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Hackney Social Services
Father blames Hackney for deaths
C4 News
27 May 2008
Jim Ogunkoya accuses the
authorities of frogmarching his children to their deaths, after his
their mother was given unsupervised access to them.
Antoine and Kenniece Ogunkoya were killed by Vivian Gamor, a
schizophrenic now held indefinitely in a secure mental hospital.
She had been sectioned for violence only a few months earlier, but
social workers decided she should be granted unsupervised access to the
children, against the wishes of their father.
Within the next two weeks a report will be published into the deaths of
the two children in East London, but all of the details won't be made
available to Mr Ogunkoya because of data protection rules.
Katie Razzall was granted the only television interview with the
Ogunkoya family. You may find some of the details in her report distressing.
I want full story on my
children's murder, says father
The Guardian,
January 28 2008
Council still to decide on releasing entire report
Concern echoed by peer who led Climbié inquiry
It is a year since Jimi Ogunkoya's two children were murdered by their
mother, and five years since a report into the death of Victoria Climbié
which was supposed to put an end to similar tragedies.
Yet Ogunkoya claims that child welfare authorities failed his children
while they were alive, and are continuing to do so by covering up the
circumstances of their deaths.
Antoine, aged 10, and Kenniece, three, were killed by their mother,
Ogunkoya's former partner Viviane Gamor, 30, who was diagnosed as
suffering from schizophrenia. Despite her mental health problems and
history of violence, Hackney social services sanctioned her unsupervised
visits to the children, against Ogunkoya's wishes.
The Hackney Safeguarding Children Board is due to publish an executive
summary of a report into the deaths shortly, but Ogunkoya, 33, and his
parents, Clement Akin and Florence Omoyela Ogunkoya, all of whom were
the children's main carers, have been told they may be denied access to
the full report. Their solicitors are considering seeking a judicial
review if the report is not released to the family.
"There are so many cases where children have been failed by agencies not
doing their jobs properly," Ogunkoya said. "My children's death is not
the first in these circumstances and sadly it won't be the last."
Hackney council said a decision had not yet been made about whether the
full report would be released to the family.
Ogunkoya's concerns are echoed by Lord Laming, who led the inquiry into
the death of eight-year-old Climbié in 2000, and made 108
recommendations to improve child protection in a report in January 2003.
The government introduced a policy document, Every Child Matters, and
implemented the Children Act 2004. One of the recommendations was that
agencies should do more to share information about children at risk.
Laming expressed his frustration with the response. "I despair about the
organisations that have not put in place recommendations that I judged
to be little more than good, basic practice," he said last week.
Mor Dioum, director of the Victoria Climbié Foundation, which campaigns
for improvements in child protection, said: "I'm aware of at least five
cases since the death of Victoria Climbié where the circumstances mirror
Victoria's in that the children were not hidden away and social services
were involved. Two of them were in London boroughs involved in the
Climbié case. We need urgent reviews of Lord Laming's reforms because we
are losing the vision of Every Child Matters. In recent cases where
children have died or been seriously injured, the focus tended to be on
the adults."
Dioum is calling for an independent public inquiry into the deaths.
Ogunkoya says that if vital information had been communicated to him
about the state of Gamor's mental health he would never have allowed the
children to stay overnight with her.
Instead, he was not told that she had a diagnosis of schizophrenia
norwhy she had been sectioned from September to October 2006. He
discovered only at her Old Bailey trial for killing her children in July
2007 she had been sectioned after she threatened her half-sister with a
knife.
"Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine something like this would
happen, because Viviane had never shown me that she could be violent,"
said Ogunkoya. "Social workers took the children out of a safe
environment and put them in an unsafe one. They didn't take our views
and the protection of the children seriously."
Gamor was detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act following
the trial.
Ogunkoya and his partner, Martha Atito, 28, who helped look after the
children, believe he was stereotyped as a young black man who was not
likely to be a good father.
"I've lost both my children, I cry constantly and don't know how I'm
going to come back from this. If the authorities who were supposed to
protect Antoine and Kenniece cover up what went wrong it will just rub
salt into my wounds.
"They didn't tell us what was going on when my kids were alive and
they're still not telling us. It's one thing if agencies do wrong and
put their hands up to it, but it's another to cover things up because
they can."
Mother killed her children
when social services allowed her an unsupervised visit
by DAN NEWLING
01 August 2007
Daily Mail
A mentally-ill mother
killed her two children just three months after she was deemed safe to
release from hospital despite suffering from delusions.
