go scot free
women become prostitutes after divorce to make a living
do some thing was a news item in local paper
what is religiously wrong in asking for maintenance from exhusband still she remarries or get a gainful employment
wicked why don't u accept reality,y are u against this hapless women
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Do u know how many people are getting divorced in malaysia ans how many in US? Do u know what is the rate of prostitution in so called modern or western countries when compared to non-western? If according to ur logic when Muslims are divorcing there woman and the hapless womens are becoming prostitutes then which country should be the no 1 in prostitution ...why is the prostitution rates so low in this countries?
Just making claims does not make ur statement true! the so called modern of which u talk about freedom and rights than y r so much pf prostitutes there? Islam is in least percentage in US and UK!
I observe every time instead of answering u come up with some allegations... If u have answers then Im open for correction! According to u being other woman is better then I am asking how is she surviving? when she cant get any sort of money from or maintenance?. Is there any difference between other woman and a prostitute? This issue's poison's the mind and destroys the social and family life which u r spreading ( I am sorry if I hurt u.. but its reality)
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