Victoria Climbié
It has been over two decades since eight-year-old Victoria died after years of tortured and abuse from her great aunt Marie Thérèse Kouao and her partner Carl Mannings. It was revealed that Kouao reported her partner to social services for sexually assaulting her niece, but she removed the complaint the following day and the protection agency never followed up.
Peter Connelly, Baby P
Seventeen-month-old Peter Connelly, Baby P, suffered more than 50 injuries in months of abuse by Tracey Connelly, Steven Barker, and his brother Jason Owen. That was despite 60 visits from social workers – as well as medics and police – in the eight months before his death on August 3, 2007. The full report into how the toddler died disclosed how Baby Peter’s mother, Tracey Connelly, told the authorities she had a boyfriend – but they did not ask who he was or insist on meeting him.
Logan Mwangi
Logan Mwangi was tortured and left to die by 13-year-old Craig Mulligan along with his stepfather, racist ex-convict John Cole, 40, and the ‘defenceless’ boy’s mother, Angharad Williamson, 31. He suffered 56 external cuts and bruises, and ‘catastrophic’ internal injuries likened to a high-speed road accident, caused by a ‘brutal and sustained assault’ in the hours, or days, prior to his death. It was then revealed that social workers agreed Mulligan could move into the family’s cramped flat just five days before the murder, despite previously threatening to kill Logan.
A review by safeguarding officials later found that Williamson and Cole were able to hide their abuse of Logan due to the coronavirus lockdown, with social workers too scared to force meetings. In June 2021 the family were removed from the child protection register – meaning it was believed there was no longer a risk of significant harm.
Star Hobson
Star Hobson was just 16 months old when she was murdered by her mother’s girlfriend Savannah Brockill in September 2020. On a visit to her home, a social worker had reported there was ‘nothing to concern’ and said Brockill was ‘exceptionally good’ with the baby. Social workers missed five opportunities to save the child. In each case Brockhill and Smith managed to convince social workers that marks on Star were accidental or that the complaints were made maliciously by people who did not like their relationship.
West Yorkshire Police were told two times in the months leading up to her death that Star was being hurt by mother Frankie Smith, 20 and her girlfriend.
Arthur Labinjo-Hughes
Six-year-old Arthur was beaten, tortured and then murdered his stepmother Emma Tustin and father Thomas Hughes at their home in Solihull. Tustin killed the little boy by repeatedly slamming his head on a hard surface after she and Hughes had deprived the youngster of food and force-fed him salt. While Arthur was being abused, social workers and police missed four opportunities to save him, brushed away pleas from his family and even threatened them with arrest under Covid rules if they tried to visit him at Tustin’s home.
Ollie Davis
Ollie Davis, from Leicester, endured 40 broken bones across his tiny limbs and a series of brain injuries after suffering a horrendous campaign of abuse at the hands of his father, Michael Davis, in October 2017. Social services missed “early opportunities” to intervene in Ollie’s upbringing, a safeguarding review found – as Davis lashed out at his tiny son because he was tired from spending nights gaming instead of sleeping.
Sara Shariff
Sara Sharif, 10, was found dead in her bed at her home in Woking, Surrey, on 8 August 2023, after her father, Urfan Sharif, and stepmother, Beinash Batool, conducted a horrific, two-year “campaign of torture” and abuse. Subsequent investigations exposed widespread child safeguarding failures across multiple public agencies. Yet repeated failings saw Sara having suffered over 70 external injuries, including 11 spinal fractures, a traumatic brain injury, human bite marks, iron burns, and scalding from hot water when she finally succumbed to the abuse.