A Story That Sums Up Modern London...

A mute and autistic four year old clung to his mother's rotting corpse for two weeks before starving to death in their London flat.

Chadrack Mbala Mulo was too disabled to call for help when his mother Esther died after an epileptic fit at their Hackney home in October.

The windows were open but neighbours thought the stench of Mrs Mulo's rotting corpse was her Congolese cooking.

All hail diversity! Are we not enriched?

Staff at his Morningside Primary had tried to call his mother and visited the family home twice but could not make contact.

Where was the father? Where were the relatives? The - dare I say it - co-workers/employers?

Well, the 'Guardian' thinks this is a case for the overarching state, of course:

In a report to the children’s minister, Edward Timpson, the coroner said she feared more people could die in similar circumstances, unless action was taken. She highlighted a string of changes that had taken place in order to avoid a similar situation arising again.

“If a child unexpectedly fails to attend and no relevant adult can be contacted via phone, staff at the school do not now wait three to five days as they did then, but instead immediately send a member of staff to the family home.

“They now make a distinction between an attendance issue that may warrant a penalty (not the case for Chadrack because he was under the age of five years) and a potential welfare issue,” Hassell wrote in her report.

“If there is no answer at the family home when staff members attend, they now immediately contact the police, who in most cases are likely to force entry.” She added that Chadrack’s east London school now collects phone numbers for three family members, rather than just one.

She commended the school for changing its systems to no longer wait three to five days to visit the home of a child who missed school unexpectedly but said it was unlikely that others have similar systems and called on the government to take action.

So the police and school staff now have the added burden of checking up all reports of absentees, sending up the balloon when they can't gain entry, all so the country can enjoy the benefits of having a diverse population.

Said 'benefits' being the additional welfare burden of a Congolese single mother with a disabled child. Is it me, or...?