Baby P In his mother's words

Hello, I'm Jeremy vine, and this is panorama. Baby pea's mother. The interview that's never been shown until now. I've got a very good friend, steven. He's 6 foot four bloond hair, green eyes and I'm sorry if I go like a dreamboat on him, but he is every girl's dream. I'm filming them playing. The missed opportunity to investigate the man, making himself at home in Peter's life. So we've got to start asking questions, who is this guy, where did you meet him? How do you know he's good for you? But for baby pea's mother, there are no searching questions. I'm really impressed. I'm really, really impressed with the way you've been, first of all. Compltely open, completely honest. In the three years since baby pea died, there has been a murder trial and several inquiries. Just two weeks ago, a Connelly decided not to hold a full inquest. But how much do we really understand about what happened tonight, panorama can reveal the taped interview carried out with baby pea's mother just months before he died? It is a unique insight into a tragedy that's been described as the perfect storm of failure. Alison Holt investigates. All families like to document happy moments. Milestones in their child's life. Cheeky! What you doing? It's striking, isn't it, that this could be almost any family that you walk past in the park with the mom filming her little boy's filtering steps on her mobile phone. But that underlines just how difficult it can be to pick out a vulnerable child, a child who really needs help because this little boy is Peter Connelly. He was first known to us as baby pea. This one has your videos. When these pictures were taken, Peter was known to be at risk. Monitored by social workers, doctors, and police. But within months of this family day in the park, he'd be dead. Those protecting him didn't know the role this man had in his life. Stephen Barker, the boyfriend who'd moved in. One of his abusers. Calling him is another of his abusers. His mother, Tracy Connolly. This is the face that we've come to know, a picture taken by police when she was arrested. But Tracy Connolly was presenting a very different face to a senior social worker from harangue in North London, just months before he died. So we can at least upon it. So I'm going to get some more swords. She paints the picture of family life that couldn't be further from the truth. Tracy Connolly is articulate, clever, and manipulative. This is the first time this video taped interview has been shown publicly. It was March 2007 when she came to these now disused Haringey officers for the hour long interview. Four months before her son died. The tape of this interview will remain unseen for nearly two years. Until it's uncovered by panorama. This taped interview was not shown to the police investigating Peter's death, nor to the murder trial that followed. And it only went to the official review into how his case was handled after their report was written. That was 18 months after Peter's death. At the time of the interview, he's already been in hospital with suspicious injuries, including a bump on the head. Social workers have been monitoring Tracy Connelly's relationship with her son for more than three months. He is also neglected and he's on the at risk register. But our vital clues missed as his mom appears to have all the answers. There were many missed opportunities to protect baby Peter. This interview was one of them. On the left is a senior team manager from Haringey children's services. Her name is Sue Gilmore. And she's in charge of the social worker and manager whose job it is to keep Peter safe. His mother makes it clear she wants the family left alone. But it was Tracy Connolly, her boyfriend Steven Barker, and his brother, Jason Owen, who were later convicted of causing or allowing Peter's death. It was a tragedy that put the whole child protection system in the dock. Peter's last months in this house were terrible. He was taken to hospital with suspicious injuries, three times, each time he was sent home. The final opportunity to save him was missed when a pediatrician failed to spot broken ribs and probably a broken back. He died two days later, with more than 50 injuries covering his body. This October, the official inquiry into what happened was published in full. It was led by Graham Badman. What you see is that there were a series of errors made up of quite an extended period of time. Those several occasions when Peter's life could have and should have been saved from the first case conference through to the pediatrician's failure to act decisively at the end of the life. That first case conference was called after Peter was taken to hospital in December 2006. It's the first time social workers police and other professionals discussed the case together. He has significant bruising and is removed from home for 6 weeks. By the time he returns to his mother, his case is being treated as routine family welfare. This video taped interview with Tracy Connolly was recorded a couple of months after Peter returned home. It wasn't part of the plan for protecting him. Instead, it was carried out by the senior team manager as part of a training course. From February 2007, Sue Gilmour was overseeing the case and would later be involved in key decisions. But on this day, she's training for a diploma in something called solution focused practice. A way of working with parents being piloted in her safeguarding team. During the interview, Tracy Connelly is asked to describe what a better future would look like. Rather than focusing on problems, more is trying to help Tracey Connolly change her life. That's the aim of the technique. Andrew Turnel is an international expert in the use of solution focused questions in child protection. He says it has to begin and end with the child's safety. Can you imagine a police officer saying, we'd go and interview criminals and they're not honest with us? You are child protection. You have the authority to remove children when I'm up on the door, you're going to do everything you can to keep me out of your life. The idea is to improve families lives. But it relies on asking the right questions. Solution focused therapy provides tools that are like scalpels for a doctor. But they have to be used in