It is really quite striking how much of a frenzy there is surrounding the tragic case of Baby P. I have made no effort in this blog to keep up with the astonishing amount of news coverage of the case and of the question of child protection generally – I have a full time job after all. But what I can tell you is that by virtue of posting something about Baby P last week combined with the magic of google this blog has had one of the busiest weeks ever. My stats page tells me that ‘Baby P’ is pretty much all anyone is googling at the moment.
As yesterday’s OFSTED report apparently tells us (I say apparently because I haven’t had time to read it, and because frankly it’s not news to me) this kind of tragedy is going on all over the country. Sadly many kids are killed by their carers, and no doubt sometimes this could have been prevented. But as the slathering media machine churns on and on I am beginning to feel a little bit like the gawping at the spectacle of Baby P is not only unhealthy in itself but a little bit disrespectful to all those other forgotten babies and children. I’m afraid what is being reported as ‘shocking’ to many of us is probably ‘normal’ for many many unhappy children.
Ofsted had many of us confused, including the NSPCC who say the number is much higher than their figures based on government homicide statistics. The Ofsted report is misleading as the the figure is made up of all children who died while receiving any kind of local authority help – including terminally ill children receiving social care and accidental deaths of nursery age children. In reality the number of child abuse deaths averages about one a week. Still, one child dying of abuse is one too many.