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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