Ainlee Labonte, a two-year-old little girl, was tortured to death because
social workers and health visitors were paralysed by fear of her violent
parents and would not visit their home, a report concluded yesterday. She
was found covered in 64 scars, scalds, cigarette burns and bruises when she
died in January, she had not been fed for two days and was half the normal
weight of a child her age. Her parents, Leanne Labonte, 20, and Dennis
Henry, 39, of Plaistow, East London, were jailed for manslaughter and child
cruelty in September for ten and 12 years respectively.
The report by Miss
Kenward, an independent child protection expert, found that her death
could have been avoided had health authorities, social services and
police in Newham, east London, worked together. It noted that there had
been fears for Ainlee’s health and safety from birth. Her mother, who
was 17 when Ainlee, her second child, was born, had been abused as a
child and was known to social services. Labonte and Henry failed to
co-operate with health and social workers and used their knowledge of
the system to switch between GPs, hospitals, health visitors and housing
providers to prevent an overall picture of the children’s needs
emerging. It also led professionals to focus on the parents, rather than
the children.
Ainlee's family had been visited 53 times by police in the 18 months
before she died, with 32 of the inquiries following reports of domestic
violence, many of them calls from worried neighbours. The independent inquiry
found that care workers were so terrified of Ainlee's parents that they
abandoned the girl to her fate.
The report said: "One by one the agencies withdrew for personal safety
reasons." Health professionals and housing officers had refused "because of
intimidation" to visit Ainlee's family home for fear of being attacked by her
"threatening and confrontational" parents. "The fear with which the family are
regarded leads to almost paralysis in terms of action." She said the
professionals had shown greater concern for their own safety than for that of
the couple's children. Miss Kenward said Ainlee had experienced unimaginable
pain and loneliness before she died, aged two years and seven months.
The report made a series of recommendations for better training in child
protection for all services coming into contact with families.
It said home visits should not be cancelled without the authority of senior
managers and "all staff should know where their personal responsibility lies".
Kathryn
Hudson, Newham's director of social services, said a new action plan was
being implemented to try to prevent a similar incident, but no member of
staff had been disciplined over Ainlee's death. "No single individual is
held accountable for the death of Ainlee," said Mrs Hudson. "I am sure there
are individuals from all agencies who will bitterly regret things they have
done and things they didn't do which could have made a difference to this
case." She said social services in the borough - and across the country -
faced major problems in finding and keeping child protection staff.
