Just in case any of you out there are of the opinion that democracy has something to do with you, The Independent puts you right.
It’s the most concise argument for an aristocracy that I’ve ever seen.
Read it and wonder, peasants.
The discerning minority
Monday, 9 May 2011
As became apparent soon after the first results came in, the referendum on the Alternative Vote would be lost by a majority of more than two to one – a thumping defeat if ever there was one. And that is a source of deep regret for this newspaper, which has consistently supported the cause of electoral reform. But the rejection was not quite universal. Of the 440 electoral districts, a select 10 – that is 2.2 per cent – voted Yes. So let's hear it for Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh Central and Glasgow Kelvin, as well as the London boroughs of Camden, Hackney, Haringey, Islington, LambethandSouthwark. Here, the Alternative Vote convincingly carried the day.
The particular reasons why these places voted as they did will doubtless be studied long and hard by psephologists and demographers, and they will provide material for many a doctoral thesis in years to come. But it is hard to escape the impression that these 10 districts between them represent a pretty formidable concentration of brain power and diversity of all kinds. Could it be, perhaps, that we are looking here at a bold intellectual and political vanguard that may one day be vindicated? If so, Oxford, Cambridge and the rest are not unrepresentative so much as ahead of their time.
I wonder what the life expectancy of children and other innocents in those elite conurbations of is?
But don’t you merely wonder, dear reader: instead simply follow the links and revel in the joy and safety brought to ordinary peoples’ lives by the no-doubt disproportionately pro-AV pretty formidable concentration of brain power and diversity of all kinds.
Hat tip to staybryt commenting over at House of Dumb.
Quite straight-facedly (monkey’s bollock though that face resembles), and being no stranger to hilarious irony, the BBC provides a showplace for our corrupt and useless political class (Labour Division) to offer excuses for its abject, knowing, and deadly failures of morality, duty, and courage.
No excuses' over family's deaths
There were "no excuses" for failings which contributed to the deaths of a mother and daughter who were hounded by youths, the home secretary has said.
Fiona Pilkington, 38, killed herself and Francecca Hardwick in a burning car after years of abuse on their estate.
An inquest jury said Leicestershire Police and two councils had not handled complaints from the family properly.
In much the same way that, for example, the UK Labour Party and Conservative Party did not handle the rise of fascism and Nazism properly between 1933 and 1940.
Alan Johnson said the agencies were wrong to regard such anti-social behaviour as "low-level crime".
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is to investigate the handling of the case.
Speaking to BBC News, Mr Johnson said: "This should never have happened and there are no excuses for this and there can be no excuses for this.
"This is an example of a complacency that we are determined to eradicate wherever it is."
Dosed with a new blend of sodium pentothal and Rohypnol, he added: “We’ve only been in office for 12 years and so now, having put our unique talents to work in the education, health, and benefits systems, we now move forward onto the broad, sunlit uplands of the pre-election months to notice that some people break not only the tolerant taboos of diverse and liberal free speechers, but also laws, windows, hearts and minds- some of them belonging to really quite unimportant people, but still, every little helps.”
Speaking about the anti-social behaviour the family experienced, he added: "In Fiona Pilkington's case there was insufficient attention to this, it was classified as low level when it is high level if you are experiencing it, that is for sure."
While accepting that the police had made improvements in the past two years, Mr Johnson said the fact remained the existing powers had not been used properly.
"It is the police's job, along with the local authority and social services and housing and all the rest of it, to ensure that people are not driven to the kind of despair Fiona Pilkington was driven to.
“Our dozen years running down the prisons system and the whole ideas of incarceration and punishment have no more to do with this kind of savagery as, say, unprotected promiscuous sex has to do with venereal diseases and pregnancy rates.”
"She did that terrible thing because she felt at her wits' end and she had to get a message to someone and if we go through a load of excuses about this we will not tackle the root problem."
