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Edlington attacks: The 31 missed chances to intervene with brothers' family
DONCASTER'S beleaguered social services department has come under fire time and again in recent years.
The attacks that shocked Britain: Full coverage
Seven children known to the authority have died in the borough since 2004, prompting serious case reviews, Ofsted inspections and a Government investigation.
Now, yet another serious case review is being published highlighting the numerous failures of various agencies involved with the family of the two young brothers who brutally attacked two boys, aged nine and 11, in Edlington.
Thankfully, unlike the others, the two young victims in this case survived their terrible ordeal.
But the review contains shocking revelations about the two brothers, who were aged just 10 and 11 at the time of the attack, and their family which show just how easy it would have been for this case to have had a very different outcome.
The report, from the Safeguarding Children's Board, which was leaked to the BBC earlier this week, highlighted 12 lessons that should have been learnt from previous cases in the area and in the run-up to the Edlington attack.
It also found that the family had been in contact with nine different agencies over 14 years.
But a lack of leadership and cohesive work between the agencies meant 31 chances to intervene were missed over that period.
The family - the boys' 36-year-old mother, her partner and her seven sons, aged between eight and 18 years old - were well-known on the estate where they lived for terrorising their neighbours with senseless vandalism and sporadic violence.
Neighbours described frequent damage to cars, stones thrown at windows and buses and constant noise abuse, with police visiting the family's home two or three times a week.
They also spoke of the family's chaotic alcohol and cannabis-fuelled lifestyle and described the mother's partner, who left shortly before the attack, as an unemployed, violent drunk who beat the children.
Some said the brothers - who were both on the child protection register - appeared to live a scavenging existence, finding food, stealing from shops and rummaging for clothes in skips.
A series of events through 2006 and 2007 signalled the boys' worsening behaviour but the serious case review found that these went unnoticed by the authorities.
In 2006, one of the two boys was excluded from school when he was aged eight after threatening staff with a baseball bat.
A multi-agency meeting was held but no action was taken.
In November 2007, there were complaints of arson and the killing of ducks at a park but no follow-up action was taken despite legal requirements.
By the time of the attack in Edlington, the elder of the two brothers had appeared in court on four separate occasions for acts of violence, the last being in January last year, when he received a 12-month supervision order for an offence of battery.
The younger brother had been reprimanded for violence, including offences of causing actual bodily harm and common assault.
At the time of the Edlington horror, he was on bail facing two charges of causing actual bodily harm and one of burglary.
One woman, who lives on the family's estate, said she had repeatedly pleaded with the local council and police for something to be done after witnessing the behaviour of the family.
"If social services had acted sooner, maybe those kids wouldn't have been fighting for their lives and whatever," she said.
And a friend of the boys' mother said she had pleaded with social workers for help controlling her sons.
But the review highlighted an inability of the agencies involved to connect the boys' increasingly violent behaviour to their neglectful family background.
It suggested they were treated simply as naughty children, rather than as exhibiting violent tendencies towards other youngsters.
Professionals were also found to have focused on the boys' mother - who could not cope with her seven sons - rather than on the needs of her children.
Even when the boys were removed from their family and placed into foster care in the Edlington area on March 10 - just three weeks before the attack - there were more failures.
The report revealed there was no proper supervision of the boys' foster care placement and no clear plan for their management.
In the days before the main attack, while they were living with their foster carers, the brothers attacked two other youngsters in Edlington.
One attack - on an 11-year-old choirboy - was almost identical to the attack on the two boys just a week later.
Now, the agencies involved in this shocking case will have to make numerous improvements to their services in order to fulfil the 18 recommendations of the report.
And the people of Doncaster will be hoping that, this time, it is enough to prevent yet another tragedy from happening on their doorsteps.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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