Baby's death was 'preventable' - The Sun

HEALTH and social workers were blasted today after failing to save a baby boy whose body was found in a "scene of unimaginable horror" at his home.

A damning report revealed they missed 17 chances to rescue 13-month-old Alex Sutherland overlooking his welfare to help his alcoholic mother who drank up to SIX bottles of wine a day.

Police finally broke into the family home and discovered tragic Alex with charring to his body, slumped in his pushchair beside a lit gas fire.

He was covered in faeces and had unexplained injuries on his body and was pronounced dead in hospital later the same day.

When he was just three weeks old police were called to the same address and found circumstances similar to the scene of his death with Alex left in front of the gas fire and surrounded by combustible material.

Former pharmacist Sutherland, 39, was jailed for 27 months for child cruelty last April when a judge hit out at social services over their "starling lack of urgency".

A Serious Case Review was launched by Manchester Safeguarding Children's Board and concluded that Alex's neglect was "both predictable and preventable."

The report, which referred to Alex as Child T and his mother as Mrs E, said: "Child T was known to agencies because of Mrs E's misuse of alcohol, yet 17 expressions of concern (four of which alleged she was drunk) failed to trigger a reconsideration of the initial assessments that the likelihood of future significant harm was low.

"No single agency was responsible for failing to protect Child T from the chronic neglect which he suffered at the hands of his mother.

"But rather he was the victim of the multiple failures of all those agencies with whom he was involved to recognise the risks to which he was exposed and to take appropriate protective action."

The report revealed how mother-of-two Sutherland had been drinking since she was just eight years old and by 2007 was drinking six bottles of wine a day.

Advertisement

Only a week before the tragedy, an anonymous call was made to social workers saying Alex looked small and undernourished and Sutherland's mood and behaviour was "erratic."

But although a health visitor asked for an appointment with Sutherland, it was put off for another week.

On the day of the tragedy police found Sutherland in a distressed state wandering in the street, in the pouring rain, dressed in her pyjamas, looking pale and shaking, telling officers she didn't want to go home.

It emerged the youngster had been dead for three days but Sutherland remained with his body until her 39th birthday before alerting police, saying she couldn't bear to "let him go".

Alex's cause of death has never been established.