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Stove Lake Media,

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Igniting Conversation.

0:41

Welcome to True Crime to Go. What can I

0:43

get for you?

0:43

I'm in a really

0:46

awful mood today. Do you have, like, an awful

0:48

breakdown of the social service system in London,

0:50

England?

0:53

pulled up to the second window. It'll see

0:55

you next cry.

0:59

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0:59

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HelloFresh is America's number

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one meal kit. Welcome to

2:27

True Crime To Go. I'm here with

2:29

Jamie. I'm John.

2:31

How's it going, man? Things are good. That's

2:33

a very odd order you place. You know, very

2:36

specific. Yeah. It is specific. And,

2:38

you know, I think I did better on the

2:40

ordering than I did the intro, but we're just

2:42

gonna roll with it. That was really good.

2:45

Another crime story, this one brought to

2:47

you by one of our five star

2:49

reviews. Yeah. We're gonna be talking about

2:51

baby pee. Now, Jamie, I see your phone out.

2:53

wanna need you to put that up because you're gonna

2:55

be super tempted to look at your phone

2:57

during this episode. This is I mean, there you

2:59

said the word baby, and we're talking about a

3:01

crime here in ten minutes or less. and I

3:04

This is gonna be uncomfortable. Yeah. If you're if

3:06

you've been listening for a long time, it's kind of

3:08

a running joke that when things get really uncomfortable,

3:10

Jamie pulls out the phone. It's already out.

3:12

So let's let's go. I'll put it up. We're gonna

3:15

talk about Peter Connolly, AKA

3:17

baby Now he was born

3:19

on March first two thousand six in

3:21

London, England. Peter's biological

3:23

father was only involved for a few months

3:25

of Peter's life before he split, and

3:28

the mom, Tracy Connolly, was

3:30

solely responsible for raising Peter.

3:32

In November of two thousand six, Tracy

3:35

moved in a man by the name of

3:37

Steven Barker, they

3:39

were dating a month later December

3:42

in two thousand six, baby pee

3:44

was taken to a doctor and

3:46

immediately the doctor was concerned about

3:48

bruising that baby pee had and

3:50

the fact that Tracy stories about how

3:52

he got these bruises were just not adding up.

3:55

And, Jamie, I don't know if you're

3:57

super familiar with social service

3:59

investigations, but when a child is brought

4:01

into a doctor and they see bruising

4:03

and stuff that just doesn't make sense, they

4:06

can actually send the child to a forensic

4:08

doctor to try to figure out

4:10

what exactly happened to the child

4:13

just based on what they're looking

4:15

at on the child's body. I would think

4:17

that would be any doctor, would be a forensic

4:19

doctor, but I guess, they're they're more

4:21

focused on, like, the actual cause and

4:23

potentially tying in abuse. Yeah. They

4:25

have special training to be able to

4:27

see, okay, this bruising looks

4:29

like it happened by this object

4:32

or by hitting in a certain

4:34

direction. So it is a little specialized. Yeah. I get

4:36

that. Well, baby pee was sent

4:38

to Whittington hospital where

4:40

he would stay for four days. He was discharged

4:42

and placed with a family friend while police

4:44

and social workers continued

4:46

to investigate the case in his family.

4:49

Tracy and baby pee's grandmother were

4:52

arrested on December nineteenth

4:54

of two thousand six, and he

4:56

would have an open case

4:58

with a herringy child protection

5:00

office. However,

5:02

maybe he would return to his mother's

5:04

care in January of the next year.

5:07

At this time, she was living in a house and

5:09

taught him, but social services

5:11

were unaware of that Parker had

5:13

moved into this new home with her.

5:16

Yeah. And they should definitely know that.

5:18

That should be something that is brought up

5:20

or asked about. I mean, I know

5:22

social workers who have even went into

5:24

the mother's bedroom and looked in the

5:26

closet to see if there are any men's clothing.

5:28

Yeah. And, I mean, they have the ability to

5:30

do that. Listen, this next part

5:32

is awful. So if you do not wanna hear

5:34

about serious child abuse, you

5:36

may wanna go ahead and stop this

5:38

right now. Over

5:40

an eight month period, baby

5:42

pee had multiple injuries that

5:44

went unknown by social services.