Vivian Gamor had been under the care of social services when she beat
her ten-year-old son to death with a hammer and then used cling film to
suffocate her three-year-old daughter.
Viviane Gamour should have been under social services supervision when
she killed her two children
As the schizophrenic was sentenced to life in a mental unit, the Old
Bailey was told of a series of medical, legal and social service
failings which led up the killings.
The children's father Gabriel Ogunkoya told the court: "If she is
diagnosed as mentally ill that means that the system that I obeyed has
frog-marched my children to their deaths.
"They assessed her and found nothing wrong. This is pure negligence
which will not be tolerated."
And Judge Peter Rook QC told Gamor: "This tragedy could have been
avoided had you not been allowed unsupervised access to the children and
the children's father's concerns were given sufficient weight."
The Old Bailey heard that Gamor, 29, from Hackney in east London, first
started showing signs of mental-illness soon after the birth of her
daughter Kenniece in 2003.
She had shaved off her daughter's hair on one side of her head; wrongly
believed she had met famous people and started to intensely stare at
people for no reason.
Over the next two years her problems got worse.
She lunged at her half-sister with a knife, locked herself indoors,
repeatedly claimed that her two children were not naturally hers and
insisted that she was Mother Nature, the unrecognised twin sister of
Jesus Christ.
In September last year Gamor was diagnosed as suffering with a
schizophrenia and sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
But after spending just five weeks in hospital, she was permitted to
leave.
A condition of her discharge was that Hackney Social Services should
oversee any contact with her children, Antoine and Kenniece, who were
being looked after by their paternal grandparents.
However, yesterday the court heard that a staff shortage meant that the
supervision 'dried-up' after just one visit.
Following discussions with her team leader Felicia Abalihi, social
worker Catherine Edwards decided that access visits could be safely left
for Gamor and her former partner to arrange.
Gamor soon demanded to look after her children overnight however Mr
Ogunkoya was so worried by this prospect that he took legal advice to
try get sole custody of his children.
However, as prosecuting barrister Jonathan Rees told the court, he was
quickly dissuaded from doing so.
Mr Rees said: "He wanted to get custody of the children for their own
protection, but all the professional bodies that he contacted told him
that he could not stand in the way of the mother.
"He was told by a solicitor that if he tried to keep the children away
from their mother it would be akin to kidnap. He was told the same by
Edwards."
Following pressure from Gamor, the two children were finally allowed to
stay overnight at their mother's house on January 12 and 19th this year.
However, Mr Ogunkoya, a painter and decorator, remained so worried about
their welfare that he gave his son a mobile phone to use in case of any
problems.
On January 24th this year Gamor was seen at hospital by psychiatrist Dr
Luisa Pettigrew who declared that she had 'a positive outlook' and did
not pose any further risk.
Two days later, as the children stayed at their mothers' house for a
third time, Gamor flew into a psychotic rage and brutally killed her
children.
Afterwards she told police: "I don't care; they're not mine."
A subsequent medical examination revealed that Gamor had not taken her
antipsychotic medication for a period of up to ten days - an omission
that could have been detected at her medical examination two days'
earlier.
Mr Ogunkoya made his comments in a victim impact statement that was read
out in court.
In addition to claiming the deaths were down to 'negligence', he said:
'My heart hurts and the pain brings out the tears for the loss of my two
little angels.
'It was horrible, horrible nightmare that I still haven't woken up
from.'
He added: 'I obeyed the law and let them go. I wish I had not done that.
So now this is what I am left with: nothing.'
Diane Ellis QC, for Gamor, told the court: 'There has undoubtedly been
failures amongst the professionals caring for her.'
Gamor, who was wearing a red leather jacket and red T-shirt in the dock,
stared blankly ahead as the details of her children's deaths were read
out in court. Mr Ogunkoya and other relatives sobbed loudly in the
public gallery.
Judge Rook detained Gamor indefinitely under the Mental Health Act,
after she pleaded guilty to two charges of manslaughter due to
diminished responsibility.
Hackney Council has launched its own review into the incident, which is
due to report next month.
Yesterday Fran Pearson, Chair of the Hackney and City Safeguarding
Children Board, said: "Mental illness is unpredictable, but if there are
any lessons from this, which will help us to protect children better in
the future, then they will be learned, and any necessary action
implemented as soon as the report is produced."
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Families
and Social Services
