Experts have revealed the horrifying extent to which Covid lockdowns provided a dangerous cover for abusers to inflict fatal harm on vulnerable children. Government figures show a 20% rise in child deaths involving abuse or neglect in 2020-2021. The Mail has the sad story.
Lockdown restrictions at the height of the Covid pandemic were used “as a cover” by abusers to hurt their children, an expert has said, after the “evil” parents of 10 month-old Jacob Crouch were this week jailed for his murder.
Jacob is just the latest in a string of tragic, fatal cases of child abuse to have emerged from the pandemic including that of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, Lola James and Star Hobson.
Experts have told how usual safeguarding methods or chances to spot serious abuse such as schools, health workers and children’s clubs were absent or moved online during the pandemic, meaning abusers could harm children in their care with impunity.
Just this week 10 month-old Jacob’s killer stepfather was jailed for life with a minimum term of 28 years, after the infant was found dead with dozens of injuries and at least 39 rib fractures in December 2020.
Now national child abuse charities such as the NSPCC are warning of the rise in deathly harm which occurred during lockdown, and the impacts which are still coming out of it.
Star Hobson (above) was just one of multiple children murdered by parents or guardians who took advantage of coronavirus restrictions.
Arthur Labinjo-Hughes (above) was murdered during the pandemic after his father and step-mother refused to return him to school.
Even cases from the months leading up to the pandemic, such as that of Kyrell Matthews, aged two, (above) raised concerns.
Abigail Gill, Associate Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the NSPCC, told the Guardian: “We are now starting to see the impact that lockdown has had on children’s social care and vulnerable children.
“What these cases show is that our deepest fears did come to fruition for some children and harm was taking place behind closed doors.”
She continued: “What we’ve seen in quite a few of the cases is the way in which lockdown measures were actually used as a cover by some adults who were intent on causing harm to those children.
“Now that those cases are coming through the court system, we’re seeing the horrible details of all of that come to light.”
Government figures show the number of child deaths involving abuse or neglect rose by 35, or around 20%, to 223 in 2020-2021. There were also 87 more serious incident notifications relating to children than in the previous year.
The NSPCC found its services were 23% more in demand during the same timeframe.
Numerous courts have heard harrowing details about how parents or guardians abused lockdown rules to get away with increasingly horrific abuse – Arthur’s parents kept him off school even after the easing of lockdown while Finley Boden’s stopped social workers entering their home using the guise of Covid restrictions.
Worth reading the all-too-long list of heart-wrenching cases in full.
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Not my problem, I always thought that lockdowns were a terrible idea.
Confronting child abuse, in all its forms, should be everyone’s problem.
I’m completely past giving a fuck about anybody – the sheep backed lockdowns, this is on them,not me. That said, none of this is accidental, and will have been forseen, and accepted, by TPTB
You do know that whenever you do a ‘Victor Meldrew’ I’m going to troll you with the antidote for your condition don’t you?
https://twitter.com/shouldhaveanima/status/1686821775890595840
That all looks like food to me.
So this is what becomes of our apathetic, ovine capitulation to rules that never made any sense, even with respect to physical health or control of a pathogen. The rules were ostensibly in place to “flatten the curve” – even to “save lives”. The result: child abuse and deaths, and a virus that becomes stronger due to our lack of exposure to it and subsequent immunological naivety, along with greater vulnerability to many other viruses for the same reason!
Look, I’m getting extremely tired of this now, tired of the ongoing debate about how Lockdowns were bad.. Yes we knew and know they were an appalling way to treat a society in all forms and metrics.
Stop the debate and start talking about who is accountable, what punishments and how we can ensure this never ever happens again
What a surprise. One of many items that they didn’t think through when they went mad. Jot it down and present to the Inquiry.
One doubts that these deaths (and it does not seem to include other forms of domestic abuse) will even be considered by the “We-should-have-locked-down-sooner-and-harder” Covid Enquiry.
NSPCC, Children’s Services et al can go to hell. Lest we forget individuals in these roles were some of the most vocal advocates of lockdowns and the other Covid restrictions.
They were told of the risks to these children yet plowed on regardless.
The data for the following year and after will be coming out too but may not be linked to the lockdowns even though they should be – having worked in childcare especially with those at risk knew the precious little ones would be in danger but it fell on deaf ears – “home visits” done via zoom or not at all – are you kidding me
.
How many where children were flagged by a medical professional but did not have a home visit because of the Local Authority having new guidance and policies due to Covid measures?! How many where abuse was reported by family or neighbours in close proximity but these reports fell through the cracks?!
These deaths are just the tip of the iceberg. How many of these death cases also had siblings? One baby to be included in the 2022/23 died but had 4 siblings all experienced abuse but will not have their circumstances acknowledged as part of these figures…Another family again a sibling group of 5 one disabled in the home with a violent child among them. How about the children that were put into foster placements that did not have proper checks done as proper safeguarding went out the window due to covid – child placement with a foster carer that sexually abused her…
These poor children were murdered by their evil parents/step-parents/guardians ….. but that murder was facilitated by:
SAGE
Prof Neil Ferguson
The Quad: Johnson, Handcock, Gove and Sunak
Every MP who failed to even question the Government’s lockdown policy (that’s virtually all of them)
The Mainstream Media, who acted as cheerleaders for the murderous policy
All the above are accomplices to murder.