Oh, Barking. Again...

In both senses of the word...

A single mother allegedly murdered her 'severely autistic' son by poisoning him with bleach while social workers prepared to take him into care.

'Prepared'. Oh, all right then. No rush...

Satpal Mahal-Singh, 44, was said to be unable to cope with her son, 12, who suffered from severe learning difficulties.

Social workers were discussing taking the boy away from her but had not yet done so.

I expect there was some money in the kitty for a few more case conferences with tea and biscuits before anyone needed to do anything drastic.

After all, they'd been here before, hadn't they, and nothing went wro..

Ooops!

Officers from the Metropolitan Police's Child Abuse Major Investigation Team are heading the inquiry.

A source said: 'A key consideration will be whether social workers should have moved quicker, and whether this tragedy could have been averted.

'It appears there had been concerns about this boy's welfare for some time and social services were looking to act.'

Yeah, that's probably what they said about the last case too...

Neighbours said Mrs Mahal-Singh was a loving mother who appeared to have reached the end of her tether.

Her husband is believed to have left her more than two years ago.

A neighbour said: 'One of her sons was autistic and could be very difficult. It meant she was under a lot of strain and I know she often didn't get much sleep.'

Still, there'll be a few more meetings, and a lot of paper shuffled, before they get it to all go away...

The matter will be the subject of a serious case review.

Shall I write it for them now…?