Another baby lost to Britain's 'broken care system': Tragic Finley Boden's ... trends now
A campaigner for children in care has warned that 'lessons must be learned' after 'yet another child was lost to Britain's broken care system'.
Chris Wild told MailOnline that the murder of ten-month-old Finley Boden must serve as an urgent wake-up call for ministers to support the 'underfunded' care sector.
Tragic Finley was murdered by his parents on Christmas Day in 2020, just 39 days after being returned to the care of his drug addict parents Shannon Marsden and Stephen Boden.
The innocent infant was burnt and beat by his parents - leaving him with 130 separate injuries, including 71 bruises and 57 fractures that left almost every bone in his body broken.
Marsden and Boden, from Old Whittington in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, were found guilty of his murder and were handed life sentences in May last year.
A damning review into the lead-up up to tragic baby's murder said Finley 'should have been one of the most protected children in the local authority area' but found 'significant shortcomings' in plans for him to be reunited with his parents.
Responding to the report, Mr Wild, who lost his father at the age of 11 and grew up in the care system, told MailOnline: 'Yet again another child lost to our broken system. "Lessons must be learned" yet no one seems to be putting these words into action.
Finley Boden was beaten to death by his parents just 39 days after he was returned to their care by social services
His parents, Shannon Marsden (left) and Stephen Boden (right), were jailed for a minimum of 27 and 29 years respectively for murdering the 10-month-old
'Unfortunately we can point the finger in the Finley Boden case and it points directly to an underfunded sector that fails to prioritise the safety of children even when all the evidence clearly shows this could have been prevented.'
Marsden and Boden inflicted 130 injuries on their son before he fatally collapsed at his family home.
He had been returned to their care on November 17 that year by a family court despite social services raising concerns over Boden and Marsden's drug use and the state of the family home.
After returning home, the child was subjected to a campaign of abuse and was found to have a multitude of injuries at the time of his death, as well as conditions including sepsis and pneumonia.
A Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review into Finley's death, published by the safeguarding children partnership on Wednesday, said while Finley's parents were responsible for his death, 'professional interventions should have protected him'.
Care home consultant Mr Wild highlighted that in January 2023, a care review was published with a number of recommendations 'that could potentially stop children and young people in our care system becoming victims of social neglect'.
He explained: 'The lack of funding is a safeguarding issue within itself and the astronomical pressure put on care professionals has caused a huge fracture throughout which inevitably increases the risk of keeping children safe.
'I have been lobbying central government for the past two years asking for immediate action and more importantly for the care review recommendations to be passed through Parliament.
'We need more Social Workers back in our communities and not behind a desk looking at data all day.
'Children are not KPI's. And due to the lack of resources mistakes are made and yet again we have another tragic story when it could have been easily prevented.
'Children in care are still children.'
Wednesday's review, which has been anonymised, said: 'In this instance, a child died as the result of abuse when he should have been one of the most protected children in the local authority area.'
It said the 'most significant professional decision' was that he should live with his parents, and concluded that 'the safeguarding environment in which that decision was made had been incrementally weakened by the decisions, actions, circumstances and events which preceded it'.
Most of what had been experienced by Finley in the final weeks of his life 'was unknown to professionals working with the family at that time', the report said.
But it added: 'The review has found, nevertheless, that safeguarding practice during that time was inadequate.'
It noted there had been a six-week period where a social worker was off sick and that during that time no social work visits to Finley or his parents took place.
The review acknowledged that Covid 19 regulations and their consequences had 'exacerbated' the couple's inaccessibility to professionals, but added that the local authority had accepted 'more could have been done to
