Baby P: They're ALL guilty

I HAD to force myself to read it. And every sickening, gut-wrenching detail made me want to hunt down the monsters who'd hurt Baby P-or allowed him to be hurt-and hurt THEM.

Never in all my years in this job have I read an account of child cruelty like this one.

Never have my dreams been haunted by visions of one little boy's living hell-his misery, his fear, his desperation at not being able to communicate what those animals were doing to him.

I kept seeing them punching him, smacking his head, knocking his teeth down his throat. I kept thinking at what point did his spine snap. How agonising was it? How often did they hurt him? Did this little mite ever feel one moment's love or happiness?

In my mind's eye I saw them making him beg like a dog, spinning him round in that chair till he fell off. I imagined his eyes wide with terror, thinking: "No, please, not again."

Worse still, I'm haunted by this little lad's belief that THIS is what life was like- no cuddles, no tickles, no laughter, no playing. Just day after hideous day of terror and pain. And when the social workers came, when the police came-they should have been his saviours, the cavalry.

Agony

But because he couldn't tell them about the agony that was his life, these people who were either too blind, too stupid or too scared to help him just walked away.

And so the boy they called Smiley was left in that filthy hovel smiling at the people who could have carried his battered little body to a place of safety- but didn't.

They just left him there while they went off to fill in their forms, tick their boxes and cover their cowardly backsides.

And all Baby P could do was wait for the next punch in the guts, the next kick in the head, the next smack in the mouth.

But of all the people who failed this gorgeous boy-apart from the monsters who actually killed him-the most negligent, the most self-serving, is head of Haringey's Child Services Sharon Shoesmith.

Because while the rest of the country was reeling from what happened to Baby P, this arrogant woman called a press conference and waved graphs in our faces about how well her department had performed.

Incompetence

Did this apology for a boss really believe that if she put on a sad face for the TV cameras she'd get away with this? Did she believe those graphs would be enough to satisfy an angry, repulsed nation and detract from her mind- boggling incompetence?

Time and again she was given the chance to apologise but she didn't. Haringey council did (finally) but not Sharon Shoesmith. Because she knows an admission of guilt would require her resignation-and nothing is worth that, is it Mrs Shoesmith?

Not with her cushy little number-with a £110,000 salary, posh days out at the races (paid for by grateful business contacts) and her power.

This is the power that allowed her to refuse a review into Haringey's social services department six months after Baby P's death. The same power that allowed her to rule there had been no negligence by the council or its social workers. And I'm sick to death of people saying it wasn't the social workers who killed Baby P, it was the degenerates who lived with him in that rat-infested hole. Yes, they kicked the last breath out of him but they're scum-retards incapable of feeling guilt, love or compassion.

Abuse

But those social workers were supposed to be better than that, professionals who were trained to spot the early signs of abuse. It was their job, their human duty to protect vulnerable children.

We presumed (wrongly) that they were more intelligent than Baby P's killers, which is why we expected Maria Ward on one of the 60 times Baby P was visited to insist his mother washed chocolate off his face so she could inspect him for bruises.

And why, knowing the history, didn't she demand to check his body for injuries? She knows full well that scumbags like these killers routinely lie and cheat. But more sickening is that these social workers and executives did a better job at covering their own miserable backsides than did at saving a little boy's life.

Which is why they ARE ultimately responsible for his death. They didn't strike the blow that killed him-but they stood by and did nothing while those three vicious bastards awaiting sentence did.

And forget all this guff about how social workers can be duped by wily parents. ANYONE with half as brain could have walked into that house and seen Baby P was in danger.

I don't give a toss how low their wages are, how hard their job is or how understaffed they are. A vulnerable baby's life was in danger and they left him to die out of stupidity, ignorance or because they just didn't care enough.

And if these social workers and their bosses can't spot a child four days from death then they're not just in the wrong job-they're dangerous as well.

Maybe Maria Ward, Sharon Shoesmith and Gillie Christou, the idiot in charge of the council's child protection register, just don't put saving babies' lives high enough up their agenda. And maybe Dr Sabah Al Zayyat, who missed the fact this little lad had a broken spine and multiple injuries, had also written him off-though I suspect she was just a lazy cow.

ALL of these people should be sacked. Because anyone who decides to go into social work either as a worker or a boss MUST assume the responsibilities of the job.

You don't brandish graphs. You don't hide behind the "stress of form-filling".

Part of the job is looking after defenceless kids, and if you're not prepared to do that then shove off and go stack shelves in Tesco.

And forget the excuse that there are procedures to be followed before a child is removed from its family.

Sub-human

We all know kids aren't taken away when they should be-because it's cheaper to leave them where they are. Moreover social services know full well that some families are simply sub-human dross who shouldn't be allowed near kids.

And that's what we have to address now-this underclass, this group of deviants who've been allowed to take root in this country and who kill, maim and torture without guilt.

These are people who have sponged off the welfare state their whole lives and who believe nothing is their responsibility, their fault or their problem.

For too long we've tap-danced around these people because of political correctness. The problem was too sensitive to talk about-let alone handle. But handle it we must, because if we don't this underclass will become even more savage, more feral-and more innocents will die.

Baby P's mother is so unaware of the gravity of what she's done she's telling people she'll be home for Christmas with the baby she gave birth to in prison.

Which is why all three responsible for killing Baby P MUST get the maximum of 14 years. Because if they don't, as a society we're saying his suffering and his death were for nothing.

And Ed Balls needs to stick his inquiry where the sun don't shine because four ministers in his government knew about the situation that led to Baby Ps death two years ago, and they did nothing.

Inquiries don't save children's lives. Direct action just might. So every executive, every social worker involved in this tragedy must not just pay but must be prevented from ever being responsible for children ever again.

These social workers and executives at Haringey behaved the way they did because they believed there'd be no consequences for their negligence, and they assumed this government didn't have the guts to take them on.

Well, that has to change. And in order to enforce that change, Sharon Shoesmith has to go. Gillie Christou has to go. Maria Ward has to go. As have those idiot Ofsted inspectors who gave Shoesmith a glowing report just weeks after Baby P's death.

As for that excuse for a doctor-Sabah Al Zayatt-she needs to be struck off immediately before any more kids die.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Thank you to the hundreds of readers who responded to Carole's column on Baby P. We received one of our ever highest responses. For legal reasons, we are unable to accept any further comments on this story and we have temporarily removed all reader comments from this page.