The chaotic household comprised the 27-year-old mother, her four children, her 32-year-old skinhead boyfriend and his friend and lodger, 36-year-old Jason Owen. The latter (who had three children from a previous relationship) soon moved in his 15-year-old girlfriend who had run away from home. The skinhead stepfather also had a Rottweiler called Kaiser, which he terrorised, and two pet snakes which he fed on rats and rabbits, often leaving dead and dismembered animals in the kitchen for the snakes’ next meal. He was cruel to all of his stepchildren but reserved the worst of his wrath for baby P, probably because his vulnerability reminded him of his own unmet needs. (He had been bullied throughout his childhood.)
The stepfather repeatedly beat the baby and pulled out some of his fingernails then smeared chocolate digestives over him to hide the bruises. His mother put her boyfriend first and conspired to hide his condition from health and social workers. Every single one of his baby garments was stained with blood. The baby would only call for his mother for a moment or two as he knew from experience that she would rarely comfort him and he was so terrified of his stepfather that he would tremble every time the man entered the room The teenage babysitter later admitted that the skinhead would often go into the toddler’s nursery and shut the door, saying that he was trying to toughen the baby up. Meanwhile, his mother continued to neglect him and his siblings, and, as a result, both the baby and one of her daughters were on Haringey’s ‘at risk’ register.
DAILY ABUSE
The stepfather taught the little boy and the Rottweiler to lower their heads submissively to the floor when he clicked his fingers. He also wrapped the child up in layers of blankets so that he became seriously dehydrated and, on other occasions, forced him to jump up and down until he was crying with exhaustion. The child’s health deteriorated and he had an increasingly blank expression and sunken cheeks.
Social workers noticed that the baby was hungry, dirty and smelt of vomit and a neighbour admitted that she’d seen him sitting in the front garden, eating earth. He also had areas of bruising which his mother said he’d accumulated whilst playing with an 18-month-old child or when romping with the family dog. She understood how to deal with social workers as she’d encountered them throughout her own childhood when they wanted to take her away from her alcoholic mother. In the end, the issue had been resolved by sending her to boarding school.
The neglect and abuse of the little boy continued, with the stepfather warning others in the household that they mustn’t comfort him or pick him up. The mother usually slept till lunchtime, which meant that her older children weren’t taken to school. And, in the afternoons, she often went back to bed with her lover whilst the baby remained in his cot, unchanged and unfed. He had lice and developed a scab on his head, whereupon his stepfather shaved off his beautiful blonde hair.
Social workers visited the faeces-smeared and flea-ridden apartment in Tottenham, North London, but failed to realise that the 32-year-old boyfriend was living there. In eight months, the family had 60 visits from doctors, social workers and police but no one made the decision to take the terrorised toddler into care.
One of the beatings left the 17-month-old with a broken back, leaving him paralysed below the waist, and eight broken ribs, but a paediatrician who examined him on 1 August 2007 failed to spot these injuries after he was referred to her for examination by a social worker. Two days later, he was punched in the face and swallowed a tooth. The following morning he was found dead in his blood stained cot – and still his stepfather remained unconcerned. His mother was equally blasé, for as paramedics tried to rush her son to hospital, she asked them to wait whilst she found her cigarettes. Meanwhile, the stepfather and lodger are believed to have removed a bag of blood-stained baby clothes and bedding from the house and hidden it. It has never been found.
At autopsy, the 17-month-old was found to have 50 distinct injuries, including severe head lacerations, a large gouge to his temple and a badly-split lip.
His mother, stepfather and the couple’s lodger were all convicted of causing or allowing the boy’s death. Chillingly, the mother gave birth again in prison and was originally given contact with her new daughter, the visits only stopping when she was moved to a segregation unit in Holloway Prison. Journalists warned that she might be reunited with the child on her release from jail.
When word of her actions got out, the prison that she was being held in was put into lockdown as many of the 500 other female prisoners wanted to attack her. Prison officers posted comments on a Facebook page, saying what many other people were thinking, that she ought to be sterilised. A councillor said the same thing, prompting such an outcry that he was forced to resign.
By early December, several members of Haringey council had resigned or been suspended as an inquiry by Ofsted, the Healthcare Commission and the Chief Inspector of Constabulary had found that the council had failed to spot children at risk, that there were significant weaknesses in child protection and that the council had failed to learn from the Victoria Climbie inquiry of 2003.
On 13 December 2008, campaigners marched through London to hand in a petition to Downing Street calling for ‘urgent far-reaching changes’ in Britain’s child protection laws.
LEANNE LABONTE & DENNIS HENRY
Physically, sexually and emotionally abused throughout her own childhood, Leanne Labonte gave birth to her first baby when she was only 15. Social services, who had previously been monitoring the parenting skills of her alcoholic mother, became involved when she left the infant girl alone. Leanne was also well known to police as she had several convictions for shoplifting.
At 16, she became pregnant again but had an abortion. Shortly after this, in June 1998, she met Dennis Henry, who was more than twice her age and had a record for violence, criminal damage and for living off immoral earnings. Three months later, she was pregnant with his child. Again, she considered having an abortion but changed her mind, though Dennis Henry would later say that she had further doubts about the pregnancy and tried to induce a miscarriage.
