ABSTRACT
The previous chapter began with an account of the death of Maria Colwell in the early 1970s. At the end of that decade the UK Department of Health published A Study of Inquiry Reports 1973-81 dealing with eighteen investigations (Department of Health, 1982). These were all headline cases of fatal child abuse. Another decade later A Study of Inquiry Reports 1980-89 (Department of Health, 1991) was published covering nineteen such investigations.
