Gloucestershire council's children's services have been accused of having a lack of concern about the children that are present in the facility by a serious case review. The conclusions were drawn by a three-year-old boy who was rushed to hospital after he was left with bruises, fractured ribs, and a perforated intestine.
According to News-Times, the name of the victim was ''Philip'' who was very well known to Gloucestershire's child protection team before he sustained injuries which could have been life ending. The partner of Philip's mom who was equally involved in the torture was jailed for three years after he was proved guilty of bodily harm, his mother was given a 12 months suspension sentence because she had a different situation.
According to The Guardian Jane Wiffin, who is the author of the review, described that there was an unreasonable delay when the mother of the victim was contacted regarding the child protection team. The report describes the situation as ''very poor assessment of social workers'' and ''inexperience of assessment of physical abuse''.
Despite the fact that Philip was not medically examined when he was first referred, even though he had more than 25 bruises was a matter of great concern. Later the child was examined by a pediatrician, but yet again ability to judge his was not very accurate and according to the review the assessment was unclear and poor pediatrician kept insisting there was no medical reasoning behind the injuries of the child.
The child ended up losing 1.5 kg of weight which is a significant loss while keeping his age in mind. The review proves that the children's services workers depended heavily on Philip's mother's account which led to the conclusion that the early chances to protect Philip were missed.