the context of a risk assessment framework where everybody knows we're talking about the safety of children. We are standard now to view the video. What he saw worried him. Tracy Connolly begins to give an insight into how her life has gone wrong. So that's a huge opportunity. Things went off the rails for me, my previous partner left me. I went a bit crazy for a few months. She's given you an opportunity to go what? What did you do? How did you go crazy? How did that affect Peter? Those are many other questions aren't asked. There's one exchange in particular that stands out. About a man called Steven. Police and social workers have been told there's a boyfriend on the scene. Tracy Connolly has already denied this. It wasn't checked further. But 45 minutes into this interview, she brings the subject up. So we've got to start asking questions and I'm not expecting anything clever or out of the world because we don't know that the baby is going to die at this stage. But who is this guy? Where did you meet him? How do you know he's good for you? Sue Gilmore doesn't challenge her about Steven. She's told us this wasn't an investigative interview. But Peter's injuries are still unexplained and this new man in his mother's life should cause concern. He's not just sharing a special evening with her. He's spending time in her home. She physically and emotionally shifts when she's talking about that. So clearly and at one stage in the type she even says, I'm not in a relationship, but I wish. Clearly, and you've got to go, okay, this either is a man that's she's in a relationship with or wants to be, so this is a player now in this mother's life and how Peter will be looked after. Sue Gilmore doesn't appear to pick up on the words or body language. She asks about how Tracy Connolly takes a compliment. The truth is, this friend Stephen is living with her. As these pictures taken four weeks earlier show, he's at home in her life. And in Peters. This is his first birthday party. Checks should be made on this new man in the family's life. That doesn't happen. Sue Gilmore has told us when the interview finished, she instructed the social worker and manager to make those checks. They were later sacked for their role in the case. Both have denied that they were asked to investigate this friend. The social worker is Maria ward, she also says she wasn't told that Connolly had expressed strong feelings for this man. Sue Gilmore put a summary of the interview on Peter's case file. We've been told there's a brief mention of a Valentine's meal with an unnamed man. She also wrote the Tracy Connelly had been very open, and she was impressed that she'd coped with so many difficulties. When the chair of the official inquiry saw the interview, 18 months after Peter's death, he was shocked. To be Frank, I was appalled. In that it seemed to me and you see an essence of it in the judge's summing up of Tracy Connelly's character. This was not a social worker trying to elicit information that would have protected the child. But somebody who was asked later described an manipulative person, taking command, taking control of the situation, and weaving the story that she wanted others to believe, and dare I said, I think there was almost two greater willingness to want to believe it. The interview was Sue Gilmour's first assignment for the diploma in solution focused practice. She failed it. The agency training her says it told students not to use cases for which they have managerial responsibility. There's a danger of getting too close. Sue Gilmore denies she was given restrictions on who could be interviewed. She told them she was not the supervising manager in this case. She now accepts that might have been confusing. Remember Sue Gilmore is the senior team manager overseeing Peter's case. She's involved in key decisions when he's taken to hospital for a third time. This is two months before Peter died and the police don't want him returned to this house. A police report written after his death records a Frank exchange of views between Sue Gilmore and a senior officer. She's told us she wasn't authorized to take Peter into care. The official inquiry says the police didn't investigate properly and children's services didn't seriously think Peter was being harmed. There were many missed opportunities to protect Peter, but this interview gives us an insight into how manipulative and abusive parent can be. And into how important it is for those protecting children to be skeptical to ask the unthinkable. Sue Gilmore was an experienced and respected manager. She left harangHarrangay of her own accord and unlike some of her colleagues, has faced no disciplinary action. Professionals from other agencies saw Stephen Barker with Peter, they didn't ask questions either. Graham badman believes the interview underlines how throughout the case. Connelly was given the benefit of the doubt. Social work is an extraordinary difficult profession. People go into it because they want to make children's lives families lives better. And so they have to be optimistic about the future. They want to believe they can make a difference. They want to believe things are getting better. What they mustn't do is to over belief that and to believe that. And to discount the evidence that says it is not as you think it is. Graham badman was so concerned by the interview, he's asked the government for research into the use of this solution focused approach in child protection. Haringey no longer uses the technique, but it is used in some highly regarded local authorities. Andrew Turnell, who runs his own training agency, says it's a valuable tool as long as the parents know it's all about protecting the child. You've got to talk about the problems, the harm, the danger, and then you can start saying, what do you want to do to address that? The solution focused questioning skills are very powerful as long as they're grounded in that risk assessment that the parents understand. Peter's legacy is an in-depth review of the child protection system. It will look at everything. What is different this time? Is that we are reviewing the whole system. And that review is going to be about seeing how all the different bits of the jigsaw should be fitted together. How all the different players who have