Forensic examination tent at Earl Shilton
The bodies were found in the burning car in October 2007
Mr Johnson added: "I take my responsibilities seriously here.
Okay, okay. Calm down at the back there. Hysterical laughter is undignified. Wipe your tears, put your teeth back in, and read on.
"I'm concerned that we've coasted a bit on anti-social behaviour…
Well spotted. You’ve also spent a bit, borrowed a bit, and got into a scrap or two. But let’s not exaggerate any of this, shall we?
We need to ensure now that right across the country there are consistent standards."
Oh, I think that outside Islington and certain areas of Gloucestershire, you’ll find the scuffers unwilling to provide any time for observing, recording, and preventing mob violence and class hatred.
I think it’s officially called ‘persecution in the community,’ or some such.
Conservative leader David Cameron said it was "an absolutely horrific case" which raised questions for both the police and the council.
"But also we have had a decade of a Labour Government telling us about anti-social behaviour legislation and instructions and orders to the police and it just isn't working," he said.
"We've got to get rid of the police paperwork, we've got to get them back on the streets, we've got to make them feel empowered to intervene and clear these people off the streets and make them accountable locally so there are consequences if they don't deliver."
“And therefore I pledge my administration to closing down the Probation Service and most open prisons and the Children’s Minister and spending the money on new prisons and borstals. I will oblige magistrates and judges to operate ‘a one chance and then you’re inside’ policy for all acts of violence, domestic damage, threats and housebreaking, and parole will begin only after ¾ of any sentence for violence, abuse, and illegal entry to homes.”
Say, didn’t Pink Floyd do an album cover reminiscent of the likelihood of this?
The inquest at LoughboroughTown Hall heard Ms Pilkington, her daughter and her son, Anthony, who has severe dyslexia, suffered more than 10 years of harassment and threats from a gang of teenagers living on their street in Barwell.
10 years during which a harmless woman and her poor distressed daughter and son were vilely persecuted, insulted, intimidated, threatened and abused, and during which time they received exactly no help from strutting ‘police officers’ in their comic opera uniforms poncing around like banana republic generalissimos, council officers drew their wages and ignored the many complaints.
The only upside of this tragedy is that it brings this issue into the open
Mark Golding, Mencap
Mencap will, of course, be calling for the public birching of those found guilty of insulting the mentally handicapped.
The council has admitted the Simmons family, who live nearby and are thought to be among those involved, still cause trouble in the area. When asked by the BBC if his children bore any responsibility for the deaths, the father said: "That's for the authorities to decide."
Werl, he don’t know what responserbilitty means, do he, poor lamb?
Ms Pilkington is believed to have poured the contents of a 10-litre can of petrol over clothes in the back seat of the car, and set them alight.
The jury found Ms Pilkington killed herself and her daughter "due to the stress and anxiety regarding her daughter's future, and ongoing anti-social behaviour".
The jury foreman said the police's response had had an impact on Ms Pilkington's decision to unlawfully kill her daughter and commit suicide.
Relatives described how Ms Pilkington had complained for years about youths "taunting and abusing" her at her home, but six months before her death had told them "I give up".
Temporary Chief Constable Chris Eyre of Leicestershire Police said he was "extremely sorry" that police failed to help Ms Pilkington and her daughter.
Mark Golding, chief executive of Mencap, said "hate crime" against people with learning disabilities was common and should be taken as seriously as racial abuse.
He added: "I think this case will be the wake-up call that gives it that kind of profile.
"Until now it's been seen as low-level, it's being treated as misbehaviour and people's lives are being ruined as a result."
Here it comes. The stocks for spaz-bashers, for sure, right?
Mr Golding said more education about disabilities was needed in schools, and authorities needed to work together to support people with learning difficulties and stop a similar tragedy happening again.
He added: "The only upside of this tragedy is that it brings this issue into the open."
The filth who did this aren’t in any schools, Mark Golding, you witless oaf.
