Saturday 1 May 2010

The Plymouth Case

Interesting case heard at Plymouth Crown Court this week. A girl whose parents have been noticed a number of times by social services was withdrawn from school at the age of thirteen in order to be home educated. Before this happened, her brother had been taken into care and later adopted due to abuse by the father. The girl herself had been seen at school with a bite mark on her arm and had told social workers that she wanted to get away from her father so she could be safe. She was briefly sent to a foster family, but had to leave because of her sexualised behaviour.

By the age of fourteen, after she had been removed from school, her parents were sexually abusing her regularly and had photographed her pretending to have sex with a dog and also groping her own mother. One need hardly add that there had been no home visits to the family by the local authority after she had been deregistered from school. The case may be seen here;

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Plymouth-girl-14-sex-toy-paedophile-parents-traded-online/article-2091055-detail/article.html

There are of course two ways of looking at this. Some home educating parents will no doubt take the line that since the child was already known to social services, they are at fault for not taking more of an interest in her after she had been withdrawn from school. Another point of view would be that this might be the tip of an unsavoury iceberg and that there may be many other children in this position whose parents have just been a little more cunning about hiding their activities from the local authority. I have a strong suspicion that if this girl's family had been required to discuss sensibly their plans with the local authority and explain their educational approach, then this would probably have discouraged them from taking the child out of school. I also think that the prospect of regular visits from anybody might have caused them to scale back on their abusive activities a little.

Although, as in the Khyra Ishaq case, we see that social services have fallen down on the job, this case does show once again the important role of schools as a first line of defence in spotting abuse. It was teachers who saw bruises on her arm and then later a bite mark. This is one safeguarding advantage of school for the average child. Obviously, with an election only a week away, a case like this is not attracting as much publicity as it deserves. I have a suspicion though that it will not take a new Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families very long in office before he or she decides that the whole business of home education needs to be looked at again.

12 comments:

  1. I have a suspicion though that it will not take a new Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families very long in office before he or she decides that the whole business of home education needs to be looked at again.

    Dont think so Simon.The Tory/s and M.Gove where quite clear in they view about home education and have not put forward any new laws for home education! it wont happen M.Gove has a real understanding about home education. The Tory/s do not agree with forced home visits just because you home educate.
    Home education is of no real interest to the Tory/s so your wrong nothing will happen! nothing has happened anyway just a load of talk no change here no home visits no meeting nothing LOL mind you i was looking forward to telling any one who did come round to F off! i wonder what box you tick for that LOL! your on private land clear off!

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  2. Thought you would pick iup on it, Simon.... as I said this extremely distressing case will no dount be used by the powers that be to justify more regulation etc.

    Once again though social services clearly got it wrong long before the HE factor became an issue (I mean - the foster parents couldn't apparently cope because of the girls sexualised behaviour - so they sent her home?? Who makes stupid decisions like this?). Harder deregistration or close monitoring may have mean she stayed at school, but would that have stopped the abuse - apparently the girl still denied it was going on even when it was discovered? We will never know.

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  3. Peter ....

    Tories: Michael Gove is reported saying that "I do foresee the need for some changes" with ref to HE

    Lib Dems - want registration and some talk about "approval"

    Labour - well we all know their views!

    You are an eternal optimist! I am not even sure what the Govt will be after Thursday!

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  4. So about 9 years of abuse whilst at school were followed by just over a year of abuse at home and you think an ex-teacher visiting for a few hours would spot more than teachers seeing the child for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week for 36 weeks a year? The girl was withdrawn from school aged 13 in 2007 and her parents were arrested in 2009 when she was 14. Do you really think that this family could not have fooled an ex-teacher visiting for a few hours a couple of times (at most), especially as the girl blamed herself for getting her parents in trouble when the abuse was discovered so obviously would not have disclosed the abuse.

    You mention the bite and bruises on her arm being seen by teachers at school. Are you suggesting that the home visit should include a viewing of the child in her gym kit so that arms and legs can be checked for bruises and bite marks?

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  5. I think the informality of the process of deregistration, the fact that all is required is to drop a line to the school, probably encouraged these parents to take the step. I have a strong suspicion that with their history they would have been a little more reluctant had the process been a bit more rigorous. I have an idea that they would not have wanted to take the chance of withdrawing the child for full time abuse if it had meant answering a lot of questions.

