Baby P's Killers Have Got Off Too Lightly [Edition 2]

Summary

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THE SENTENCING today of those responsible for the death of Baby P brings the case to some sort of closure -- but the serious worries remain. The sentences are surprisingly lenient. Both Baby Peter's mother and her lodger will go to prison for an indefinite sentence although they can be considered for parole in August 2012; her boyfriend, convicted of raping a two year-old girl as well, was sentenced to life but can be considered for parole in just over eight years. We must hope that when the time comes, the Parole Board takes an appropriately sceptical view of these perverted killers' demands for freedom: revealed in court as manipulative liars, they seem likely to remain a danger to the public for years to come.

As for the lessons of the case, the latest serious case review, released today, highlights anew the chronic problems in child protection. Council lawyers concede in the report that there was clear enough evidence of abuse to take Baby Peter into care before he died -- yet Haringey social workers failed to do so. As we reveal today, the failures go back a long way. Eileen Fairweather, who led the Standard's investigation into the Islington child abuse scandal in the Nineties, says that both Baby Peter's mother and another close relative were in Islington council's care in the early Nineties at a time when abuse by organised paedophiles was rife.

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Baby P's Killers Have Got Off Too Lightly [Edition 2]

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