| Flowers in Gods Garden
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20/02/02 - Who'll take the
blame?
GRAHAM BROUGH
The Mirror
THE parents of Victoria Climbie yesterday hit out at social
workers, doctors and police for failing to take the blame
for her death.
Dad Francis, 44, said: "We are shocked. The problem
here is as serious as in a non-developed country. Everybody
blames each other rather than acknowledging their mistakes.
"Unless they do this we are unlikely to see any
changes - which is what we want in Victoria's memory
so that her life was not wasted.
"It is shocking and outrageous that the social
workers, doctors and police who failed my daughter are
still at work. Not only should they resign or be sacked
immediately, but their bosses must also go."
Victoria, eight, was tortured to death by her guardian,
Marie Therese Kouao and boyfriend Carl Manning after
she was sent from the Ivory Coast to be educated in
England.
Francis and wife Berthe, 41, spoke out as the inquiry
drew to a close yesterday after 59 days of evidence.
Berthe is furious that Victoria was allowed to leave
hospital after a fortnight and return to face her death.
Not a single strategy meeting was ever held at the
hospital and staff missed chance after chance to ask
Victoria what hell she was enduring.
Fighting back tears, Berthe said a nurse misunderstood
that when French- speaking Victoria said she wanted
to go home she meant the Ivory Coast and not Kouao's.
Berthe added: "To think she believed she was coming
home to us but then went to die is the single saddest
thing.
"These were not only the hardest days of the inquiry,
but the hardest days of my life."
She adds: "What is amazing is that even if she
had fresh burns, she was still smiling. It's as if nothing
could take that smile away."
At the inquiry yesterday, the Climbies' lawyer Magot
Boyle said: " There were days when Mr and Mrs Climbie
sat listening to witness after witness and it seemed
the higher people get up the ladder and the more they
are paid, the less they admit.
"Social workers blame doctors, front line staff
blame management, managers blame the council, the councils
blame the Government."
Miss Boyle attacked social workers from Ealing, Brent
and Haringey councils and police officers who all failed
to visit Victoria.
The Climbies also blamed staff at the Central Middlesex
and North Middlesex Hospitals who did not make their
concerns known to social services even though Victoria
had severe injuries.
Social workers Carole Baptiste and Lisa Arthurworrey
had been "incompetent and indifferent". And
the Climbies were shocked to hear that Baptiste, a team
manager in child protection, had her own child removed
from her care.
Berthe said: "We have been so hurt and shocked
by the inability of people who could have saved Victoria
to accept their responsibility.
"How can they not see that they compound our grief
by just thinking about their careers and not having
the courage to say 'I personally got this wrong, I should
have investigated, I didn't and she died' ?
"Marie Therese was evil but she was not an evil genius,
she could have been stopped. But they failed time after
time." |
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