They’ve been truanting almost all their lives from schools that are now free of all authority, sanction, respect, or power to compel attendance, thanks to thinking like yours. You and your tribe did this – caused it – it’s your soft-headed, soft-power, soft-option system, Mister Golding. You’re not too far from the political ‘authorities yourself’, are you?* What expertise or knowledge of life in, or on the edge, of underclass ‘neighbourhoods’ can you possibly have?
However, it does lead us quite nicely to the BBC’s political class mantra. They’re actually going to allow comments on this story and so must think that they’re onto a winner.
Have you suffered from disability discrimination? Do you live in Barwell? Have you been affected by the issues raised in this story? Tell us your experiences using the form below.
A selection of your comments may be published, displaying your name and location unless you state otherwise in the box below.
They can only think - if that’s not too strong an expression – and confront this problem (which certainly is too strong an expression) in terms of a clash of competing victimhoods.
You see, Francecca Hardwick wasn’t burned by her distraught and desperate mother as the result of 10 years of barbarians persecuting them in their home and the utter abdication of the authorities from their paid and, in the police’s case, sworn duties – far from it.
She died because some individuals still don’t understand people with ‘learning difficulties.’
*How much of this is truly voluntary rather than from local and national government and quangos?
I don’t know.
But let’s look at Watford Mencap, shall we? You need page 13.
To be fair, the pulp fiction formerly known that the conservative Daily Telegraph lets him spout his victimhood poker line here.
In Hell, according to Dante, the lowest depth of the innermost circle of the Inferno is reserved for traitors.
Even the shades of those who have betrayed some duty or trust are discriminated between and graded in a diverse and degraded hierarchy of evil.
From bad to worst it goes:
Betrayers of kinsfolk;
Betrayers of polity, nation or state;
Betrayers of guests;
Betrayers of lords and benefactors.
Why be hung up – ha ha! – on the words of some homophobic foreign Papist whilst sitting here with mild backache in the sunlit uplands of the enlightened Twenty-First Century after the birth of some dead white Zionist?
Why, indeed, when I myself surely wouldn’t make it out of Hell’s reception room, if lucky, and would probably be roasting and toasting and enshrined in a tomb a bit further Downstairs myself?
Because some truths are universal, and they’re often expressed in literature, and they’re not all about nice stuff like getting married eventually.
The ancients and medieval folk weren’t just down on sin because they’d been brainwashed by the patriarchal military-workshop complex and lacked community organisers: they did it because thousands of generations of rural and city life had taught them that certain attitudes of mind generate behaviour that harms individuals and the polity a t large.
And it’s still true.
Via the Ranting Penguin and Julia amongst others, here’s real-life sin from fewer web pages than you have digits on one hand.
A woman who died inside her burning car with her disabled daughter would sit in the dark listening to the gang that tormented them, an inquest heard.
And
Despite police requests, Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council had no record of the problems, the hearing was told.
Council officer Tim Butterworth, who was responsible for dealing with anti-social behaviour, said he had "no concerns" with the situation.
Rugged individualism can be fine on some levels, but I think that at some deep level even the most doctrinaire Objectivists and natural-rights libertarians (who tend to be hyper-ethical in their private lives and public dealings, despite my newfound conservative prejudices) believe in something like common humanity – we may not owe a living to our healthy fellow-men, but in some ways they are our kin: and as such do not deserve to be left alone to be tormented. If this isn’t kin betraying kin, then it’s close enough for the authorities to be damnable, if not actually damned.
A senior police officer told the inquest into the deaths of a family terrorised by a gang of youths that it was not the responsibility of police to tackle anti-social behaviour.
And
Earlier Ms Davison, assistant deputy coroner for Leicestershire and Rutland, asked whether Mr Butterworth remembered a meeting with a police officer.
She said: "The police officer wanted an anti-social behaviour order and as the best course of action to issue an anti-social behaviour warning. "He appears to want action from the council and he appears to want you to take action. Do you remember this?"
