Probe launched after baby dies

Full Story: http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0849.htm

A PROBE is under way by child protection experts into the death of a baby classified as being at risk even before she was born. Little Elisha Allens violent father and cowed mother were being monitored by social workers in Sunderland when they lived within the city boundaries in the months leading up to her birth. But two months before Elisha was born her parents moved two miles from Avondale Road, Penshaw, Sunderland, to Marigold Crescent, Bournmoor, between Chester-le-Street and Houghton-le-Spring, just over the border into County Durham, and into a separate local authority with a separate social services department. It was there that Elisha was shaken to death by her father Gary Allen, 25, in January 2007. She was just five months old. Now child protection experts in both Sunderland and Durham are conducting a Serious Case Review into whether more could have been done to prevent Elishas death. A key part of the probe concerns whether or not Sunderlands social services passed on sufficient information if any about Allens propensity for violence. Last night Kevan Jones, MP for North Durham, in whose constituency the family were living when Elisha was killed, said: It is an absolutely appalling situation if a vulnerable child was left unprotected simply because she moved a couple of miles. I will be writing to Sunderland City Councils director of social services to find out exactly what happened. This case was awful, an absolute tragedy.