Cumbrian police. Wikicommons.KRoock74. Some rights reserved,Poppi Worthington’s happy photo - her smile, her baby teeth and fluffy red jacket - joins the gallery of children whose deaths have haunted the political history of childhood for half a century. These iconic infants’ lives and deaths challenge the approach to violence, cruelty and neglect by children’s services and police.
Poppi Worthington brings something else to this mournful gallery. Her case is dynamite, since it is about sex and death.
Three decades ago these deaths provoked radical reform of Britain’s child protection systems. Sexual abuse was added for the first time to the inventory of concerns that should trigger intervention and investigation.
