THE official report on how social services handled the case of little Leticia Wright makes sad reading.
In total, the file charts the journey of a broken life.
The young girl suffered appalling indignities in the last days of her short time on earth.
Injuries to her head and abdomen were equivalent to a major road accident. A wound on the back of her head was described as a ‘boggy mass’.
Over 100 injuries – old and new – were found on Leticia’s body including more than 10 cigarette burns, two branding marks and two deep bite marks.
All the more appalling that they were inflicted by her mother and her boyfriend.
Sad, yes. Unique, no.
It is the story of a mistreated child who had no real home or family and probably never knew what it was like to be wanted or loved.
Her injuries were inflicted after Kirklees Council social workers visited and decided no further action was necessary.
Today’s official findings say there was an absence of action to obtain background information, but makes it plain that failings began elsewhere when crucial information was not passed on from areas where the mother’s boyfriend had previously lived.
No doubt “lessons will be learned” as we are usually told in such instances.
It is worth repeating a question asked before: With no bed covers, and only a plastic cup and hair bobbles to play with when the house in Huddersfield was visited, how could they have thought this was normal?
All those who followed the harrowing court case were left with the poignant mental image of a little girl often seen staring sadly out of her bedroom window, something no child who leads a normal, lively life would ever do.
The responsibility ultimately rests on the two people convicted of Leticia’s murder. Their actions were evil, simple as that.
But one word sums up what social workers should have used when they saw the conditions inside Leticia’s house: Commonsense.
It’s disturbing that they did not seem to possess it.
