Bungling police missed chance to charge Baby P’s mother before his death

Police blunders meant a chance to charge Baby P’s mother before his death was missed, a leaked report revealed yesterday.

A series of delays meant a child abuse investigation surrounding the toddler’s injuries ‘drifted’ and a six-month deadline to charge his mother with common assault was missed, it was revealed.

Had Baby P’s mother been charged, it would have led to tighter safeguards around the 17-month-old and could have saved his life, Haringey MP Lynne Featherstone claimed.

The shocking revelations are contained in an unpublished serious case review leaked to BBC London.

Baby P’s mother was first reported to police and social services in December 2006, when doctors spotted suspicious bruises on his head, nose, chest and shoulder and raised the alarm.

Police arrested his mother and began an investigation into suspicions that the boy was being abused, and Baby P was placed on the Child Protection Register.

Detectives submitted a file to the Crown Prosecution Service so lawyers could decide if the mother should be charged.

But prosecutors requested further evidence, including medical reports, and in March 2007 the detective in charge moved to a different section of the Metropolitan Police.

She failed to formally hand the case to another officer and the investigation ‘drifted’, according to the leaked serious case review.

A specialist who had been asked to review the child’s injuries had no further contact from police until July 2007, despite emailing to ask what was happening with the case.

The six-month deadline to charge the mother was missed because of the delay. The report said police also failed to photograph Baby P’s bruises for a week, or to keep detailed notes of conversations with his mother.

The review found that social workers’ perceptions of the case could have changed if Baby P’s mother had been charged with the offence.

It said: ‘This might have made it more likely that all the subsequent incidents were reported to the police and that arguably the child might have been more effectively safeguarded.’

Baby P, who cannot be named for legal reasons, died at the hands of his 28-year-old mother, her boyfriend, 32, and their lodger Jason Owen, 36, of Bromley, Kent.

He had suffered more than 50 injuries despite being seen more than 60 times by social workers, doctors and police in the eight months after he was put on the Child Protection Register.

His mother was re-arrested in June 2007 after doctors found 12 areas of bruising and scratching on his body.

But lawyers for Haringey, the North London borough responsible for his care, said there was not enough evidence for him to be taken into care.

And on August 2 police told his mother that no further action would be taken against her. A day later Baby P was found ‘blue and cold’ in his cot. Eight of his ribs had been broken and his spine was snapped.

Haringey launched a serious case review into his death and an executive summary was published in November, at the end of the Old Bailey trial.

But ministers refused to publish the full version over fears it could damage future investigations and put other vulnerable children at risk.

Local Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone, who was one of a handful of MPs allowed to view the full report, said each delay and failure was a missed opportunity to save the child.

She told the BBC: ‘Each one of those things could have actually saved Baby P and that’s what we see in the police, in health, in all of these agencies.

‘What an earth was going on that nobody was doing their job properly?’

Scotland Yard refused to comment, but senior officers have previously admitted that ‘errors were made’ during the investigation.

BBC London said police staffing shortages could have been a factor in the mistakes made in the case.

Out of nearly 400 posts in the Met’s child abuse squad, some 27 were either vacant or unfilled because of maternity leave at the start of this year, it reported.

A second serious case review into Baby P’s death was ordered in December by Children’s Secretary Ed Balls. It has also never been published.