This case has echoes of the tragic fate of Baby P
A baby died only four months after social services decided they no longer needed to work with her troubled mother.
The girl, aged one, and her three young brothers had been left in the care of their 13-year-old sister while the mother went out drinking.
When she returned home at about 1.30am, the teenager told her the baby was having 'severe problems breathing' - but no one called an ambulance until an hour later.
The baby died in hospital and was found to have had a virus, though doctors concluded it should not have killed her.
In an echo of the Baby P case, the children had been taken to hospital with injuries on six separate occasions but care workers took no action.
In fact, the mother, who cannot be named, had been known to the authorities in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, for six years. She was known to have been a victim of domestic violence and there were claims she used drugs.
Social workers visited the home found it to be 'dirty, chaotic and overcrowded' and voiced concerns that it was unsafe for young children.
Social workers said that a child protection plan should be agreed to protect the baby and her siblings, but managers decided a voluntary agreement with the mother would suffice.
They stopped working with the family in April last year after the mother told them conditions had improved and she was coping well.
Details of the case were revealed in a report released by the Wakefield and District Safeguarding Children Board.
The panel found there was no evidence to suggest the authorities could have prevented the baby's death, but concluded that a more ' intensive programme of intervention' might have enhanced supervision of the mother.
Baby P died after suffering more than 50 different injuries at the hands of his mother and two men at his home in North London. The boy, who was on the child protection register, was abused over eight months in which he was seen 60 times by care workers.
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