BARNET: ‘Deluded’ mum killed her baby (From This Is Local London)

BARNET: ‘Deluded’ mum killed her baby

12:28pm Thursday 18th December 2008 in

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A mother's “deluded” wish for her family to be reunited in death led her to kill her baby son, who had been taken off the child protection register by Barnet Social Services.

Council chiefs have been asked to defend the decision, following the publication of a report and a swathe of national media coverage into the death of 18-month-old Sean Denton, in Barnet, in October 2007.

The toddler was smothered to death by his mother Amanda Adams, after she learned her partner and Sean’s father, Mark Denton, had committed suicide. She killed herself shortly afterwards.

The Barnet Safeguarding Children Board (BSCB), a multi-agency group set up to review child safety services, ordered a serious case review (SCR) into the death, and concluded the family had given no cause for concern in the 16 months after the child left the register, despite the parents’ previous alcohol addiction problems and a criminal record.

Adams, 30, and Denton, 35, met in an alcohol rehabilitation unit in 1999 and later that year, when homeless, they killed a squatter in a drunken row.

They were both sentenced for manslaughter but were reunited after they were released from prison in 2004.

During Adams’ pregnancy, the baby was registered as a “child in need” because of her history of mental health, in which she was recorded as having “severely disturbed and self-abusive behaviour”.

However, within two months of Sean’s birth, he was taken off the register because “his parents’ manifold problems appeared to be in abeyance once they became parents,” the report said.

It also stated that a number of child care and adult agencies were involved with the toddler, including the council, the police and health services, but added: “Throughout his short life, no further questions were raised by these agencies about Sean’s care, and certainly none had predicted that serious harm would come to him.”

In fact, the case review noted he was a “much-wanted and much-loved” child and was a healthy child, meeting his developmental milestones and giving “no cause for concern”.

The post mortem examination on Sean found no other signs of abuse or neglect.

A council spokesman said the decision to remove Sean from the Child Protection Register was made “given the good progress of both parents and child”.

He said the council was not made aware of the father’s suicide, or the “profound effect on the mother”. He added: “Had the authority known of this event, support and guidance would have been provided.”

The full review concluded: “His mother’s tragic and deluded wish seems to have been for the parents and child all to be reunited as a family after death.”

A spokeswoman for Barnet Primary Care Trust, whose care workers dealt with the family, said: “While the SCR commends the practice of the health professional who visited the baby and family regularly, all actions recommended by the review are being put into place.”