Child protection services: A mother’s diary records the awful death of a child 'in care’

Child protection services: A mother’s diary records the awful death of a child 'in care’

It is four years since I began regularly reporting here on the most disturbing story I have covered in all my decades as a journalist – the way our “child protection” system has been allowed, by the secrecy imposed by the courts on all its workings, to go so horrifically off the rails. Last week, Lord Justice Munby, recently promoted to be head of our family courts, announced yet again his determination to meet the tidal wave of criticism now being directed at this system from all sides. But he is aware that opening up the courts themselves to “the glare of publicity” can only be part of an ongoing process. The system has now become so riddled with abuses at every level that to bring it back to the noble ideals it was set up to serve would require a titanic effort of reform, taking years.