Woman stabbed to death by foster child 'very sweet', inquiry hears
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Version 0 of 1. A woman killed by her 13-year-old foster child was a kind and caring person who had an affinity with children, her husband has told an inquiry. Dawn McKenzie, 34, was stabbed by the teenager she and her husband Bryan were looking after at their home in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, in 2011. A fatal accident inquiry into the circumstances of her death heard that Mrs McKenzie had decided to look into becoming a foster carer after years of working as a nursery nurse. Mr McKenzie, 40, told the inquiry in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire that his wife “was a very sweet, kind girl, very caring. She was a strong person as well, very determined and very hard-working.” The couple, who did not have children of their own, began looking into fostering in 2010 after Mrs McKenzie saw a newspaper advert. “She felt she had a lot more to give,” said Mr McKenzie. “She had really taken herself as far as she could as a nursery nurse. She had a real affinity with kids and she wanted to help. This was the logical next step and I was supportive of her.” The boy involved in the stabbing was detained for seven years after admitting culpable homicide on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Day one of the inquiry heard that the McKenzies lived in a two-bedroom flat in Hamilton and had been married for almost 11 years when Mrs McKenzie was killed on 24 June 2011. Mr McKenzie said of their decision to foster: “We saw it as a new challenge for both of us.” He said they were initially delighted to have been approved as foster carers in October 2010 and within weeks they were asked to take the boy as their first placement. However, the inquiry heard that the transition was handled badly due to the haste with which his previous placement ended, travel chaos caused by 2010’s severe winter weather and the boy’s social worker going on annual leave. He told how the boy was quiet at first – Mrs McKenzie described him as a “lovely boy” in early reports – but later emerged to be “a compulsive liar, telling lots of tall tales”. Mr McKenzie said they were not made aware of the full extent of the boy’s background until the end of January 2011, more than two months into the placement, when it emerged that before being taken into care he had been sleeping on a trampoline, had no shoes and was living in a house frequented by drug addicts. He had previously been subjected to “frequent acts of violence” including “smashing his head off units”, Mr McKenzie said, adding that if they had known more about the boy’s background they would have still have taken the placement, but would have been “more cautious and better armed”. He was still allowed supervised contact with his mother during the placement but Mr McKenzie said this contact was “poorly managed” by social workers and the boy returned from his visits in a low mood that would last for days. It later emerged that he had been secretly holding conversations with his family on Facebook and a social network gaming platform. Mrs McKenzie found out about this when the boy questioned her about a birthday card from a relative which he had not received, revealing that his mother had told him about the card on Facebook. The boy’s laptop and mobile phone were confiscated but a further supervised meeting with his mother was arranged by social workers about a week before Mrs McKenzie was killed in June 2011. The boy became “difficult” in the last few days before the attack and was aggrieved about the confiscation of his laptop. “I just remember that the last time my wife was alive he still wasn’t allowed it,” Mr McKenzie said. The inquiry continues on Tuesday. |