Arthur and Star: What went wrong?

From Grooming Gangs to Child Abuse, are the right questions even being asked?

Arthur Labinjo-Hughes was just six years old when he was killed by his father and his father’s partner. She would later be convicted of his murder. Star Hobson didn’t make it past 16 months, again killed by those who should have cared for her. She was murdered by her mother’s partner. The Child Protection in England report, also referred to as the national review, was launched in an atmosphere of ‘widespread public distress’ at these awful events. 

It describes these distressing cases as ‘relatively exceptional’ but, nevertheless, tries to understand what happened. It finds areas of weakness in information sharing and in the child protection expertise of those involved. And describes a ‘lack of robust critical thinking and challenge within and between agencies, compounded by a failure to trigger statutory multi-agency child protection processes at a number of key moments’. 

But, as the report acknowledges, there is nothing new here. Except, that is, for the unusual and exacerbating circumstances of lockdown. It was 2020 and, in Arthur’s case, the local authority introduced what the report describes as ‘COVID-safe practice’.

… the impact of these modifications led to fragmented management oversight of the response to individual referrals and a lack of clarity about case-holding accountability. These aspects had some impact on the effectiveness of the response to concerns about bruising to Arthur and subsequent decision making.

Nevertheless, nearly every inquiry going back to Victoria Climbie (and the many others that preceded her) has arrived at strikingly similar conclusions. As the report says: ‘The importance of effective ‘multi-agency working’ has been emphasised for many decades.’ This time, though, it must be ‘genuinely joint’ and ‘fully integrated’. A new set of standards and new child protection units are the recommendation. 

A Home Office paper, Group-based CSE characteristics of offending, considers cases of ‘multiple interconnected offenders grooming and sexually exploiting children’ outside the home. The little we know of these so-called grooming gangs has exposed ‘shocking state failures’, says the paper. It has also raised serious questions about the welfare of girls and young women in our towns and cities. In the last decade or so there have been investigations into group-based child sexual exploitation in Telford, Rochdale, Rotherham, Oxford, Bristol, Newcastle and North Wales, amongst others; often involving Pakistani men. 

While the paper is keen to explain that this may not be representative of the wider demographics, you get the sense that there is little appetite to dig too deeply here. If there is a racial dimension to this abuse (as some high-profile cases seem to suggest), or if the ‘othering’, ‘misogyny and disregard for women and girls’ that the paper describes, really is attributable to certain sections of the community, then it needs to be said. Is it any wonder that the authorities stand accused of obstruction and misplaced political correctness when it comes to these instances of abuse and exploitation.

Despite the differences in the nature of the abuse or exploitation these girls and young women suffer, the proposed solutions to family-based abuse and neglect, and group-based child sexual abuse, are remarkably similar. The emphasis, once more, is on the need for ‘multi-agency safeguarding’ and ‘information-sharing between agencies’. Likewise, the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care recommends a joined-up and ‘bespoke child protection pathway’ to deal with harms outside the home.

Of course, the complexity of child protection work in particular demands the coordination of expertise, but an overemphasis on process can also detract from the most important element of all. The human one. Only people, not systems or networks, can protect and safeguard children from harm. So it is welcome that the review also recognises the need to ‘identify and remove the [often administrative] barriers’ between social workers and the children and families they work with.

As the review puts it, ‘the system too often tries to replace organic bonds and relationships with professionals and services’. This is an important point. So why does it then go on to recommend the creation of a Family Help service to replace the already extensive Early Help and Children in Need services? And why must it reach ‘about half a million children’. Is this not replacing ‘organic bonds’ with ‘professionals and services’, and on a massive scale too? 

While families in difficulty should be given all the support they need, the state should not take the place of, or undermine, their responsibility for raising their children. While it is occasionally necessary for the state to step in, going beyond that risks making matters much worse. I suspect it already has.

I’ll have more to say on this tomorrow at the Battle of Ideas when I join a panel to debate From grooming gangs to child abuse: is social work working? 

Hope to see some of you there!