Friday 12 February 2010

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…?

4 comments:

Furor Teutonicus said...

Satpal Mahal-Singh

ANOTHER good old English name to add to my list of criminals.

MTG said...

Oh, have an ounce of compassion FT.

"Shall I write it for them now?" Yes JuliaM, a stamp will suffice, yet that inescapable hint of poor preparation will have the unions baying for your blood.

An Inquiry is essential to absolve the jobsworths and further enrich lawyers. We must therefore ready ourselves for the conclusion 'social workers were not responsible for the consequence of wrong choccy biscuits at consecutive meetings'.

Sue said...

After a lengthy and expensive enquiry lasting a year or more...."Social Services admit there were serious failings in the system", "lessons have been learnt"...

Not one person will be blamed, suspended or sacked.

JuliaM said...

"ANOTHER good old English name to add to my list of criminals."

Well, it is Barking...

"An Inquiry is essential to absolve the jobsworths and further enrich lawyers."

And also necessary to give that veneer of 'accountability' so beloved of the public 'services'...

"Not one person will be blamed, suspended or sacked."

Indeed. So, a bit of a waste of money all round.