Daniel Pelka: review of possible child protection failures under way

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/02/daniel-pelka-review-child-protection

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The mother and stepfather of Daniel Pelka will each spend at least 30 years in prison after a judge told them they had waged an "unprecedented" campaign of cruelty on the four-year-old boy.

Mrs Justice Cox said Daniel looked like a concentration camp victim at the time of his death and on the evening he suffered the fatal blow to his head had been force-fed salt and subjected to a form of water torture, which would have left him "terrified".

The judge said it was possible the little boy, who was left to die in his filthy box room at the couple's home in Coventry, may have been "lucid" after the final brutal beating and would have suffered "fear, anguish and physical pain" before losing consciousness.

She told his mother, Magdelena Luczak, 27, and her partner, Mariusz Krezolek, 34, that one of the most aggravating factors was the "chronic and systematic starvation" Daniel endured in the last months of his life.

"Both of you deliberately deprived him of food. He was literally wasting away," she said. "His starvation was so chronic that his bones ceased to grow." The judge reminded them that experts said during the trial that they had never seen such emaciation in the UK. "They likened his appearance to those who failed to survive concentration camps."

There has been an outcry over why teachers, social workers, health professionals and police did not pick up on Daniel's plight. But the judge said the pair had concealed their crimes with a "series of deliberate and elaborate lies" designed to allow them to continue to abuse the boy. They had carried out a "cynical deception of teaching, welfare and medical practitioners", she added.

A serious case review is under way to find out why the authorities did not see through the couple's web of deceit. Outside court, Amy Weir, the independent chair of Coventry's safeguarding children's board, which is conducting the study, welcomed the sentencing.

She said: "With the end of the criminal case, work will continue to complete the serious case review to consider what more could or should have been done to protect Daniel. We will aim to publish the final review within six weeks."

Helen Donohoe, director of public policy at the charity Action for Children, said the case highlighted the strain limited resources were placing on staff who tried to help youngsters. "Vulnerable children are falling through the cracks of a creaking child protection system which is failing children when they need it most – sometimes with tragic consequences," she said.

Eleven of the 12 jurors who had convicted the couple of murder earlier this week returned to Birmingham crown court to see them sentenced. One wiped away tears during the hearing.

Mitigation for the pair, who are originally from Poland, was brief. Stephen Linehan QC, for Luczak, had asked the judge not to "snuff out" hope for her. "This young woman came to this country hoping for a better life and now she is facing a life in prison. Her situation is truly desperate," he said.

Nigel Lambert QC, for Krezolek, said his client had no previous convictions for violence and was "ashamed and shocked" at his cruelty to Daniel, who died in March last year.

But the pair showed little emotion as the judge jailed them for life and told them they would not be considered for parole for at least 30 years.

Cox said the couple were guilty of "unimaginable acts of cruelty and brutality inflicted on little Daniel over many months" and told them there was "no basis" for distinguishing between them, adding: "Yours was a partnership of equals."

The judge said the couple's "systematic cruelty" probably began in September 2011 when the boy started school. She told them: "He was subjected by both of you to deliberate, escalating and incomprehensible brutality, which continued right up to his death. For reasons which are unfathomable, Daniel became a target for derision, abuse and systematic cruelty."

She went on: "The scale of his suffering was truly horrific. He was subjected to acts designed to cause pain, to humiliate and intimidate. He was required to kneel on the floor for long periods of time, to run continuously around the living room or to perform squats repeatedly and slowly.

"He was repeatedly forced to swallow salt, which you admit was poured neat into his mouth from the salt container, and which caused him to vomit. He was subjected to a form of cold water punishment, being held under cold water until the point of unconsciousness. He must have been absolutely terrified.

"He was confined for regular and prolonged periods in the small, bare box room. The small hand and finger marks on the inside of the door provided a poignant image of his desperate attempts to escape. The urine stains on the mattress on which he was made to sleep and the damp state of the carpet testify to his inability to go to the toilet when he needed."

Turning again to the regime of starvation, the judge said that Daniel scavenged for food from other children's lunch boxes, from the playground or from rubbish bins. "He would have suffered extraordinary hunger, increasing abdominal pains and ultimately a feeling of hopelessness," she said.

The judge said both had been in breach of the "most important position of trust, as the parents of a young child who was entitled to their protection, love and care". She said Luczak's breach of trust was "wholly irreconcilable with the loving care a mother should show towards her own son".