BS: Death of Another Innocent

Subject: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: Fiolar
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 08:41 AM

The inquiry into the death of two year old Ainlee Labonte has just reported. The little girl died in January with 64 scars, scabs and brusies on her tiny body which weighed less than 22 pounds. Her "parents" Leanne Labonte and Dennis Henry were jailed for manslaughter and cruelty with sentences of 10 and 12 years. It appears that health and social workers who should have protected her were "paralysed by fear" of her violent parents. An expert in child abuse stated and I quote, "She probably experienced more pain than anyone can imagine....we can measure pain against joy. There doesn't appear to have been any joy in her life....There must have been a point at which she just gave up. If you cry and no one comes, you must give up."
Photos of the little girl show a beautiful child with a lovely smile. The inhuman scum who called themselves her "parents" should never be allowed to ses the light of day again. Instead in all probablity, with "good" behaviour, they will more than likely be out in 6 to 7. This is one of the few times in my life, I feel like crying with rage and believe me I have seen some shocking things in my time.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: Willie-O
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 09:07 AM

There's stuff I just don't understand...this kind of stuff.

Google "Ainlee Labonte" and you will get the story.

Way beyond sad.

Bill

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: kendall
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 09:49 AM

There is only one consolation, those scumbags will do hard time. With luck, he will get "shanked" in the shower.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: Kim C
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 10:01 AM

Fry 'em.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: mack/misophist
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 10:56 AM

There is nothing special here. It seems to happen at least once a year or so. If you are truly aghast, try to do something. Act. Words are cheap, even pointless, unless they move you towards a goal. New laws are one possibility.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: Amergin
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 11:08 AM

more often than once a year....you just don't hear about it all the time.....

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 11:36 AM

Unfortunately, the "Child Protective Service's" is very weak in most states and these folks don't get involved until the kid is either dead or seriuosly injured. When I was in Adult Services I used to see a lot of abuse but gave up even making the referrals becuase of the same old lousy criteria. Now, with less and less money going into social services with Bill Clinton's right winged, ill-thought out "Welfare Reform" legislation, don't expect things to get better but continue on that downward spiril as pressures mount on the working poor.

Hey, I'm not making excuses for anyone's behavior, but just pointing out the reality of the situation.

AQnd folks would be amazed to know just how much abuse there is of kids everyday of the year. It's of epidemic porportions. Don't believe me? Everyone knows someone who works a social worker. Ask 'em!

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 11:56 AM

This tragedy happened a few streets away from me. No one could get access to the child to see if she was in danger. The parents were very adept at making excuses and denying access. If she had been of nursery age then there would have been someone to notice. The health and social services in Newham are very overstretched and it's really not surprising that she wasn't checked on. After Phoebe was born we had a couple of routine visits from the health workers and then a few regular appointment at the clinic but I was surprised that there ween't more - from the "red book" we were expecting more regular health checks.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 01:46 PM

I'm opposed to the death penalty, but this sort of thing makes me want to see those who did the crime suffer exactly the way the victim did. Unfortunately for that, they can only die once.

It's the killing of the love a child feels, the killing of a love given but never returned....well, I *very* sincerely hope that these parents obtain justice in the afterlife (if not in this one). For myself I'll hope for mercy.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: Wesley S
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 02:07 PM

There is a part of me that would love to try to figure out what the motivation is for a crime like this. How could someone do this to a child ? What on earth is their thought process ? I wish there was a way to examine these sick people so we can figure out how to spot them in the future.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 02:16 PM

I wonder if it is alcohol related. I think a lot of abuse stems from alcohol use and abuse. Maybe they were from families of abuse themselves. Neither is an excuse of coarse.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: alanabit
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 02:21 PM

Ah Wesley a voice with something constructive to say at last. We are mixing up the natural anger at the parents with the necessity of finding a way of reducing hideous child abuse. I can recall cases like this back to Maria Colwell some thirty years ago. If you go back into the history of the mother, you find that she was a horribly abused child too. It is not an excuse for her behaviour and my feelings towards her boyfriend are as violent and contemptuous as any other commentator here. The mother was a persecuted, humiliated child who went on to become a persecuting, humiliating mother. So was this just a coincidence?

