Leanne White aged 3 yrs
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| Nottinghamshire Social Services Social worker who investigated earlier abuse decided there were no concerns. Source: Oacas Journal (PDF) In 1992 Nottinghamshire Social Services Leanne White, three, was beaten to death by her stepfather, Colin Sleate, who made her sleep on the floor. The girl suffered 107 external injuries and died of internal bleeding and repeated blows to the stomach. Sleate was jailed for life for the girl's murder while her mother, Tina, received 10 years for manslaughter. An inquiry concluded that her death could have been prevented if Nottinghamshire social services had responded properly to reports from her grandmother and neighbours that she was at risk. Leanne White’s social worker, for example, investigated the first allegations of abuse and decided there were no grounds for concern. When she received allegations from two other sets of neighbours, she did not reconsider her judgement but ignored the referrals (Nottinghamshire Area Child Protection Committee, 1994). The second group, of cases assessed as moderate to high risk and being monitored, contains the majority of the noncritical reports. Of the four critical reports, it was thought that the assessments of risk should have been higher on the evidence available at the time. Two early reports blamed the failure on poor interprofessional communication while the two more recent ones blamed it on poor assessment of the shared information. |
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