Mr Butterworth replied: "I don't think we have that statement anywhere."
Is Britain better or worse off for these ‘authorities?’
Betrayers of guests;
Hundreds of children are going missing from Britain's care homes and foster families each year, many falling victim to violent and sexual abuse, prostitution and drug addiction.
And
She tempered her unhappiness at a new foster home by drinking a lot of White Lightning cider, ran away and spent time in a children's home. The situation was exacerbated by sexual abuse from a carer, her rape by an older man who liked to prey on vulnerable children's home girls, and dropping out of school without GCSEs.
If fostered children and children in care aren’t guests, then what in heaven’s name are they?
Betrayers of lords and benefactors.
At the inquest into the pair's deaths yesterday, Superintendent Steve Harrod, head of criminal justice at Leicestershire Police, acknowledged that the criminal justice system was set up to avoid sending juveniles to prison.
He said police officers were only allowed to issue warnings to young troublemakers unless their behaviour was judged to be serious.
"I'm not sure if people know but low-level anti-social behaviour is mainly the responsibility of the council"
Supt Harrod suggested that officers got "frustrated with not being able to do some things".
"From my personal experience, if a juvenile goes into detention, they are likely to mix with like-minded people during their time there and they are more likely to reoffend."
And
For really improved outcomes, residential care and foster care need to be transformed. "Residential care needs to be top notch and that's expensive," said Wes Cuell, director of children's services at the NSPCC.
Look at your next wage slip or, if self-employed, your next tax return. Compare the top lines and bottom line and note the difference. Remember how residential carers, foster carers, police, social workers and local authority antisocial behaviour officers are paid, and by whom.
Who then are these armies’ lords and benefactors, if not us?
Now, we are supposed to endure endless taxes and regulations and criminal records checks and dutifully put our ticks in ethnicity boxes of various forms and scrawl X’s into other boxes twice a decade to change not even the guard at BuckinghamPalace. We have to dawdle and daydream in pubs until our huddled friends come in from the rain after a cigarette, and we have to watch our soldiers’ coffined homecomings from their just and much-needed but under-strength and ill-supplied service overseas.
And we have to mind our Ps and Q’s and be lectured when we vote for the wrong people by the shamans of the very tribe that abolished punishment in the first place.
I can see why treachery is the worst sin of all in Dante’s imagination.
To take the name of kinsman: of protector; to become both public servant and recipient of public funds; to assume the rank and titles and respect and uniforms of guardians and to inexpertly wield the power of legitimate force and to fail on every level of your duty is sin, pure and simple.
It causes harm to the human family of your neighbours, to the guests in the institutions of child protection, to the country’s peace and prosperity, and to the very people who pay for your comfortable living.But for now; it’s someone else who’s being punished.
I’m quite accustomed by now to being governed by a legislature that doesn’t draught and scrutinise most of the laws it passes, and which refuses to enforce most of the few good ones evenly and consistently, and which breaks the inconvenient ones at will.
I’m aware that my life and the lives of those whom I love are being defended by brave people who have not been equipped with enough of what they need to do that very simple job. I’m angry about it and I won’t stop criticizing the paymasters, but I can eat a meal while blogging about that anger.
I don’t expect that the children of most of my friends will receive an education anywhere near as deep and as long lasting as I was privileged to receive from the State and I’ll go on bewailing the fact, and get to sleep easily enough afterwards.
Not everything is political.
Some bad things just happen, and it’s difficult to imagine how anything like a free society could prevent a few deranged individuals from committing certain terrible crimes. Some things are simply sad, and there’s nothing to be done to prevent them.
A minority of mothers have killed their children throughout history.
Madness; either permanent or made by the extra demands of parenthood during times immeasurably harder than our own, have led wretched women to batter, smother, strangle, drown, expose or stab their offspring as long, almost, as records exist - and even before.