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: C-flat
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 02:43 PM

It's pretty well documented and accepted that most abusers were once victims themselves. Does that mean that anyone who was on the "at risk" file as a child should expect their children to be added to the same list automatically.
These crimes against children are horrifying and despicable and no amount of exposure to this sort of thing can de-sensitise you to it, but the answer is not obvious.
Regular checks by health visitors to all families, whatever their background, should pick up on some of the worst cases but health visitors, like any parent, knows that children DO fall over and pick up bruises no matter how good your parenting skills are and it's often difficult to spot a child at risk.
This doesn't excuse those who didn't follow up on the welfare of the child in this case whose claims that they were too afraid of the parents is quite shocking.
I imagine those people will be suffering in their own way now.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: kendall
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 03:04 PM

When a young lion takes over a pride, and ousts the old lion, the new one will kill all the cubs fathered by the old lion. They do that because, as long as the female lions have cubs, they are not interested in sex. As soon as the cubs are all dead, within a few days, the females come into estris, and the new male gets what he came for. But, of course, they are just animals. HHmmm, animals, I think I see some similarities here.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 03:56 PM

When I hear about this kind of thing happening my anger doesn't get focussed on the actual abusers so much as on the chickenshit and incompetent "professionals", who let the child down so horribly. And the politicians who cut back on resources, and on the voters who elect politicians who cut back on resources, and who are frightened of dipping their hands into their pockets to provide what is needed in the way of social services and proper training for the "professionals".

And that is said from the background of having worked for 20 years in a social work department.

As for the parents, my basic feeling is there is no punishment you could imagine which would be worse than actually being those people.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: mg
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 04:16 PM

not punishment but prevention..if they are allowed out of jail, sterilization and castration for both of them. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: Big Tim
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 05:55 PM

These "scum" were her parents. One, at least, was drug crazed, so what's the answer? I don't know.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: GUEST,Richard Bridge (cookie and format C)
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 06:07 PM

Social workers do their best.

They are overworked and underpaid.

The profit centre philosophy now holding sway requires them to keep as many children out of care as possible, because taking kids into care costs money. If they do their jobs properly they get fired or backed into corners by management scum until they have nervous breakdowns themselves.

They also know that they harm children by taking them into care - and are supposed to balance when the right time to apply is.

Small wonder social work has one of the highest rates of burnout of any profession.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: BH
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 06:09 PM

On the music that touches on this subject---Eric Bogle has a most moving piece called: Daniel Smiling.   It tells almost the exact same tale. Sadly.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: SINSULL
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 06:45 PM

Anyone who has been a foster parent (myself included) can tell horror stories of incompetent, even criminal social workers. We can also tell tales of people dedicated to their profession and the children in their care. They are overworked. They are also put in positions where no matter what decision they make they will be wrong. Unfortunately, children suffer.
Do I sound philosophical? I am seething with anger at the injustices committed against my son. He and society will pay the price for decades to come. His children probably will too. I watch unable to change a thing.

Subject: Lyr Add: DON'T MAKE WAVES
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 07:01 PM

Some social workers do their best. Some give up because doing your best is hard. Some keep their head down and avoid making waves, and go along with fashions where the bottom line is saving money - referred to as "modernisation" and "reform". In social work terms this means pulling out from involvement with families prematurely, or avoiding getting involved in the first place.

"Burn out" does exist - where people have used up so much of themselves in the work that they can't carry on. But very often its used as a self-flattering term for apathy and surrender, by people who were too wet to ever catch fire in the first place.

Here's a song I wrote about this kind of thing a few years back:

Don't make waves, don't make waves,
Don't forget that you are slaves,
Keep your nose clean, go on tiptoes,
In the silence of the grave.
Don't you think of blowing the whistle,
Keep your eye upon the ball,
Keep your head down, mind your back,
And just remember one and all
It's a shame, it's a shame,
But it's down to what's his name,
You're a lonely soul surviving
In a dodgy kind of game,
And just think about the scandal
If it gets too hot to handle –
No the game's not worth the candle,
And you're really not to blame.

