Coroner still in dark over baby's death amid squalor

A CORONER said he did not know "exactly what happened" to a baby who was found suffocated and living in squalid conditions after social workers twice failed to intervene.

Seven-month-old Alex Barker had been left in his cot to feed himself in a living room littered with soiled nappies, rubbish and dog excrement, an inquest in Sheffield heard.

The tot was found "lifeless and pale" with a pillow or jumper over his face as his father Andrew Barker, 27, played on his Xbox watched by the baby's mother Bethany Goldthorpe, 23.

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The inquest was told that despite two tip-offs, nobody from Sheffield social services visited Alex in the last two months of his short life.

Children's special services manager Karen Walker admitted mistakes had been made and procedures had now been altered.

Alex was rushed to hospital after he stopped breathing but died three days later after his brain was starved of oxygen.

A pathologist said he had irreversible brain damage following his breathing being obstructed but he could not say whether it was accidental or deliberate.

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Alex also had non-accidental injuries including a broken forearm and fractured ribs which he suffered in the last few weeks of his life.

The parents were both charged with cruelty against Alex and his elder sister but the charges were dropped at Sheffield Crown Court last month through insufficient evidence.

Barker did admit a lesser charge of wilful neglect after he threw Alex across a room onto a settee. He was given a two-year community order with supervision and banned from contact with children under 14 for two years.

It emerged at the inquest that Barker and Goldthorpe frittered away grants awarded to help them look after their children on a hydraulic leather bed, new clothes, a car and the Xbox.

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Jobless Barker, who is banned from seeing another son in West Yorkshire after slapping him, said during the hearing that he "could not bond" with Alex.

Sheffield City Council is already carrying out a serious case review.

Recording a narrative verdict, coroner Chris Dorries said: "I do not find that information in the possession of local authorities meant that they knew or should have known of a real and immediate threat to Alex's life."

He said he was not sure of the full circumstances. He added: "In simple terms I am not satisfied that I know exactly what happened to baby Alex."

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