    As for the bruises and bite mark seen while she was at school, I mention this because it is the sort of thing which is often discovered at school. It can be more easily concealed if a child is educated at home, which means that a home educated child can perhaps be more easily subjected to systematic abuse than one attending school regularly.

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  6. Here is yet another recent case where being at school has helped rescue a child from serious neglect which verged upon abuse;

    http://www.birminghammail.net/news/birmingham-news/2010/04/30/mercy-for-birmingham-couple-who-starved-boy-97319-26346081/

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  7. Here is another example of a child who was being abused, the abuse only coming to light because the school noticed it. This a layer of protection for children which those educated at home miss out on.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1060305/Mother-jailed-BITING-year-old-son-revenge-hurting-baby-sister.html

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  8. And there is no danger of a child being left in a dangerous situation at school because a parent is equally put off if de-registration is too difficult?

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/04/16/family-of-car-park-death-fall-teenager-robyn-nixon-hit-out-at-bullies-115875-22189406/

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/leading-article-we-must-take-action-on-bullying-1956868.html

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7623602/Schoolgirl-withdrawn-from-school-over-ginger-bullying.html

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/apr/19/bullying-online-mentors

    http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/8113507._Bullying_on_school_buses_can_t_be_allowed_to_continue

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1266164/Teenager-bullied-fat-ugly-laugh-reaches-final-modelling-contest.html

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  9. "I have a strong suspicion that with their history they would have been a little more reluctant had the process been a bit more rigorous. I have an idea that they would not have wanted to take the chance of withdrawing the child for full time abuse if it had meant answering a lot of questions."

    I would have thought that a family with their history should have been followed up more closely when they de-registered. The LA could have asked them to answer the questions you think would have put the parent's off withdrawing the child but they didn't. Obviously the parents would not legally have been required to answer them but the LA would have been able to issue a SAO as a result.

    The only difference between now and the proposed system is the automatic right of entry and access to the child but Lord Parker did not rule out home visits. He said "an education authority should not, as a matter of policy, insist on inspection in the home as the only method of satisfying themselves that the children were receiving full time education". But did make the point that in some circumstances a home visit can be required in order to establish the provision of a suitable education, as was the case he was trying at the time. I'm sure any court in the land would have supported an LA that insisted on a home visit for a family with a history of child abuse.

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  10. The problem has some roots in the fact that the government took social services and education and put them through a blender together, so that what's come out of the other end is a chopped-up mess of both that no one really has any clue how to handle.

    It shouldn't be that hard to have a simple system where the earlier concerns were on file, and on receipt of notification of de-registration, the details could have been passed from education to social services, who could have checked for prior information, found it and taken proper action.

    Had the child stayed at school, who's to say that the LA's edu-welfare department wouldn't have continued to file reports in the bin or for ineffective action, or play pass-the-parcel with an incentive to not be holding it when the music stopped?

    Until they reform the government side of things then this sort of thing will keep happening, regardless of whether children are in school or out of it. Plenty of children have unfortunately endured abuse despite attending school that was not picked up by the school. OK, you might pick up one or two more by forcing home visits on home educators, but how many children wrongly forced back to school will suffer worse than the one or two you might save?

    If it was simple, someone would have done it by now.

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  11. Simon said: 'I have remarked before of the delight evidently felt by some home educating parents every time a tragedy occurs in a school or nursery. Whether it is toddlers being sexually abused or a boy choking to death in the course of an asthma attack, there are invariably smug remarks on some of the lists about the perils of the state education system.'

    And this post differs...how?

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  12. Julie said...

    Peter ....

    Tories: Michael Gove is reported saying that "I do foresee the need for some changes" with ref to HE

    Lib Dems - want registration and some talk about "approval"

    Labour - well we all know their views!

    You are an eternal optimist! I am not even sure what the Govt will be after Thursday!

    M.Gove was talking about change to help home educators but it was very wolly and Gove also said that home educators views must be respected! he was very alarmed by the way Balls DCSF/Badman have carried out this review! Gove is also against forced home visit if you just home educate!

    LiB/Dem do not want want registration and some talk about "approval" its not in they manifesto have you read it Julie?

    Labour will not win the next election they finshed Brown will be gone by next weekend!and then Labour will turn on itself your see a lot on infighting!

    You are an eternal optimist! i am and so you should be to Julie dont listen to silly old Simon with his crazy ideas you picked the wrong side its not to late to rejoin home educators.

    We off to play chess in a bit at the 4ncl chess league its got a web site take a look Julie LOL!

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