In June 1999, she gave birth to their daughter Ainlee but apparently rejected her at birth. The unfortunate child fared no better with her father as Dennis Henry was using crack cocaine and hitting both Leanne and her firstborn daughter. Yet the couple swiftly went on to have another child.
A mother of three whilst still in her teens, Leanne Labonte increasingly took her rage out on Ainlee. She wrote in her diary that she hated her second born, that she was ruining her relationship with Dennis Henry. She also wrote that Dennis was always bathing Ainlee and said she believed he was interfering with the child. (The autopsy would show no signs of sexual abuse.)
Social services were involved in the first few months of Ainlee’s life, but then the case was closed against the advice of health workers. A little over a year later the case was reopened, though Leanne Labonte managed to create a smokescreen by claiming that Ainlee’s surname was Walker rather than Labonte. The couple also stole medical notes from her file. A doctor who attended to the family asked for police protection during their visits as they were so intimidating. Social workers were also terrified as they were frequently attacked by both Henry and Labonte.
In the 18 months before Ainlee’s death, police visited her home on 53 occasions, often to deal with reports of domestic violence.
Meanwhile, social workers repeatedly failed to gain access to the couple’s Plaistow home in east London. Behind closed doors, they repeatedly hit and nipped the toddler, scalded her with hot water and burned her with cigarettes. They also starved her and she weighed half of what she should have done.
On 5 and 6 January 2002, Ainlee’s parents refused to give her anything to eat, despite the fact that there was food in the house and they had fed her two siblings. On the 7th, she died and the couple belatedly phoned an ambulance. Paramedics arrived to find the two-year-old lying on a kitchen table. She had 64 contusions on her emaciated body – some new, some healing – and, it was later established, had
been abused almost from birth. She weighed only 21lbs.
Labonte and Henry were arrested at the hospital. In custody, they soon resorted to blaming each other. Leanne Labonte said that she hadn’t been in contact with Ainlee for a week, had only seen her injuries on the day of her death and had been horrified but too afraid to contact the authorities. Dennis Henry also claimed that he had no idea that his daughter was being abused.
Whilst on remand, Leanne sent him a love letter saying that she missed him and wanted to give him a blowjob. She added that she missed her two surviving children and blamed social services for sending her and Dennis Henry to jail.
The couple – she aged 20, he aged 39 – were found guilty of manslaughter at The Old Bailey in September 2002. She was sentenced to 10 years, with an eight-year sentence for cruelty to run concurrently. He was sentenced to 12 years, with a nine-year sentence for cruelty, also to run concurrently. She was given the lesser sentence because of her youth.
Afterwards, the chief executive of the NSPCC, Mary Marsh, said that the number of child killings in Britain were a national outrage. She called for greater integration between agencies – but, as the subsequent cases show, it was a call which remained unheard.
By June 2007, Leanne Labonte had been moved to an open prison in Surrey and was working in a tearoom on a day release scheme. But, after a tabloid newspaper revealed her whereabouts, she was moved to a Lincoln jail and given work within the prison unit. Having served half of her sentence, she is likely to be paroled soon.
ANDREW LLOYD & REBECCA LEWIS
Aaron Gilbert, murdered at 13 months, suffered terribly during the last eight weeks of his life. His mother, Rebecca Lewis, stood by as her new boyfriend, Andrew Lloyd, swung the child around by his ears, bit his face and punched him in the head and body. He died of brain damage on 5 May 2005 after Lloyd battered him against the wall.
Just another case of cruelty to children, you might say. But this case made legal history because his mother was the first woman in Wales to be convicted of familial homicide. Prior to this law, women like Rebecca Lewis weren’t held accountable for letting their partner abuse their child.
As is usual in such cases, many adults in the vicinity knew that something was wrong. Aaron was seen to be badly bruised within days of 23-year-old Andrew Lloyd moving in with 21-year-old Rebecca Lewis, and neighbours soon noticed that the baby was terrified of the heavy-drinking man. A family friend heard Lloyd screaming ‘fucking shut up’ at Aaron and saw him blow cannabis smoke into the infant’s face.
Lloyd, who had suffered severe physical abuse during his own childhood and who had made two suicide attempts the previous year, clearly hated the baby. Psychiatric services knew that he’d been violent towards a previous partner’s child, the prison and probation services knew that he’d served a jail sentence for Grievous Bodily Harm and social workers were tipped off that Aaron was covered in bruises. A total of seven agencies were involved with Andrew Lloyd but they didn’t share information and most didn’t know that he was living with Rebecca Lewis and her baby son.
Social workers received a phone call from a female cousin of Rebecca’s stating that Aaron was being abused, but they decided that the call could be malicious so opted not to visit the house. Three days later they wrote a letter to Rebecca. But they’d been given the wrong address and the letter didn’t reach the 21-year-old. She took her young son to the Accident & Emergency Department of her local hospital after Andrew Lloyd damaged Aaron’s arm, but ran out when questioned by doctors as to how he had sustained the injury. A member of staff planned to carry out a home visit but it was called off because of ill health. Rebecca’s cousin phoned again, telling social workers that Andrew Lloyd took drugs and that he’d been seen out with the baby at 2am. Again, they failed to react appropriately. Aaron now had eight days left to live.
