Serious Case Review reveals toddler’s family history ‘included inter and multi-generational abuse’

The father of Poppi Worthington is an ex-partner of a woman who was suspected of grooming the toddler’s mother when she was a teenager, a serious case review has revealed.

Paul Worthington also has a child with the woman who authorities had feared may have sexually exploited Poppi’s mother.

Details of Poppi’s family background were contained in a serious case review published on Monday which focused on how agencies worked together and individually between March 2011 and just prior to the youngster’s death.

In January, a high court judge ruled – on the balance of probabilities – that 13-month-old Poppi was sexually assaulted by Mr Worthington before her sudden death in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, in December 2012.

Mr Worthington (pictured), 48, who was arrested but never charged, denies any wrongdoing.

The review found that Poppi’s mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had a “difficult and traumatic childhood” in a family “with intergenerational experiences of neglect and abuse”.

She had been the subject of an emergency protection court order as a teenager due to concerns about alleged child sexual exploitation from the older woman and another man.

Poppi’s mother – referred to as MCN in the report – gave birth to her first child later in the same year when “extremely vulnerable” and the child was subsequently removed and adopted.

Care proceedings were also issued in relation to her second child but after a successful home placement she was allowed to keep that child and later siblings, including Poppi.

Report author Clare Hyde noted MCN was “a young woman with complex and multiple vulnerabilities however her superficial presentation was of a competent and coping mother”.

Agencies knew less about the early childhood of Mr Worthington – referred to as FCN , according to the review.

He spent time living in a major city where he was homeless, which he described as “brutal”.

FCN was the ex-partner of, and had a child with, the adult female who had been suspected of grooming Poppi’s mother, although the review did not date Mr Worthington’s relationship with the woman.

The review said Mr Worthington met Poppi’s mother in 2008 and was considerably older than her.

Ms Hyde said: “There is no information that health visitors or midwives working with the family recognised or assessed the trauma of MCN’s own childhood, the loss (of) her first child into care or, given her vulnerability to further abuse, her relationship with FCN, a man … years her senior, as potential sources of risk to the children.”

She added: “Because the indicators of risks and vulnerabilities in respect of MCN and FCN were not explored by the midwives, health visitors and GP who came into contact with Child N (Poppi), this outward appearance was not questioned.”

In conclusion, she said: “This SCR (serious case review) demonstrates the critical importance of a family’s complex history as an indicator of future risk and need.

“Child N’s family history included inter and multi-generational abuse.

“This history was highly relevant to any assessment of MCN’s need for therapeutic and other support as she grew through adolescence into young adulthood and became a very young parent.

“There were no plans put in place for any long term support or intervention to ensure that MCN and her children were safe and thriving despite the fact that there were several significant indicators that her capacity to parent may have been compromised by her own childhood experiences of trauma and abuse.”

She recommended to the Cumbria Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) that it needed to be assured that practitioners demonstrate “professional curiosity and scepticism around fathers and other males who associate with high need or complex families” – particularly where those families had histories of exploitation or abuse

The review began in May 2014 after the LSCB had previously wrongly deemed such an investigation was not necessary.

Responding to Monday’s report, Cumbria LSCB chair Gill Rigg said that knowledge and recognition of child sexual exploitation had grown significantly and agencies would have made “an appropriate response” if abuse had been recognised.

She said the LSCB will complete an audit of three families with a similar profile to Child N’s family to see how parenting capacity is being assessed and responded to.

It will also seek assurances that all agencies have reminded frontline staff and supervisors that they must always take into account the family history and context and how they have done this

A fresh inquest will take place into Poppi’s death later this year after the first inquest controversially took only seven minutes to declare her death as “unexplained”.

The Crown Prosecution Service is reviewing its previous decision not to pursue criminal charges in the case.

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