Preston Davey, another baby P.

You got it right Cossy 🎯

There is very considerable evidence that in terms of sexual abuse men are a higher risk.
I think I am going to try and have this conversation on MN.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

You got it right Cossy 🎯

I thought exactly the same as Cossy so am patting myself on the back (well someone has to! 😀) I thought it was pretty obvious really.

Men constitute the vast majority of sexual abuse perpetrators globally, committing over 90% of all reported sexual offences against both female and male victims. While both men and women can be perpetrators and victims of sexual violence, statistical data and psychological research show stark asymmetries regarding prevalence, victim demographics, and the nature of the abuse

Careful MissA quoting facts isn't always appreciated on GN. And then there's the tricky question of what constitutes a male since biological sex is a no no to so many.

Very true!
I've always known it to be a given that males commit more sexual offences than women.
That was the A.I answer I put above, so...

MissAdventure

This is why I support the death penalty.
Rehabilition? No.

Apart from being opposed to the death penalty, I would not want it for these two because, there time in prison is going to be hell. Child abusers are not welcome by other prisoners

Ian Huntley was attacked time without number before he was murdered by a fellow inmate. For this pair who did so many vile things to a defenceless baby. It will be even worse. The longer they suffer and live in fear, as they made the defenceless infant, Preston, until they finally killed him, the happier I will be.

MissAdventure

Men constitute the vast majority of sexual abuse perpetrators globally, committing over 90% of all reported sexual offences against both female and male victims. While both men and women can be perpetrators and victims of sexual violence, statistical data and psychological research show stark asymmetries regarding prevalence, victim demographics, and the nature of the abuse

Thanks Miss Adventure. The facts are so often responded to with posters defending men, pointing to the lovely men in their lives and pointing out women are capable of abuse. Yes no one is denying that.
Galaxy is often a lone voice raising the reality.

And many of those ‘lovely men’ are in fact abusers. I’m not suggesting any poster’s partner, brother, son is an abuser, just that if you work in this field long enough you soon find out that the seemingly ‘loveliest’ men are not at all what they seem.

Yes very true Nightowl. These two were certainly hidden in plain sight. Respected teacher, head of year, safeguarding lead. It is unbelievable but very often people like this work with children. So that people can’t believe the unspeakable. They certainly fooled many.

What I don’t understand is why his colleagues didn’t tip off the police. Even the head visited him at home after concerns were raised. Surely an experienced professional like that would, should have, taken it further.

Thirty years ago my daughters were 7 and 8, very happy at primary school. The head teacher was universally liked, very child focussed school. He was arrested after two girls, now 13 separately made allegations. One of them had complained at age 7 but the head at the school where he was then teaching advised her mother to move her child for making false allegations.
For reasons I accept but won’t bore you with, there was no prosecution. The validated the 80% of parents who insisted he was innocent. And the girls ‘naughty”. He moved on tto a bigger school in a more deprived area. Several months later, three girls at our school, now aged 10 alleged he’d abused them when they were 7-8. Other girls came forward.

No prosecution. The cps again concluded as a couple of the older girls, now in their teens, had therapeutic help, no jury would believe them over a successful professional middle class man .He was given a senior admin post in the la education
department, to ke him away from children.
Paedophiles live amongst us. They don’t have horns or a forked tail.

Article on this theme in today’s Times. A social worker is quoted as saying that their biggest fear is being accused of prejudice (homophobia etc.), having a complaint made against them, and management failing to back them up.

So perhaps it’s not surprising if they tend to sweep uncomfortable doubts/feelings/intuition under the mental carpet.

Yes, fear of being accused of homophobia, racism whatever and this little boy suffered as a result. Jack Straw has made some sort of statement saying people should be investigated by the police for not doing their jobs properly. I think they’d need to bring common sense back in first and scrap all these diversity targets.

Should two men be allowed to adopt a vulnerable little baby who cannot speak, cannot tell anybody what’s happening to him, can only cry and look a shadow of his former self, all in the name of meeting diversity targets and avoiding being called homophobic. It is sheer stupidity.

