A review of social services’ role before the murders of Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes rightly avoids pinning blame on individuals
There were 536 incidents involving serious harm to a child, where abuse was a factor, in the year to March 2021 in England. Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, whose murderers were convicted last December, were among the 223 children who were killed. For reasons including timing, the existence of upsetting video footage showing both children being assaulted, and the fact that in each case a woman who was not a relative was convicted of murder, these tragedies received far more attention than is typical.
The purpose of a just-published report on these cases, by the safeguarding practice review panel, is to bring together lessons and suggest how to make similarly awful events less likely in future. How urgently this needs to happen was further illustrated this week when Laura Castle was convicted of murdering Leiland-James Corkill, a baby she was in the process of adopting (the local authority in this case, Cumbria, has apologised).
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