a responsibility in child protection. Act together much better. The review will report next year. Professor dawn Forrester is a former social worker. He believes research must be at the heart of any change. For every person in the health service, the government spends on the latest figures we have, they spend over 400 pound a year finding out what works and what doesn't work. Within social work and social care, you're still going to get change out of 5 pounds per year. I want to descend that. And I think in that context, social workers are really working without an evidence base because the government are not going to go anywhere. At the forefront of the research that is being done, is loughborough university. But when he goes to the 5 years, you could discern on it. I want to go the job of keeping children safe, make difficult and life-changing decisions. Professor Harriet ward's team has tracked 43 children, all born in 2006, the same year as Peter Connelly. Like him, all were at risk of significant harm. What was striking was that all decisions were pretty well all decisions made not only by social workers, but also by the courts by health professionals, by psychologists, by substance abuse workers, but everybody were made on the assumption that it would be best to keep this family together. Again, like Peter, most of the children in this small study faced ongoing grinding neglect. Their early experiences had a huge effect on them. About half the children for whom we had data were showing quite substantial behavior problems developmental problems by the time they were three. And they weren't just a little bit backward. They had major delays in their development of speech and language. They had bizarre behavioral difficulties, frustration and aggression were very common. Even if the parent isn't truthful, a child's behavior can tell us a lot about their life. Lila is a happy, healthy and loved one year old. There's a simple test that shows the impact of parent is having on their child. It's called the still face experiment. She and her mom Amy are going to demonstrate the test. It'll be overseen by doctor Amanda Jones. She usually works with actress families. I still face experiments of wonderful experiment because primarily it shows you the sensitivity, a baby has to lost and loss of contact with if the relationship is developing well, a very loved figure. She believes with the right training, this is the sort of test that could help child protection teams assess what's happening to a child. Amy starts off playing with lyla. Lyla is learning to trust and communicate. Lion likes exploring objects and things her mom very appropriately just using an object to go back and forth with her. Then when doctor Jones knocks on the window mom Amy has to become completely expressionless. Nila's reaction is dramatic. First she's shocked. Then puzzled. Then, upset. It would be very alarming if it baby wasn't disturbed by the still face. If that seemed the norm to them, that would be disturbing. When her mom starts to play with her again, it takes a few moments when Lila is smiling. So there's been a rupture but then they repaired and sort of got back on track. You could say in a way that her mom was forgiven quite quickly. Whereas if the baby stays inconsolable, then they can't get back on track that would also be very important information. But whatever these warning signs may say, the system is geared to keeping families together. Peter's family got a lot of help. It was based on the belief that Tracy Connolly was genuinely cooperating. Professor ward's research shows the window for change with abusive parents is surprisingly small. If the parents have not succeeded in overcoming the substance abuse, alcohol abuse, they're still in a violent relationship or have started another violent relationship. If that behavior has not been completely overcome rather than change a little bit, by the time the baby is 6 months old, the chances are that it won't change and that should influence decisions about separation or not. I mean, that is quite a hard message, 6 months is not a big window. But the children don't have very much time either. In her study, all but one of the children who were identified as severely neglected at birth, were in care by the age of three, but it often took a long time for those decisions to be made. Too long, according to professor ward. Of course, for examples of children who do very badly and care children have a very bad timing care but by and large children who have been neglected or abused tend to do better in care. But the system is already under great strain. There are staff shortages and caseloads that began rising before baby pea are still increasing. I don't know whether we've got the right number of children in the care system now. We may need to have more. We may need to have fewer. What I'm most concerned about is that we have the right children in the care system. Those who need to be away from their families either for the short term or the long term. Doing the difficult job of child protection better will mean keeping children at the heart of decisions. Harriet ward's research suggests that means being tougher on parents. She found they agreed. What some of the parents said to us was that they preferred a straight talking social worker who was prepared to be absolutely honest with them about what was happening. If it's really spelled out right from the start that unless you can succeed in doing this within such and such a time frame, the child won't be able to stay with you. In the 8 months, Peter was on the at risk register, few real demands were made of his mother. But Tracy Connolly also appeared to want to know where she stood. Peter needed those people in his life to protect him. And it was too easy for them to be kept at arm's length by his mother's lies and half truths. Alison holt reporting the ring, it will cut bureaucracy to ensure that social workers can spend more time protecting vulnerable children like baby Peter. With increasing financial pressures, delivering change will be extremely difficult for local authorities. Next week, Mark Daly investigates whether our bailed out banks have changed their ways, with bankers, bonus season upon us. He asks if we can start trusting them again.