On August 3rd, 2007, an ambulance was called to a property on Penhurst Road, Tottenham. A 17-month-old was blue in his bloody crib, dressed only in a nappy. Emergency services tried tirelessly to resuscitate him while transporting him to the hospital, but it wasn’t successful. Baby Peter was pronounced dead at 12:20 pm, just under an hour after the ambulance was called.
The staff at North Middlesex Hospital contacted the police after noting the various injuries in different stages of healing, injuries that lined up with abuse. The post-mortem examination on Peter’s body revealed: a tooth swallowed following a blow to the head, eight broken ribs, missing fingernails, mutilated fingertips, and a broken spine. These weren’t all; Peter had suffered 50 injuries over an eight-month period, and the skin of his face was almost entirely covered by bruising.
The police immediately started a murder investigation.
The number one question was how no one noticed this little boy had been going through eight months of torture. But they did, professionals trained in spotting abuse saw Peter 60 different times, one was just two days before his death.
Sabah Al-Zayyat, a temporary paediatrician at St. Ann’s Hospital, missed the fact that Peter had a broken back and ribs, as the post-mortem said they likely pre-dated the appointment. The appointment didn’t have a complete exam because Peter seemed “cranky”.
Peter was on the child protection register, something that was supposed to mean inter-agencies were aware of potential abuse or neglect. He wasn’t born into abuse; his mother, Tracey Connelly, allowed it to exist in her home, valuing a boyfriend over her child.
Peter was born on March 1st, 2006, and was left in the sole custody of his mother at a few months old after his biological father left the family home. Connelly began dating her new boyfriend, Steven Barker, in June of the same year, allegedly meeting at a local pub.
Barker was moved into Connelly’s home in November, and not even a month later, Peter was at his local general practitioner’s (GP) office with bruises on his face and chest. Connelly was arrested for suspected child cruelty on the 11th of December, 2006; the police were never aware of the man living in the household with them, Connelly lying constantly to protect Barker, even though he was abusing her son.
Peter was placed in the care of a family friend, but he was returned to his mother in January 2007. Over the few weeks that he was with the family friend, Peter had started to open up and, most importantly, wasn’t getting any new bruises.
The next few months back in Connelly’s care, Peter was admitted to the hospital twice. Once, in April, he was observed to have two black eyes, areas of bruising and scratches, and swelling on the left side of his head.
Then, in late May, a social worker saw facial injuries and sent Peter back to the hospital, where they found 12 areas of bruising and scratches. A medical exam deemed that they were from child abuse. Connelly was arrested again for suspected child cruelty on the 1st of June.
On July 25th, Haringey Council’s Children & Young People’s Service obtained legal advice about Peter’s case, which indicated that the threshold for taking Peter into care wasn’t met.
Five days later, a social worker visited Connelly and Peter. They completely missed the marks on his face and hands because Connelly had intentionally smeared chocolate on them to hide.
This brings us back to August 3rd, when baby Peter Connelly was pronounced dead in the hospital at just 17 months old; the police opened a murder investigation after the extent of Peter’s injuries came to light.
Through their investigation, the police found the full extent of Connelly’s lies, including her concealment that Steven Barker was living with her and Peter. It also included hiding Barker’s older brother, Jason Owen, and Owen’s 15-year-old, for lack of a better word, girlfriend were also living in the household with them and had been since June 2007. Connelly claimed she helped hide them because she was worried it would impact her benefits and how Peter’s biological father would react.
The authorities were under the belief that Barker targeted Connelly to get at her £450 a month benefits.
The brothers, Barker and Owen, had been charged in the past with sickening violence. In 1995, they were charged with assaulting their grandmother in an attempt to force her to change her will. The assault case was dropped because Hilda Barker, at 82, passed away before she could give evidence; she did manage to tell the police the pair had locked her in a wardrobe during the ordeal.
During the court in relation to Peter’s death, it was heard that Barker, while never convicted, may have tortured his younger brother in their childhood.
In November 2008, Tracey Connelly, age 27, pleaded guilty to the charge of “causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable person”; due to a lack of evidence, she was cleared of any murder charges. Her charge falls under section 5 of the Domestic Violence, Crime, and Victims Act 2004.
The same month, Jason Owen, age 36, and Steven Barker, age 32, were also found guilty of “causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable person”. This came after Owen was cleared of murder charges because of a lack of evidence, and Barker was, shockingly, found not guilty of murder by a jury.
Sentencing took place on May 22nd, 2009.
- Connelly was sentenced to indefinite imprisonment for public protection with a minimum term of 5 years.
- Owen was sentenced to indefinite imprisonment with a minimum term of 3 years.
- Barker was sentenced to 12 years.
But this wasn’t all Barker was sentenced to on this day. In April 2009, a second trial began against Barker and Connelly in connection with the rape of a two-year-old girl. Instead of pleading guilty, Barker dragged the little girl to court, forcing her to relive her pain.
She, at just 4 years old, became the youngest child to give evidence at Old Bailey via video link. The police interview taken when she was 3 was shown in court, with several professionals confirming that she was telling the truth and providing evidence to support her.
Barker was found guilty of rape, while Connelly was found not guilty of child cruelty. He was sentenced to life imprisonment to run concurrently with his 12 years for his role in Peter’s death.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) chief executive at the time criticised the sentences, saying they were too lenient. The attorney general considered going to the court of appeals but didn’t, as there was “no realistic prospect” that it would result in extended sentences for any of the trio.
A detective described Barker as “sadistic, fascinated with pain” and had Nazi memorabilia inside the home. The same detective said Connelly was “a slob, completely divorced from reality and put her lover before her child”.
But the names of Peter’s killers weren’t revealed until two years and eight days after Peter was killed. It was a decision claimed to protect Peter’s four surviving siblings, intended to be in place until 2026, when the youngest of them would finally be 18 and supposedly old enough to handle the news.
Despite internal reviews in the Haringey area and alleged changes to try to prevent another child dying from abuse, a survey of 751 health visitors was held in September 2015, 47% said a death like Peter’s was likely to happen again.
That’s all for this case. Thank you for reading!