In some cases it seems that dire necessity and collective security might have inspired (or rather tempted) some women to kill their children. Sometimes even, it was a sacrifice: a bribe to the cruel heavens to buy some value higher than the value of a child’s life.
Each death is a tragedy: a tiny person gone and a whole wide world and a potentially long life of experience lost forever.
Wirral mum admits killing her four-year-old daughter
A MERSEYSIDE mum today admitted killing her four-year-old daughter.
Little Chloe Fletcher was found dead in her Wallasey home after a phone call to police in the early hours of Wednesday, April 29.
Today at Liverpool Crown Court dark-haired Laura Fletcher, 22, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility after months of rigorous psychiatric tests.
Andrew Menary, prosecuting, said at the time she was “suffering from serious mental illness”.
Fletcher’s “not guilty” plea to murder was accepted by the prosecution.
Neil Flewitt, defending Fletcher, said his client was aware she could face a term of imprisonment.
Fletcher called police on the night of the killing from a phone box close to her Oakdale Avenue home.
When officers arrived they spoke to the defendant before she directed them upstairs.
In a bedroom they found Chloe on a bed with a soft toy by her side.
She was pale and cold to the touch and had three bruises on her forehead
She was fully dressed but was also wearing a dressing gown.
The bathroom door was open, the light on and the bath full of water.
A post-mortem confirmed the cause of death as drowning.
Judge Henry Globe QC, Recorder of Liverpool, adjourned sentencing until October 9 so psychiatric reports can be prepared.
Neighbours described Chloe as a “cute girl, with beautiful blonde curls.”
Floral tributes and cuddly toys were left outside the red semi-detached home where she lived with her mother after news of her death began to spread.
Chloe had recently started at nearby Oakdale nursery where owner Karen Lane paid tribute to a “happy, bright and cheerful” little girl.
In the aftermath of Chloe’s death Wirral council confirmed the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) had commissioned a “Serious Case Review”, to investigate the agencies involved.
The council admitted Chloe was “known to a number of agencies”.
There’s just one thing that this recently rebuked self-proclaimed social commentator might add to this awful story.
“…The council admitted Chloe was “known to a number of agencies”.
Often, madness and depression do not appear overnight and they are rarely invisible to trained professionals. It is probable that health visitors and others from “a number of agencies” had at least seen the pitiful and pitiless Laura Fletcher before Chloe’s death. To what extent might her malign state of mind have been visible?
On the one hand, our taxes and our patience and forbearance are called upon to finance and tolerate a huge and sometimes intrusive bureaucracy of ‘child protection,’ and we’re told it needs massive funding to work properly.
On the other hand, it appears you can intercept and deal with potential child abusers for the simplesumof £30.
And yet again, on the quiet, “Chloe was “known to a number of agencies”.
Lessons, no doubt will be learned, and maybe they’ll discover that Laura Fletcher ‘just snapped.’ Is it likely that they’ll find just who it was decided not to learn the lessons of Victoria Climbié, Baby P, and all? They’ll likely as not blame the ‘systems’ and put some new ones ‘in place’.
I’ll bet it’s not an individual.
Individuals are silly.
Individuals pay taxes.
Individuals fill in forms for the system.
Individuals do what they’re told.
Individuals don’t burn down public buildings full of people who didn’t do their jobs.
Ed Balls, the children's, schools and families ( and teenagers’ and street gangs’ and adolescents’ and emos’ and bulemics' and NEET’s and tweenagers’ but not former polytechnics but really other great big buildings formerly full of books and what’s that big word beginning with an ‘E’ what you say three times over to prevent bad luck for a whole month or even for the whole lifetime of a Parliament ever happening again?) secretary, was able to stand up for social workers today thanks to Twitter and the efforts of Community Care reporter Amy Taylor.
It started with a Tweet - Balls announced on the social networking site Twitter this morning that he hoped to wear a "Thank God for Social Workers" badge when giving a speech to the Association of Directors of Children's Services, if the badge reached him in time.
