Every time I look at one of those pictures of baby Peter Connelly - like this one here – I wonder what his little voice would have sounded like; did he ever giggle or did he just barely manage a tiny smile (like in this photo…) before the reality of his short life set in with the delivery of yet another blow from a nearby fist. Who took these photos of him – who cared enough to bother?  we take photos of our children to preserve those very precious moments of their babyhood, their childhood – all those ‘firsts’ and milestones from the day they are born until, well, I am still taking heaps of photo’s of my two eldest grown up sons and cannot see why I would ever stop.

You do it because part of you never wants to let go of that most precious part of them – their childhood. That special time when they had complete and utter faith and confidence in everything you said and did, when they trusted you 100% to never let them down. You do it so that when they are grown up and not calling you everyday, when they are no longer around to ask what’s for dinner each evening and no longer having 100% complete and utter faith and confidence in everything to do and say – that you have a precious and timeless reminder of the times when they did.

Little Peter would have trusted his mother implicitly like all children do, at his murder trial it was said that he was “always wanting cuddles” from a woman who only gave him indifference and a couple of male thugs to live with him where he should have been safe and secure. Even at the height of his agonies he would have only ever wanted his mum…

Today Sharon Shoesmith launched her appeal against her sacking by Haringey Council, still determined to prove ‘it wasn’t her fault’ , still finding justification for the actions of her entire department which oversaw the death of this child. It seems obscene that a woman who was happy to be paid in excess of £133,000.00 a year to ensure that children like Peter were cared for is using the excuse of ‘lack of funds’ to explain why her department failed so dismally to save little Peter. How much money does it cost to pick a child up in your arms and walk out of a house with him…? plenty of money for salaries for pen pushers such as Ms Shoesmith, but none it seems for any real work to be done.

The tragedy is that Peter Connelly will not be the last child to be tormented to death by an unfeeling, unheeding mother – not the last child to be destroyed by a mentally-challenged male that it’s mother has found by the roadside and brought home. And we will hear the same time-worn and feeble excuses that Sharon Shoesmith and councils like Haringey will trot out in their own defence. Nothing they can say will change the fact that Peter was allowed to exist in hell on earth, in conditions that animals in a zoo do not even have to endure. His is a story that cannot be changed because the hard facts, and the actions and non-actions of those adults around him, speak for themselves.

So who took those lovely photo’s of little Peter – and why…? who cared enough to record his sweet little face?  there have been enough published to fill a book – one that sadly could have had a different ending, but did not.