Serious Case Reviews – Children’s circumstances (7 of 9)

The children's circumstances

It is inevitable that you have an emotional reaction to reports like these. Reading the details of the death of a child is always a harrowing experience. Not just at the waste of a life – but (in two of these reports) on the presentation of a life whose sheer dreadfulness is difficult to comprehend.

Carly's personal circumstances were desperate from very early in her life, with her Mother and sister both being heroin addicts. She seemingly became an addict around 14, being supplied by her mother and sister. All this was known to all the agencies involved and yet, after a spell in secure accommodation where she got 'clean' she was returned to her mother and within days was dead from heroin allegedly supplied by her family, whilst an agency worker knowing she had gone back on heroin said nothing.

However, the most harrowing was Kyle's report. I was really upset by this one – still am. It is difficult to conceive of a life so hopeless (in the sense of being devoid of hope) or so appalling. It reads like the favelas of Brazil – but this is Swansea today! Given away by his mother to a neighbour immediately after birth, he never went to school from the age of 10, but became involved in criminal activity from the age of 11. Thereafter he was repeatedly involved in substance abuse (alcohol and an enormous variety of drugs), violence, petty criminality, inappropriate sexual (potentially paedophilic) activity, was seen unkempt and smelly, picked up, arrested and imprisoned. He had involvement with many agencies over nearly all his life – being referred to Social Services at least 15 times. Yet in 2007 he disappeared off the radar, but nobody asked why. It was known where he lived, yet it seems no-one went to check on how he was doing. The following year he's found dead.

What kind of life was this? What view did he have of the world? His mother didn't care for him at all and his carer didn't care enough and for 17 years no-one else seemed to either. I am sure that some did (well I must trust that they did) but if they did, they didn't care enough, so he grew up without either love or hope.

There was no doubt that this child was 'trouble', but Kyle was a child. It seems from reading the report that that was what all the agencies forgot. They saw the 'problem', but not the child and so countless opportunities were missed.

I have been approached by concerned individuals wanting an independent review of these latest deaths. I am not convinced of the need for that as yet. When I have seen (or not) the information I have requested, I will look at this again.