News round up: Murder of baby exposes fresh protection failings

By Mithran Samuel on January 16, 2009 in Child safeguarding, Children, Mental Health

Craig Goddard’s murder of baby exposes fresh protection failings

New failings in Doncaster’s child protection system emerged yesterday after a violent and drug-addicted father known to social services was jailed for life for the murder of his baby son.

Craig Goddard squeezed, shook and then threw 11-week-old Alfie to the floor after he lost his temper when the baby refused to stop crying. Goddard had been drinking and had smoked several cannabis joints. The baby died of head injuries two days later.
Read more on this story in The Independent

Poverty ‘no excuse for poor results’

Schools that adopt an “excuses culture” and blame low exam results on pupils’ poverty will not be tolerated and face an enforced change of leadership or being taken over by an academy, the children’s secretary, Ed Balls, said yesterday.

Coroner blames youths who taunted boy before suicide leap

Youths who taunted a suicidal boy seconds before he jumped from the top floor of a Derby car park were partly responsible for his death, a coroner said yesterday.

As negotiators tried for two hours to coax 17-year-old Shaun Dykes down from the top of the Westfield shopping centre car park in September last year, youths below shouted taunts, telling him to “get on with it” and “stop wasting taxpayers’ money”, the inquest heard. Others filmed his ordeal on mobile phones, and later uploaded clips on YouTube and Facebook.