Shortly afterwards, neighbours noted that the baby’s face and body were so swollen that he resembled the Elephant Man. He had over 50 injuries on his tiny body. And still Rebecca Lewis did nothing to help her terrorised son.
On 4 May 2005, she went out shopping, leaving her baby with Andrew Lloyd. He picked Aaron up and swung him violently against the wall. When Lewis returned, Lloyd was giving the child CPR. For the next 18 hours, doctors battled to save the infant but he had suffered massive brain damage and could not be revived.
Andrew Lloyd admitted Aaron’s murder and was jailed for 24 years. But Rebecca Lewis denied familial homicide and was tried at Swansea Crown Court in December 2006. The jury heard that she’d done nothing to prevent her boyfriend’s attacks on her baby. They found her guilty and she was jailed for six years. The judge told her: ‘You put your own interests first, and above and beyond that of your vulnerable child. You could have stopped the violence that Lloyd was subjecting Aaron to. You could so easily have got the authorities to stop it.’
Afterwards, the Welsh division of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children stated ‘Without this new law it is likely that Rebecca Lewis and Andrew Lloyd would have joined a long list of couples who have been acquitted or not even brought to trial for murdering a child.’
JODIE TAYLOR & PAUL O’ NEIL
Jodie gave birth to her first child at the age of 14 but proved unable to look after it. By 20, she had convictions for battery and robbery. Her boyfriend, Paul O’Neil, was unemployed and had been brutal towards the five children he had by two different women.
In November 2004, Taylor gave birth to O’Neil’s son and they called him Aaron. But Paul O’Neil bitterly resented the attention that his girlfriend paid to their child. Over the next few weeks, he hit his baby son repeatedly, battered him against the furniture and kicked him, breaking both of his legs and his collarbone and fracturing his ribs in 12 places. Social workers called repeatedly at the couple’s Kenton, Newcastle, home to see the infant but the pair refused to answer the door.
On 6 February of the following year, Paul O’Neil pressed the baby’s face against a gas fire until the skin blistered, causing agonising burns. He did the same to Aaron’s hands. But Jodie Taylor still didn’t take her infant to a doctor – she merely applied cream to the baby’s wounds.
Four days later, when Jodie Taylor was out, Paul O’Neil battered 92-day-old Aaron about the head, fracturing his skull and causing his death.
On 23 February 2006, the couple appeared at Newcastle Crown Court. Thirty-three-year-old O’Neil admitted cruelty but denied murder, whilst 21-year-old Taylor admitted cruelty by neglect as she’d failed to seek medical attention for her son’s burns.
O’Neil was jailed for life with the recommendation that he serve at least 22 years whilst Taylor got three-and-a-half years for failing to protect her child.
LESSONS UNLEARNED
John G Howells, former director of the Institute of Family Psychiatry, has written: ‘Behind the battered child is an army of deprived children. They are surging into the future to make more disturbed families. Unhappiness feeds on unhappiness. The spiral of emotional deprivation must be halted. It can be halted.’
These well-meaning words were written in 1974 after the horrors of Maria Colwell’s death at the hands of her stepfather William Kepple. Sadly, the phenomena of damaged adults going on to brutalise their babies has continued unabated, with overburdened social services letting cases slip below their radar or ideological young social workers foolishly giving an abusive parent one last chance.
Though governments and social service departments promise new initiatives after such horrific murders, babies and older children are still starved, neglected and beaten at the hands of a clueless subclass. Given money from the welfare state for each child – with additional payments if the child has certain medical problems – they view their offspring as little more than cash cows and resent spending time or effort on them.
Ironically, many of these children are on the ‘at risk’ register from birth, so authorities know that they are likely to suffer. Someone then decides how much suffering
is too much. Short of giving each of these babies a live-in carer from birth, they are destined to have a painful and frightening start.
And it’s a sizeable problem, with one in ten children – a million a year – being badly treated, abused or neglected in Britain today according to a 2008 Lancet report.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHASING DEMONS
In the previous chapter, several of the couples shared a belief in excessive and repeated corporal punishment and were indifferent to the fact that their behaviour was both counterproductive and illegal. In this chapter, the couples shared a religious mania and took it out on their progeny with fatal results…
ANGELA CAMACHO & JOHN ALLEN RUBIO
Twenty-three-year-old Angela Camacho and her 22-year-old common law husband John Rubio lived in a rundown apartment in Brownsville, Texas. Their living quarters were cramped, filthy, cockroach-ridden and strewn with dirty laundry and unwashed dishes, conditions which meant that their three children were frequently unwell. The family got most of their meals from soup kitchens as Rubio preferred to spend their welfare money on cans of spray paint, inhaling five such cans a day. Social workers became so concerned at the emaciated state of the children that they enrolled the hapless couple in parenting classes. Both Camacho and Rubio complied with this. (Rubio had fathered the two youngest children whilst three-year-old Julissa, the eldest, was from one of his common law wife’s previous relationships.)
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