MissAdventure

Very true!
I've always known it to be a given that males commit more sexual offences than women.
That was the A.I answer I put above, so...

I don't have any problem with accepting that, although I have no idea what percentage of men are involved in any kind of sexual abuse. I doubt very much if it's the majority, which means that most men are not involved with sexual abuse and should not all be labelled as abusers and perverts or discriminated against for being male.

Silvershadow

Yes, fear of being accused of homophobia, racism whatever and this little boy suffered as a result. Jack Straw has made some sort of statement saying people should be investigated by the police for not doing their jobs properly. I think they’d need to bring common sense back in first and scrap all these diversity targets.

Should two men be allowed to adopt a vulnerable little baby who cannot speak, cannot tell anybody what’s happening to him, can only cry and look a shadow of his former self, all in the name of meeting diversity targets and avoiding being called homophobic. It is sheer stupidity.

Is there any evidence that the adoption placement was made to fulfil any sort of diversity target?

Hearing, in therapeutic situations, personal stories of sexual abuse perpetrated by males it is far, far more common than many realise. No ones hears or understands the sheer numbers of sexual offences that occur/have occurred, by predominately men, in private. That's apart from known cases in the press, pursued in court etc. numbered in thousands in my lifetime.

What is appalling about it is that so much abuse is carried out by the victims relatives: the father/grandfather/brother/uncle/cousin. [Don't ask me how I know this is true, also]. Just look what they are capable of. That makes me sick, people who are related, supposed to love and support a child can do vile acts. [Yes, I know some women relatives do it too, but a vastly smaller number and often with male coercion].

This proves that the home a child is in, or potentially going to, should be scrutinised extremely closely. The danger is surely known, the red flags are there. In this case the people overseeing this adoption, and all involved in Preston's welfare fell very way short. They have to held accountable for the awful neglect of his care.

I'm sorry but 2 gay men would get more scrutiny from me, and that reflects information I have had and what I know for myself and have observed and heard. That's not prejudice. It's life experience, decades spent living an alternative lifestyle. Life experience and knowledge of the real world are things young social workers [the ones from loving, 'normal', homes] don't have.

Had the adoption panel turned down the two killers they would no doubt be branded as homophobic.

My understanding is that there are no diversity targets on adoption panels (which includes lay persons as well as social workers).
There is an expectation that, in the case of mixed heritage children, there will be an attempt to find adopters which reflect their heritage, as you might expect. The focus is in the best fit for the child.
I repeat, I know of a small boy whose experiences with men in his birth family led him to choose a lesbian couple for his adopters.
It has gone catastrophically wrong in this situation, of course.

I have always understood that 90% of sexual abuse occurs within the family and friendship circle.

I remember hearing a quirky talk on R4 many years ago when the speaker, half in jest, but trying to make an important point said that if we really want to protect our children we should encourage our children to go with straingers but avoid all male relatives, teachers and family friends because they are by far the majority of perpetrators of abuse, sexual and physical.

Preston’s biological father is all over the media now bemoaning his son’s death, I wonder where he has been the last few years?

I suppose the adoption may have excluded the dad from making contact?
I'm not excusing him at all, though.
I've steered very clear of reading anything at all about the case.

I had a work colleague who adopted two children, and it took almost ten years, and almost broke him and his partner apart with the strain of it all.
I don't understand at all how flippantly the adoption of Preston seems to have been carried out.

Yes it only took weeks MissA start to finish apparently
Beggars belief
All of it.

Keir Starmer is looking into the case that’s good I think.

I would hope that children in the school in Blackpool where Preston’s adopted parent worked will be looked at closely. The odd word from a teacher can be damaging.

I have a very close relative who has adopted.

The process over all took just under three years.

DH and I were interviewed by social workers, as were several other family members from the other side of the family, along with friends.

How and why did this adoption go through so quickly and why was there not continuing contact with social workers for the early months/first year which as I understand it is standard practice?

Jaxjacky

Preston’s biological father is all over the media now bemoaning his son’s death, I wonder where he has been the last few years?

From what I have read in the media you wouldn't have placed Preston in his 'care' either. The beginning and end of this poor little soul's life was with murderers. Heartbreaking.