In which he said he was going to recruit up to 200 more social workers from other professions, such as lawyers and teachers. And they can have badges too!
A flurry of Twitter messages between the Community Care team and the minister followed, including the promise of a badge.
Obviously, Twitter would be a useful tool for police, teachers, social workers and doctors to liaise about specific cases of suspected abuse, or for social workers to do it in-house. And they can get badges!
Next a text message was sent to Community Care journalist Amy Taylor who was attending the conference and who happened to have some of the badges in her bag. Amy intrepidly made her way through Balls' entourage...
One only hopes that she is every bit as intrepid standing at locked doors in the deck-housing and tower blocks of some urine-scented council Auschwitz, and as good an organiser when communicating with other agencies.
...to deliver the prized item and the world was rewarded with a Twitter message from Balls stating he was wearing the badge on stage.
So he already had a badge! So that's alright.
This was followed up with the photographic evidence - a picture posted online by Balls of himself, Amy and Kim Bromley-Derry, ADSC president, proudly displaying the Thank God message.
And they've got a badge!
Having a cabinet minister make a visible effort on an issue like this is very important for the profession especially if it turns out to be backed up by action.
And certainly if some poor abused child is off somewhere bieng beaten and burned and raped whilst the paid professionals are polishing their public image and buying government approval as the price of a nice shiny badge, well...What's the worst that can happen anyway?
It's not like anyone imporatant with lots of votes and money annd media power ever said 'That's my worst enemy: a social worker with a badge...'
Sometimes I wish I’d put Devil’s Kitchen’s favourite present participle between They’re and Joking in my blog’s name.
This is from the Social Work Blog.
Well done to the child protection social workers of Cheshire West and Chester and their managers who gave the BBC's One Show access to film what they do.
Well done also to the anonymous parents who allowed some elements of their case to be shown on TV and who were willing to talk in a positive way about their experiences. Of course the report raised the Orkney, Cleveland and Baby P scandals, but only in context, and I think this was greatly outweighed by the day-to-day reality of a child protection office being seen on prime time TV, even if it was only for 5 minutes.
You can watch the report at the link above.
I wonder if they’re as competent in the sink estates and the satanic abuse-riven ‘respectable suburbs’ as they are at linking?
Hmm, when you wish upon a star…
I for one am not going to go to any great length to find a similarly in-your-face inquisition of our social worker pals from such a couple of catalogue-clad political mediacrats as Peter Capaldi got in this nail-biting and soul-searing interrogation.
Perhaps by the time you read this they’ll be interviewing Sarah Brown about her poetry or accompanying a Labour Minister in the One Show’s occasional series: A Day In The Life Of An Honest Politician And How European Directives Are Made Into UK Law Without The Use Of A Safety Net Or Parliamentary Supervision..
Oh, it’s Twiggy now, at the time of writing.
WARNING
People with pulmonary complaints and hernias might like to avoid following the link in the next paragraph as hysterical laughter has been know to worsen the effects of serious illnesses and to bloodily open old wounds.
Still, if social workers need to raise their profile in the wider context, and ignoring all those highly exceptional cases when they utterly ignore the evidence of their eyes and all advice contrary to their present beliefs about a given case, then why not nip over to their blog’s We Are The World happy page and read the Good News, O brothers and sisters?
There was a time when former prime minister Tony Blair could easily summon an interview with almost any leading media outlet around the world. Yet there was one vitally important publication that remained aloof: Take a Break. Now, the weekly real-life magazine is offering the social work profession an opportunity it denied the former PM.