Modernise, privatise,
Keep your eyes upon the prize.
Hear them talk of consultation,
Hear them talk a load of lies.
You see people deep in need,
You see ignorance and greed,
You see all those wmooth officials,
With an ego they must feed –
But don't you think of blowing the whistle...

Is it true or is it true?
Have I told you nothing new?
Do you ever stop to wonder
What they've got in store for you?
You might be working in the system.
Or surviving on the dole –
Either way you know, you're nothing
To the people in control.
When the bottom line is money
And the middle name is greed,
Why they'd thrown their mothers overboard
To give the sharks a feed.
So don't you think of blowing the whistle,
Keep your eye upon the ball,
Keep your head down, mind your back,
And just remember one and all
It's a shame, it's a shame,
But it's down to what's his name,
You're a lonely soul surviving
In a dodgy kind of game,
And just think about the scandal
If it gets too hot to handle –
No the game's not worth the candle,
And you're really not to blame.

I was feeling angry at the time. Sometimes that's the right way to feel.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 09:50 PM

Surely this specific case is abominable...

But really... the prevelence is appalling. The burnout is inevitable, the sadness after giving up, is truly horrendous. If anyone thinks that this is inevitable, and that kind human relations are the exception rather than the rule...

And yet many do.

So much witty analysis, so little belief in love... ttr

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 19 Dec 02 - 11:05 PM

There's a lot in this thread (Mary Garvey's post included) that reeks of the fascist mentality. McGrath may have worked in or around a depressingly lousy team, but I think it would have been fairer to have confined that "chickenshit" epithet to the one experience.

There have been many instances in the UK of parents being accused of child abuse, and families being torn apart and permanently wrecked in consequence, when in fact there had been no crime done at all. I remember the disgraceful community reaction to a woman in Australia who was thought - wrongly - to have murdered an infant when it had in fact been snatched by a dingo. I don't say this to suggest Ainlee's parents were sweet innocents - just to point out that it can be very hard for the professional agencies to sort out right from wrong.

Social workers face difficult decisions day in and day out, and the positive outcomes that they so often achieve go completely unheralded. Once in so many hundred cases they foul up, and the result rightly appalls us all. It may then give some halfwit a moment's gratification to blame it all on the chickenshit social workers, but if we have learnt anything in the many years since Maria Colwell, it is that firefighting the problem around the edges is no answer.

We have become a "me now" society in which no political party proposing to raise income tax has a chance of being elected. Such taxes that we do pay are on spending rather than income, with the result that the gap between rich and poor in the UK has widened spectacularly since 1979. London, where Ainlee lived and died, has some of the worst deprivation in Britain, cheek-by-jown with the most obscene wealth. Social workers spend much of their working lives amid that deprivation, doing work that would provoke extreme resentment wherever they did it (who here would welcome social workers snooping into their domestic lives?).

They are shamefully over-worked and under-resourced, like most of our public services. And in any case they would never be able to prevent every tragedy, any more than the police could ever prevent every crime; or anti-virus programs could keep a step ahead of every virus.

Even when Ainlee died, I felt much more sadness/despair than anger. But many months have passed since then, and I would have hoped that by now we would have been reacting with something more constructive than mindless blind rage.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: alanabit
Date: 20 Dec 02 - 03:17 AM

Probably the best posting on this horrible case yet, Fionn. However, in this case I believe there was good reason to believe that the police and social workers were intimidated by the violence of the "father". A big, strong, habitually violent man would scare the Hell out of me and I have been training in fighting sports for over thirty years. In some areas policemen, social workers, firemen or even hospital staff face violence and intimidation on a regular basis. I do not have an easy answer either, although I agree with just about every word you and McGrath have posted. It is very much the "me first" culture which has brought this about.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Dec 02 - 05:33 AM

It's not "a lousy team". I am absolutely certain that most every social worker has come up against the situation where they have been told to wind up a case in circumstances where they believe this is the wrong decision. And of cases where a situation collapsed after this happened.

