Baby P’s Mum Tracey Connelly And Stephen Barker, In Pictures

BABY P’s mother is called Tracey Connelly. But, then, you all knew her name. Tracey Connelly, mother to Baby Peter, has been a hate figure on the web for months.

The 17-month-old boy’s mother pleaded guilty to causing or allowing Baby P’s death, but was cleared of murder on a judge’s directions.

On 11 November, 2008, Tracey Connelly’s 32-year-old boyfriend, Steven Barker, and another man, his brother Jason Barker (aka Jason Owen) were convicted at the Old Bailey in London on the same charge. Connelly and Steven Barker are jailed for a minimum of five years. Steven Barker raped a 2-year-old girl. The Barker brothers attcked their grandmother, Hilda Barker.

We can now legally name her. This is the trigger for other Tracey Connellys to steel themselves for when their namesake leaves jail one day, as surely she must.

Baby Peter was subjected to daily torture by the mother, Tracey Connelly, step father Steven Barker and lodger Jason Barker/Owen.

Baby Of Hearts

A revolting crime. Many crimes are. But did we need to see computer-generated images of baby P’s wounds? Any sentient being can imagine the pain and the wounds. Seeing them turns us into voyeurs. And Baby P was turned into the media’s Baby of Hearts.

Carole Malone told her readers of her horror at the horror:

I HAD to force myself to read it. And every sickening, gut-wrenching detail made me want to hunt down the monsters who’d hurt Baby P—or allowed him to be hurt—and hurt THEM.

While others come to the grave to emote and experience the suffering:

Brushing back tears, Patricia said: “I’ve been coming here for weeks and I’ve tried to make it a little bit like Christmas. I’m not religious, but I do feel that someone’s watching over Baby P now.”

Mark Austin wondered:

And just imagine for a moment that he had survived the dreadful abuse. That he grew up subjected to horrendous violence and physical torture. What sort of young man would Baby P have turned into? A violent misfit is my guess. The abused turned abuser. And so it goes on.

Our Baby P

The hacks were on it. The Sun made a land grab for Baby P’s gravesite, stuck a plaque on it and emoted so that all could see how much it care, really cared. There were teddies for baby P. There were balloons.

One mum leaving a toy at the “shrine” tells the paper:

“My son’s too young to understand. When he’s older I’ll tell him that we came here and left a toy.”

Well, he’ll be upset at missing out on the Princess Diana big emote so and this might go some way to repairing the damage. Because in the Sun, the death of a child is an “I was there” moment.

Baby P was at peace, we were told as the Sun hammed it’s plaque into the ground and turned a cemetery into a totem for public grief.

The Sun demanded that Sharon Shoesmith, then head of children’s services at Haringey Council, be sacked. The Sun demanded that others be sacked. No time to learn from mistakes, to improve by experience. Just go.

The Sun wanted to show it cared for the little kiddies by making professional child carers enemies of the state. Come see the Baby Porn.

Martin Belham notes the “curious moral anomaly that people who worked on the case are free to be named, shamed and hounded by the press, whereas the actual perpetrators of the dreadful crime are protected by the state from the prying public”.

Baby P And Me

Anyone with a vested interest can milk Baby P.

Martin Narey, Chief Executive of Barnardo’s – which has promoted its cause recently using some very shocking and arresting advertisements – said last night:

“The tragic probability is that had Baby P survived, and following a childhood of abuse, he might have been unruly by the time he was 13 or 14. At which point he’d have become ‘feral’, ‘a parasite’, ‘a yob’, ‘helping to infest our streets’. All quotes used recently, on newspaper websites about children. And our response? We’d probably have locked him up.”

Pray silence for the Church:

THE Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, Bishop of Blackburn, would like the flock to pray for the killers of Baby P….“One hates the sin but one shows Christian love to the sinner.”

Politicians also cared. Ed Balls cared. “As a dad..” said Ed Balls, using the shorthand for caring. “As a dad…” I can see that torturing a child is wrong and should not happen again.

“I have to separate the emotion I feel as a father from my job as Secretary of State.”

As a dad Children’s Secretary Ed Balls can see that Haringey social services had let Baby P down. As a dad… As a mum, Tracey Connelly stood by as her son was tortured. As a mum…

Says Ed Balls riting for the Sun, as a dad.

“Nothing I can do next week can being back Baby P or take away the suffering he endured.”

A careworn David Cameron came forward to wring his hands and shake his head and to support the Sun – which – hey, who knows? – might just return the favour at the next election:

His face seems so familiar now, but it is still incredibly moving.

More than 1.3million signed The Sun Baby P petition, each name a cry for justice. Yesterday, those cries were answered. The sackings, suspensions, resignations were long overdue.

Thank God the Government answered our call for the independent inquiry that was needed.

David Cameron hadn’t taken the kids along to meet Baby P, but others had. Cameron knew the language of sentiment. He was echoing the voters:

“When biting winds came they clutched each other for warmth and support. But still they came”.

People like:

“Son Oliver, eight, had also painted Baby P a picture of a ship with the words ‘Sail away into the sun. No more pain.”

A Nation Of Ps

Baby P was just the top of the cess pit of human depravation, we were told. Three Baby Ps A Week, Every Week! There was an entire alphabet of Baby Ps. There were hundreds of Baby Ps. Hacks pounded the dead baby beat.

Fergus Shanahan managed to link to bay P with a murdered cat and score a tabloid hit:

That attitude — implying that it was just a cat so it doesn’t matter — is part of the reason we end up with infants like Baby P being tortured to death in our so-called civilised society.

We were breeding a nation of abusers and abused.

The Lancet published news that one in ten British children is abused.
The report proved nothing of the kind. But, still, it’s a good headline.

According to lead author Professor Ruth Gilbert this is because the official bodies underestimate the problem. ‘The exact figure for the UK at the moment, we do not know. I would like to see more research,’ she added.

But rest assured that Baby P can be prevented. As dads and mums, politician know what’s best. Eat yer f ive a day. Don’t smoke. Don’t torture children.

As a parent, you know…

Pictures of the torturers – and one of Hilda Barker’s former home in Whitstable, Kent, which she left in late 1995.