Five social workers involved in the case of an
11-week-old baby who was killed by his father learnt yesterday that they will
not face disciplinary action.
Caleb Ness from Edinburgh was known to be at risk when his father, Alexander,
killed him by shaking him violently.
After his birth Caleb was released from hospital into the care of his mother,
who was a drug addict, and his father by Edinburgh City Council. He was the
subject of two child protection orders when he died on October 11, 2001.
Alexander Ness was jailed for 11 years after admitting culpable homicide.
Drugs: The child victims
MARTYN McLAUGHLIN March 06 2006
The
Herald - News Focus
He was described by one neighbour as the "lovely wee boy with an angelic face"
whose short life came to an end less than a fortnight after celebrating his
second birthday.
When Lisa Dodds found the lifeless body of Derek Alexander Doran in his bed, she
reacted not as a registered drug addict, but a frightened mother.
After she ran to a neighbour's house to raise the alarm, the child was taken to
the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh, but it was too late. The
toddler, understood to have mistaken methadone for a soft drink, was dead on
arrival.
The full circumstances behind Derek's death have yet to emerge, and it is
unclear if police will be able to establish how he opened the secure lid of the
medication bottle. Yet the details already known hold a grim familiarity.
It has been estimated that 60,000 Scottish children are affected by the drug
abuse of their parents, and the problem is getting worse. The number of babies
born to drug-addicted mothers rose over the four years from 1998/99 to 2002/03
from 199 to 334 – an increase of almost 68%.
Jack McConnell, first minister, has said the needs of addicts' children must
come first. Speaking last month after it was revealed that an 11-year-old girl
from Glasgow had used heroin, he said the Scottish Executive was working towards
improved legislation which would make it a duty in law for professionals to
share the information "necessary to protect our children".
The government's role, he added by way of a caveat, is not the sole solution.
Families, friends and neighbours must play their part.
In this latest tragedy, policy regarding the prescription of methadone has
emerged as a key issue, one which will again come under intense political
scrutiny alongside child protection laws and social work reform.
In 1999/2000, some 144,368,364ml of the mixture were dispensed. Just four years
later, that figure had more than doubled to 294,904,358ml – at a cost to the NHS
of more than £11.6m. It is estimated that in 2004, 19,227 Scots took methadone,
around a third of the nation's opiate users. The current system of dispensing,
argue addiction experts, fails to supervise users and their families. It
remains, though, merely one component of a complex, expensive and long-term set
of solutions.
Annabel Goldie, a stern critic of methadone prescription, said: "Drug and
methadone dependency have reached epidemic proportions with our social services
left to pick up the pieces of government policy that lacks the will to tackle
the issue head-on."
Education governing drug misuse, she added, has been a disaster, and should be
replaced with a zero-tolerance stance complemented by "properly resourced
rehabilitation".
Professor Neil McKeganey, director of the centre for drugs misuse research at
Glasgow University, accused many drugs treatment services of reticence in
assessing users and their families. He said: "These anxieties are costing our
children dear. One the one hand, we say the needs of children are paramount
[yet] some services are reluctant to ask about them.
"The current systems in place are inadequate . . . where an addict is on
methadone they need to be very closely supervised, and so do their families.
These households can go from relative stability to relative chaos within a
couple of hours depending on chemical intake. Methadone must be used for a clear
set of aims – to help users move towards becoming drug-free. There are treatment
services which do not realise this."
While some patients procure doses on a daily basis from one of more than 800
community pharmacies in Scotland, others are given weekly amounts as part of a
"take-home" prescription. Lothian and Borders Police declined to comment on how
Derek's parents received theirs.
Susan Dean, spokeswoman for the Scottish Drugs Forum, an umbrella group for
anti-drug charities, police and treatment providers, urged investigations into
Derek's death to centre on whether his parents' prescriptions were properly
assessed.
But she rejected the notion that the use of the liquid heroin substitute itself
was to blame.
She said: "It is completely missing the point to condemn the use of methadone in
this instance. It is, and can only ever be, part of a comprehensive package of
solutions.
"The issue under scrutiny should not be methadone, but how well the current
system of support allows it to work.
"It provides the chemical help – but only works if people are offered
psychological and social assistance as well."
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, the regulatory and
professional body for pharmacists, is against 100% supervision of methadone
administration, warning of creating a "secondary dependence".
It has nevertheless admitted to levels of inconsistency in how Scottish health
boards administer dispensing, with "variable" arrangements across the country.
Wasted lives:
Scott Saunders - A 33-month-old from Rutherglen, he died in 2000 after being
beaten, starved and locked in an unheated room while his mother, Cheryl Hanson,
and her boyfriend, Mark Connelly, fed their heroin habit. In just over five
weeks, he had been transformed from a well-nourished child into a living
skeleton.
Caleb Ness - The 11-week-old from Edinburgh spent the first three weeks of his
life in 2001 withdrawing from drugs taken by his mother, Shirley Malcolm, during
her pregnancy. While his mother was at a local chemist obtaining methadone,
Caleb's father, Alexander, shook him violently until he died.
Danielle Reid - The five-year-old from Inverness died from massive head injuries
after being beaten by her mother's lover, Lee Gaytor, a heroin addict. When her
mother, Tracy Reid, discovered what had happened, she helped her lover stuff her
daughter's body in a case, weigh it with bricks and dump it in the Caledonian
Canal.
