| Climbie parents tell of anger over 'professional shortcomings' |
The parents of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie have publicly condemned the failure of those in authority to help their daughter.
Francis and Berthe Climbie's statement was read out on the second day of the public inquiry into Victoria's death.
When she died in February 2000, Victoria, also known as Anna, had 128 separate injuries on her body after being neglected and tortured.
Marie Therese Kouao, Victoria's great aunt who had been looking after the child, and Kouao's boyfriend Carl Manning, were jailed for life in January this year for murder.
Victoria's parents' statement read: "Victoria's death was contributed to by professional shortcomings on the part of individuals, social services, and personnel which had the consequence that Kouao and Manning were able to continue to abuse Victoria until she died."
Mr and Mrs Climbie admitted they were "shocked and horrified" by the extent and history of serious child abuse cases in Britain, "in particular about the number of children who have been killed by those who were supposed to be caring for them".
The statement continued: "Not only were far more individuals on far more occasions involved in the series of errors and omissions which contributed to Victoria's abuse, neglect and death, but also there were far more deep-rooted and wide-ranging problems than they had supposed in the child protection systems in Britain, sophisticated as they may have seemed by comparison with anything that exists in the Ivory Coast.
"Mr and Mrs Climbie now realise that very probably those systems are themselves defective in many respects.
"Systems which are adequate are not operated correctly, there is significant lack of sufficient resources in particular in relation to the police-child system and there are serious shortcomings in liaison between child protection agencies."
Professionals who failed to protect Victoria needed to be "called upon to account for their actions" so that they were not repeated in the future, they said.
Story filed: 12:35 Thursday 27th September 2001
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