Baby P official: More children will die over cuts

MORE vulnerable children will die at the hands of their “desperate” parents as a result of funding cuts, disgraced former children’s services boss Sharon Shoesmith warned yesterday.

Shoesmith, who lost her job after the Baby P tragedy, suggested that all the “good developments” in social care since then will be undone by a “dreadful” financial situation.

She issued the warning in her first national public speech since her dismissal in 2008.

She also told the North of England Education Conference in Blackpool that she was still struggling to live with the death of Peter Connelly more than three years after he died.

She said: “I want to start by saying that the murder of Peter Connelly when I was director of children’s services in Haringey is something I struggle to live with every day, as do the social workers who knew him.

“There was never any doubt about how sorry and distressed we were by his brutal murder.”

Shoesmith received a warm reception from delegates, who applauded for 40 seconds after her speech. But her attendance has caused controversy in Blackpool, with some residents angry that she has been allowed to appear.

Shoesmith was dismissed without compensation from her position at Haringey Council in north London in December 2008 after a report into her department’s failings following the Baby P case.

She lost the first round of a legal battle to overturn her dismissal, but was later granted leave to appeal against a High Court ruling that upheld her sacking.

Peter Connelly, who was known as Baby P, was 17 months old when he died in August 2007 at the hands of his mother Tracey Connelly, her lover Steven Barker and their lodger, Barker’s brother Jason Owen. The boy had suffered 50 injuries despite receiving 60 visits from social workers, doctors and police over the final eight months of his life.