Thursday, 11 March 2010
Brit incest beast ... evil father
By NEVRES KEMAL
Baby P whistleblower
THESE were horrendous crimes, a catalogue of systematic abuse against two helpless girls.
How many more times do we have to hear an apology for the failure of social services? We've heard it all before from Haringey.
We've heard it all before from Doncaster.
All the inquiries, all the Government money thrown at social services hasn't changed anything. The system has failed again.
There has to be a fundamental change in the way social services operate.
You need the right people with the right experience and you need to pay them properly and give them the right support.
The Government introduced some changes after the Baby P case, but it was tinkering with a seriously flawed system.
We need drastic change.
The two traumatised victims - on an "at risk" register when the vile abuse started - were made pregnant 18 times.
And in an appalling echo of Austrian incest beast Josef Fritzl, the brute made them give birth to nine of the babies - two of whom died.
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Yesterday's apology followed a devastating report into failings by an army of more than a HUNDRED officials. They were blasted for letting the twisted sadist get away with 35 YEARS of abuse.
Nearly all SUSPECTED the girls were victims of incest - but did precious little to stop it. Some were TOO SCARED of him. But not one has been sacked or even carpeted.
The woman professor tasked with finding out what went wrong was flanked by representatives from two bungling councils as her no-holds- barred report was issued yesterday.
Her independent investigation followed the jailing 18 months ago of the dad, after the girls he threatened to kill if they told on him finally plucked up courage to go to cops.
The pervert was caged for life at Sheffield Crown Court. Judge Alan Goldsack QC ordered the self-employed businessman, 57, to serve a minimum of 14½ years - declaring that the "circumstances here are the worst I have come across".
He told the evil dad: "The public will consider you should never be released. I agree." Among the agencies in the dock yesterday was Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Board.
The family lived in the county between spells in Sheffield. The agency's Chris Cook - in a direct message to the sisters - said: "We are genuinely sorry. We should have protected you."
But a press conference in Derby where the damning report was issued heard it was unfair to blame individuals for "an accumulation of acts" that let the daughters down. Mr Cook admitted: "No individual has been dismissed, disciplined or sacked."
Sue Fiennes, of the Sheffield Safeguarding Children Board, also apologised. She admitted: "It is clear we failed this family."
In her report, the Health Department's Professor Pat Cantrill found a litany of blunders by social workers, health professionals, council and housing workers - and police.
Her Serious Case Review revealed the daughters were left at the mercy of their violent father despite TWELVE reports of physical abuse, SEVEN of sexual abuse and SIXTEEN child protection conferences.
In a shameful indictment, Professor Cantrill said: "Even though some professionals were afraid of the father they were prepared to leave the children with him."
The family had been on the radar for 35 years. But the boozing father outran interference by continually relocating them - with 67 moves around Sheffield and Lincolnshire.
Meanwhile the daughters' long absences from school still failed to raise red flags. Prof Cantrill said: "Too often professionals took the word of parents at face value without considering the effects on the child.
"There were numerous opportunities which were missed. There was enough evidence for the children to be removed. It says a lot about the resilience of children as individuals that they were able to survive."
Between 1990 and 1996 one or other of the girls was pregnant every year and on some occasions TWICE.
On four occasions they were pregnant at the same time. The report told how they were asked 23 times who the father of their children was.
Prof Cantrill said: "Nearly all of the services involved suspected or were aware of suspicions of incest taking place." But the daughters were too terrified to say - so that was that.
The professor said: "It only needed one person with tenacity to keep pushing and pushing and that might have seen action taken much earlier."
The dad's trial heard the girls were raped around 1,000 times. He would drag them from their beds as their mum slept. If they fought, they were beaten, kicked or held to flames.
The report made 128 recommendations - and all the agencies involved claimed they were getting their act together. One of the sisters told The Sun: "No one was there for us. He started when I was about five." The other sobbed as she said of their kids: "Although they were born out of hate, we love them and always will."