Lack of adequate resources lies at the back of that - but that is dependent on people within the system, in pareticular management, colluding in it.

The bottom line in this case is that noone blew the whistle. That's shameful. But it's very understandable, because there are a lot of ways of getting back at anyone who does make waves.

Subject: A Social Worker's Experience (longish)
From: saulgoldie
Date: 20 Dec 02 - 06:43 AM

McGrath's point of social workers either giving up or being told to "back off" has personal meaning to me. Back before the current story of sexual abuse by priests was on the front page every day--in the 80s--my mother was a guidance counsellor who was listening to a student chronicle how a very popular teacher had been touching her. She very carefully and deftly helped the student come to terms with the experience and finally to raise the case. Well, since this was a popular teacher, and since guidance counsellors were really not supposed to "counsel", *she* was the one set upon by the administration.

The girl's case went to court, and by the time the trial day came, Mom had remembered and looked up another student who had had the same thing with the same teacher. That other girl was sitting front and center in the courtroom at the trial, and the perp confessed on the stand. The teacher was allowed to quietly resign and promise not to teach again.

Mom, in the mean time, didn't have it so easy. It took several years of hearings and untimately, litigation before Mom's case of employment harassment was finally settled. And then, of course, since she had embarassed the "powers that be", retribution followed. They hounded her at every step, and all but made it impossible for her to work. They wrote special rules relating to her position (that were known within the county with her name, since they were really meant for her, only). There was another case, and they finally "retired" her to home with a full year's pay, but please stay out of the schools. The schools lost a valuable employee, and wasted tens of thousands (or more?) of scarce education money in a process contrary to its mission.

I am sure there are many more cases of dedicated people looking out for their charges and getting punished for it. So when one wants to jump on a social worker, I suggest a moment of reflection as to what might be their situation. Of course, this whole dynamic should be structurally changed.

We will keep reading numerous stories like this until 1) we all accept that a child is not the property of its parents or parent pretenders, but is a member of the whole village; 2) we genuinely and thoroughly endorse and support social workers and interveners in our hearts and with our wallets rather than just giving lip service to the sentiment; and 3) guarantee that all children are born wanted and grow up loved, fed, clothed, sheltered, medically cared for (including mentally), educated, free from abuse, and not forced into soldierhood. Even then, there will still be a few instances where the situation fell through the cracks. But when these conditions are met, they will diminish to one in a billion, rather than one in a thousand.

And you are not going to hear any such sentiments from those who worship at the altar of the marketplace which the believe solves all problems. That is why I am a Liberal.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 20 Dec 02 - 07:43 PM

Sorry for spouting off, McG. I should have said you made some good points too - and have done again.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Dec 02 - 06:14 AM

That wasn't a spout Fionna, it was a fair balancing comment of yours.

Subject: RE: BS: Death of Another Innocent
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Dec 02 - 09:23 AM

I become angered because I can't bring the child back.

I have known far, far too many cases of this kind: as a public librarian, I'm all too often on the receiving end of such knowledge -- after the fact, and all too often after the deeds.

-- A "mother" and her boyfriend decided to party all New Year's Eve and Day -- a long weekend that year, with NYE on a Thursday. So that they could be unemcumbered, they locked the three-year-old in an unheated, unused, garage. The temperature fell to -7 degrees F., and stayed there....

-- A boyfriend left in charge of the infant, who wouldn't be quiet and help the poor man's hangover. To quiet the child he first poured gin into it and then slammed it, over and over, against the wall....

I can't go on.

Every state in which I've worked has a law that requires that any case of suspected child abuse be reported. This has been done by libraries; I know of no case where it was followed up (and yes, I've had friends in the appropriate agency who would have told me). All too often I've heard instead of budget cuts, or of staff reductions.

"The business of government is business" is wrong. The business of government is government -- as the Preamble to the US Constitution states, "We the People...to promote the general welfare...security the blessings of liberty for ourselves *and our posterity*...."

Abused or dead children have no blessings. They need love. Those who govern by bean counting, those who govern by the CYA theories, do not supply love or anything except selfishness. And society has too much of that today.