ABSTRACT
Peter Connelly died in the home of his mother and stepfather in the London Borough of Haringey on 3 August 2007. The post-mortem revealed that he had suffered a catalogue of appalling injuries at the hands of his carers in the preceding weeks and months including, at the time of his death, eight broken ribs and a broken back, bruises, cuts and lacerations to his head and body, missing fingernails and a missing front tooth which had been knocked out and was subsequently found lodged in his colon. When Peter’s case came to the attention of the media in 2008 it caused a huge public outcry. Over a million people signed a petition organized by The Sun newspaper demanding that the professionals involved in the case be held to account for their failure to safeguard Peter’s welfare. People were shocked because of Peter’s injuries, his young age and, most significantly, the fact that his name was on the child protection register and social workers and other professionals had been regularly visiting him. And yet, despite all of this activity, not one professional had a close enough relationship with
him to piece together the different facets of his chronically abusive experiences, to make sense of his deteriorating well-being, to establish his own views and feelings, or to act decisively on his behalf.