Aside from perhaps a little vicarious snobbery there (interview the Prime Minister? Pshaw! Let’s go to Pampered Pets in the High Street for their take on the Iraq War), it’s irresistibly tempting to speculate here and now how the ‘mum’s’ magazine, consisting as it does of food voucher competitions, recipes and a bingo lounge, and which asks: Sell us your story! Complete the form below and you could earn up to £1,000! …Love and betrayal, loss and sin. Use our on-line story form as a guide. You only need to send us a brief outline, although you can include much more if you wish.. and which features such prestigious links: as Wedding Dress Day; Send us your Brainwaves (!) ; Breast Reduction Alliance; Toyboy Pledge;Fate & Fortune Website ;Spirit & Destiny Website, will handle some of the problems of the public’s perceptions of social work in today’s Britain.
Children dragged away in a pre-dawn raid? What to wear to look cool and professional at the committal sessions?
Washday Nightmares! We help you beat the most stubborn stains: blood, faeces and even chocolate.!
Onto a winner there; those media-savvy social workers.
With titans of the press like that on their side, why I expect that the career dreams of little Chevonnetta-Peach at Monteguano Towers and young Lucius at Badger Park will change from crack whore and First Minister Of State and into Cafcass drone and Abuse Co-ordinator any day now.
And you don't have to be famous either. From universal suffrage to the rejection of animal testing on cosmetics, many legal and societal changes have been a direct result of people power.
Public perceptions of social work are no different. Negative media coverage and low public esteem may seem ingrained. But they can be altered - if enough social workers speak out.
I can see it working straight away, can’t you? All they have to do is find is some magic ingredient that will inspire the British public to view the profession that helped Victoria Climbié to an early grave with the same gratitude and affection in which they hold those gallant Nepalese soldiers (and future citizens), the Suffragettes in all their tragic glory, and the people who kept Bright Eyes’ eyes bright without a shampoo dropper.
And that’s all it’s going to need, my proud beauties; (994 of you in the last month alone), to make us take to the streets with petitions and marching bands and loud cries of:
‘Ayo Haringey!’ and ‘Votes for lentils,’ and ‘What do we want? Dangly bead earrings! When do we want them? Right after decaffeinated Diet Coke break!’
With a reality-based profession as on the ball PR-wise as that, what could possibly go wrong?
'Social workers betrayed me,' reveals foster mother who says they failed to mention teenager's violent past…
The day foster carer Maria Jones welcomed a troubled 16-year-old teenage single mother into her home, she had no way of foreseeing the devastating consequences...
Foster mother Maria Jones said her life was ruined after social workers failed to mention the violent past of of teenager she cared for…
But because of a devastating failure by social services, a baby almost died and Maria has lost the fostering job she loved….
Within a year of Jane arriving at Maria's three-bedroom house in the South of England in 2007, the baby of another teenage girl was critically ill in hospital.
Jane was arrested after police found high levels of table salt in the baby's powdered formula milk…
The records that were withheld from Maria show Jane was more than capable of the callous act…
One member of staff had recommended that a team of social services, police and medical health professionals monitor her closely because - in a chilling prophecy, given what happened just 12 months later - he feared she was capable of killing a baby…
'But all I was told when they asked me to take her was that she had a bedwetting problem - I later found out she did this deliberately...
'She'd threatened one resident with a knife and another with a fork. She was also suspected of spiking another resident's drink so she could have sex with him.
'Why wasn't I made aware of any of this? Why wasn't I told Jane was promiscuous and had slept with more than 100 men, had several venereal diseases and feared she had HIV?’
Order your Social Workers; Keeping it real since the last funeral badges at eBay now.
NNW
Oh, and as a special cut-out-and-keep Summer Special bonus prize, let’s see a very magical part of that Orkney child abuse thing again, shall we?
Objects suspected of being used in Satanic rituals were seized and 9 children were taken into care. One child was Jewish, and her parents requested that she be fostered by Jews, but the request was ignored.
Just think of the sheer genius it takes to find anyone Jewish at all on a tiny island in a remote sub-Arctic archipelago whose total population rose from 19,222 in 2001 to a round 20,000 in 2002 and then to foster them with Homer and Marge just in time for Pork Chop night.
First of 3 posts uploaded remotely from on holiday. Enjoy?
