Justice for Peter

Maria ward and Gillie Christou - the frontline social workers who failed to protect Baby Peter Connelly from suffering horrific abuse, torture, and murder - have avoided being struck off the social care register.

According to GSCC committee chairman, Jonathan Roberts, the GSCC ruled that the women should not be struck off the social care register because:

‘such a course was disproportionate to the facts admitted at this hearing’, and such action would have been to ‘satisfy a perceived public demand for blame and punishment for a registrant who does not present a continuing risk’.

The claim that ‘such a course was disproportionate’ is an insult to Peter Connelly. This 17 month old baby endured 8 months of torture and suffering at the hands of his carers who eventually killed him. Marie Ward and Gillie Christou could have prevented this, but as shown below, they failed to do so.

At the time of his death, Peter's body weight was only 50% of the average body weight for his length. He died with over 50 injuries including:

Eight broken ribs
Snapped spine
Missing fingertips
Missing finger nails and toe nails
Bite marks
Ulcerated infected wounds to his scalp (probably from infected bites)
Bruises all over his body
Injuries to the inside of his mouth
His left earlobe had been pulled away from his head

Maria Ward and Gillie Christou were grossly negligent in their failure to protect Peter:

:: Ward did not follow up reports of Peter's injuries and had decided to return him to his mother's care despite concerns about his safety.

:: Ward did not carry out enough unannounced visits despite that Peter was subject to a child protection plan.

:: Ward had failed to enter records on the official system on time.

:: Christou recorded only one supervision meeting with Ward, regarding the case, in six months

:: The two social workers failed to find a replacement when Peter's child minder, Ann Walker, said she could not look after him anymore.

:: Ward was supposed to see Peter every 14 days, however the gaps were often longer and on one occasion she did not see Peter for 19 days, and on another for 22 days, even though the child minder had reported bruising on his face.

:: Ward allegedly did not follow up three separate complaints from the childminder about Peter’s unexplained injuries.

:: Ward never saw Peter by himself. His mother or a childminder was always present and her visits often only lasted 15 minutes.

:: Ward did not insist on inspecting the house where Peter lived. She never went into Peter’s bedroom where he was eventually found dead in a blood spattered cot.

:: Ward did not know that Barker was living at the house, despite being told by Peter’s father.

:: At the beginning of July 2007, neither Ward nor Christou knew where Peter was. Connelly had told them she was going to visit a sick uncle in north London, but no checks were made.

PLEASE NOTE:

We realise that partly due to bad press the public’s opinion of social workers has suffered greatly, along with social worker’s morale. We would like to make clear that we are in no way against social workers, and are aware that there are many who do a wonderful job to protect the most vulnerable of our society. However, we feel that the GSCC’s refusal to act appropriately in this particular case, where the negligence of Maria Ward and Gillie Christou was party to the horrific torture and murder of a baby, is a huge contributing factor to why the public has little or no faith left in the profession. It is hardly surprising that it is difficult for some to appreciate the good work that professionals do, when the profession itself belittles the lives of children by seeming to condone gross negligence. We realise the enormous amount of pressure, the lack of resources, and the poor conditions in which social workers do their job, however we feel that the list of above failings cannot be blamed on the system, and are personal failures that merit far more than suspension. These social workers did not make a mistake, they were repeatedly negligent.