24 July (Part 1) - Economical with the truth
The
documents relating to Rhys Lawrie are multi-faceted
and difficult to summarise but in the days following his death there was as you
might imagine a flurry of report writing by those involved.
Bexley council produced several by their Legal and Social Services departments.
They concentrated on a period starting two days before the boy’s death when he
was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital with severe bruising. He was sent home the
same day following an examination and X-ray which did
not reveal the bleeding on the brain.
Bexley council’s reports carefully avoided the concerns expressed by medical and teaching
staff from 2007 through to December 2010 because that would presumably highlight their
negligence and instead contrived to give the family a clean, almost glowing, bill of health. A model family.
It certified that Rhys was generally well, that his parents provided a safe
environment, protected him from abuse, kept him clean and sympathetically comforted him following any injury.
The report was signed by a Bexley council Social Worker whose name did not (and does not) appear on the
Health and Care Professional Council’s register of qualified social workers.
Among the facts that could have been included was the mother‘s concern that she might
harm her son and a reference to Rhys’s severe injuries noted
by school staff in the six weeks before his death.
Contrary to the excellent references for household and personal cleanliness, the
case papers refer to the older son being reliant on nappies to the age of five
and the fact he “smelt unclean” and both children wore “visibly dirty clothes”.
Naturally there was no reference to the health visitor’s 2008 comment, “I feel
some additional help into [sic] the family would be useful”.
None was given, at least not until it was far too late.
The rewriting of history had begun. Much was made of the mother’s claim that the
injuries were caused by up to eight epileptic fits a day. The General
Practitioner’s report said Rhys suffered approximately one seizure a month but
concedes they could last up to an hour.
Everywhere one looks, contradictory reports are in evidence.
The Rhys Lawrie blog index.