Remember, These People Are Professionals…

Not even the letter by Jane Extance warning of harm that could come to members of her family if action wasn’t taken, could spur the department into action.

Calls to social workers went unreturned, visits and meetings were left to “drift” by days and weeks.

Peter Meek was again arrested in September 2011 and was released on bail. A statement from Sarah at the time said that he had threatened to kill her and that he enjoyed beating her up – on this occasion over a computer game.

Within two months Blake was dead, at the time in the care of Peter Meek who should not have been in contact with the family at all because of his existing bail conditions.

That case was also thrown out by Southampton Magistrates Court, days after Blake’s death as Sarah once again refused to support the prosecution. A prosecution breach of Peter’s bail conditions was also discontinued by magistrates.

And it’s quite clear that this is yet another failing by…well, by all concerned.

The Serious Case Review (SCR), which was eventually commissioned to examine the role the authorities played in the circumstances surrounding his death, sets out a list of damning failures that led to the youngster remaining in an environment where he eventually died.

In the first instance a victim of the worst parenting imaginable, but secondly the victim of a systematic failure of care. The report concludes that Blake could have been protected long before his death and that there were too many missed opportunities.

So, what will be the excuse? Lack of resources? It won’t fly.

It goes on: “This was not a case which required particular investigation expertise or determination. Evidence of the abuse and neglect was repeated and explicit.” The violence to which he was exposed was so obvious, even workmen in the Southampton street where Blake lived were so appalled they reported it.

The boy’s grandmother wrote to social workers pleading with them to intervene before it was “too late. But those who had the statutory duty to protect the child from harm failed to see it, and failed and failed and failed.

So reminiscent of so many cases…

Teachers, health workers, police and social workers all failed to either act swiftly enough, or act at all despite a catalogue of warning signs, the report concludes.

What a pity he didn’t have the ‘wrong’ beliefs, though, eh, instead of being too handy with his fists?

A social worker said the nature of the values and beliefs of the English Defence League were "immoral". And she had said the nature of the "offences" the man had committed against the 13-year-old girl when 17 were "immoral".

I guess murder isn’t immoral enough for our ludicrously well-paid public sector leeches to do their job…