5:46

Some of those include a broken back

5:49

broken ribs, gashes to

5:51

the head, a fractured chin bone,

5:54

ripped ear, mutilated fingertips,

5:57

skin torn from the nose and mouth, and

5:59

cuts on the neck and he actually

6:01

was punched in the mouth so hard

6:03

that it knocked a tooth out and the child

6:05

choked on his own tooth. Now

6:07

he was often choked until he

6:09

would turn blue and even was allowed

6:11

to be attacked by a dog. The

6:14

most disturbing fact about all

6:16

this, if you're not completely devastated

6:18

by now, is that social services

6:21

visited the child sixty times

6:23

during that span of eight months, baby

6:26

Pete died due to his injuries on

6:28

August third two thousand seven.

6:32

For her role in baby Peter's death, Tracy

6:34

was given a sentence of imprisonment for public

6:36

protection with a minimum term

6:38

of five years. During

6:41

the abuse of her son by Steven,

6:43

Tracy was often drunk or watching

6:45

pornography. And surprisingly,

6:48

Tracy was released from prison

6:50

in two thousand thirteen,

6:52

but had to come back for breaking

6:54

her parole. So to

6:56

be clear here, she's gone out of

6:58

prison after five years of

7:00

service,

7:01

after being

7:02

a part of her son's death.

7:05

She would go on to Facebook Pro board again

7:07

in two thousand fifteen, two thousand seventeen,

7:09

two thousand nineteen, but was

7:11

officially released on March thirtieth of

7:14

twenty twenty two despite

7:16

the deputy prime minister and justice

7:18

secretary being against her

7:20

release. The final decision

7:22

rested with the parole board and they felt

7:24

like it was time for Tracy to get

7:26

out of prison. But of course,

7:28

she didn't act alone in We know that Steven

7:31

Barker was involved and his

7:33

brother Jason Owen were was

7:35

arrested with him and given sentences for

7:37

their role in baby Peter's abuse.

7:40

Steven who is the Ringleader of all this

7:42

and initiated most of the abuse was

7:44

given a twelve year sentence and

7:46

a ten year sentence for a sexual abuse

7:48

case of another two year old

7:50

female child. Owen

7:52

was given a three year sentence, but

7:54

that was later changed to his six year sentence

7:57

for allowing the child to die.

7:59

Alright, Jamie. I'm sorry

8:02

that I brought this one to you, but it was

8:04

recommended by a listener. So

8:06

I guess the big takeaway

8:09

from this story is, did social

8:11

services drop the ball? And

8:13

you all know that I am a social worker

8:15

And so part of me wants to

8:17

give them the benefit of the doubt and

8:19

say, you know, maybe there were things

8:21

going on that they just weren't aware of.

8:24

but social services entered the home

8:26

sixty times in eight months. That's

8:28

a lot of visits per month. This

8:31

child was horribly tortured.

8:34

broken back, broken ribs,

8:36

gashes to the head, skin

8:38

ripped off his ear, mutilated fingertips,

8:41

skin torn from his nose and mouth,

8:43

cuts on the neck, tooth broken

8:45

out, there is no

8:47

way a social services worker laid

8:49

their eyes on this child. Yeah. There is

8:51

no way that this

8:53

child looked okay during those

8:55

visits. So I'm going

8:57

on record by saying absolutely

8:59

yes. This social worker dropped to

9:01

the ball and this child died because of

9:03

a failure in the system. I tried to

9:05

find a way to argue the opposite point of

9:07

that. I mean, if somebody has a broken

9:09

back, fractured ribs, a chin

9:11

bone, maybe you

9:13

can't see that. Of course, they should be

9:15

assessing the entire child and

9:18

could see the bruising, but Those things

9:20

are at least under the skin, but all these other

9:22

things should be so apparent when

9:24

looking at the child and seeing what's

9:26

happening. So this is an

9:28

absolute disaster

9:30

that should have been prevented. Any

9:32

good social worker is going to

9:34

be completely devastated when

9:36

something tragic happens to a child that

9:38

they're responsible for supervising. And

9:40

unfortunately, there are times when children

9:43

do die in awful situations and you

9:45

have done your job well. Just

9:47

things happen that are outside of your control

9:49

and there's no warnings that that you

9:51

can look at that would make you predict

9:53

it. But in this situation, it's

9:55

really hard for me to say that they did

9:57

everything they could have to keep this kid safe.

9:59

I mean, he went home less than

10:01

a month after being removed and

10:04

was visited sixty times with all

10:06

of these incidents. There's no way

10:08

that it was all they could do.

10:10

I agree. This is absolutely brutal.

10:13

So, John, I appreciate you doing the research

10:15

here and not making me do that. But

10:17

this has been true crime to go, a crime story in

10:19

ten minutes or less. Would you like crime

10:21

with that?

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You've

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Hey, guys. My

10:45

name's Nate. If you guys like this

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