Another young child attacked by his father, another review – Adam Wakelin looks at what has changed

He had seemed better that evening, this man who was about to murder his son. Calmer, somehow. Looking back, that might have been a sign something was up. Andrew McIntyre had been deeply disturbed for months.

Still, no-one could have guessed that McIntyre was going to try to kill himself. When he messed that up, he woke his son's mother, Marie, to tell her why he was trying to end his own life.

He had put two-year-old Leon to bed and then he had smothered him.

That was on October 5, 2007.

An investigation looking at how the police, social services and health professionals looked after this troubled Beaumont Leys family was published in April last year.

McIntyre was an obsessional, controlling man with mental health problems and a history of domestic violence, the serious case review concluded.

No-one could have predicted Leon's murder, it found.

But there were a "number of occasions" when those supposed to be making sure Leon was safe did not share information that might have protected him.

Changes were recommended to the way all those different agencies dealt with cases involving children caught up in violent relationships.

"Lessons learned," ran the Leicester Mercury headline.

Reforms were already underway, we were promised.

Mechanisms and procedures were being tightened up to ensure this should not happen again.

But it already had. Two months before.

Before that report had even got to the printers, more than two years after Leon's death, another child was tragically harmed at the hands of an abusive, mentally unhinged father who had a long track record of domestic violence.

The similarities between the McIntyre and Whitlock cases are startling.

Zak Whitlock's brutalised little girl will never recover from the brain damage she suffered when he slammed her skull into a wall.

So, here we are again. After Victoria Climbie, Baby Peter, little Leon and all the others: another critical report, more solemn expressions of regret, promises by the professionals that things have changed.

Which brings us to County Hall, 24 hours before yesterday's release of the serious case review.

Meeting the Mercury are three police officers and two social workers; all of whom want the breathing space to explain, away from the ritual exchanges of tomorrow's press conference, exactly how the system of child protection works in Leicestershire, the scale of the challenges they face, and how things really are improving.

The representatives are Detective Chief Inspector Peter Jackson, head of the child abuse investigation unit; Nicci Collins, manager of North-West Leicestershire and Hinckley area social care teams; Inspector Geoff Hughes, responsible for the police response to domestic violence; Paul Meredith, head of safeguarding for Leicestershire County Council; and Inspector Gary Watts, one of the two inspectors in the force's child abuse investigation unit.

It's a strange situation. Everyone here knows the contents of the Whitlock serious case review but they say they can't comment on it until it's been officially released.

So, we'll be talking in generalities rather than specifics.

We begin with a brief overview of the system.

Everyone works under the auspices of the Local Safeguarding Children's Boards (LSCB).

There used to be one for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

Last year, it was divided into two – one LSCB focusing on the city, another looking after the two counties.

Aside from the police and social services, GPs, hospitals, pediatricians, the major hospitals, mental health, education and probation services all come under the LSCB umbrella.

LSCBs were formed in the wake of the Victoria Climbie inquiry with a remit to get everyone looking after children co-operating effectively to safeguard their welfare.

Anyone with a concern about a child, which could also be you or me, should result in an "inquiry" being logged by a child access team of social workers.

In Leicestershire last year, excluding the city, there were 12,777 such inquiries, says Mr Meredith.

Inquiries thought to be of significance become "referrals".

The level of abuse, dysfunction and poor parenting out there is enough to give you a jolt.

There were 3,704 referrals in Leicestershire in the 12 months up to March 2010 – and another 8,000 in the city.

Each referral should get all the different agencies working together to see if there is a danger to a child.

"The idea is to spot the risks early by sharing information and sharing our understanding of what's involved in a particular case," says Mr Jackson.

If there is a risk to a child they will get them out of the home or remove the risk – getting a father who's beating up a child's mother away from the family, for example.

"The wellbeing of the child is paramount," says Ms Collins. "If action needs to be taken to safeguard a child that will compromise a police investigation, then it will be."

Serious case reviews nationally – and, as we know, much closer to home – have identified key issues that emerge time and again when children suffer serious harm.

"These tend to revolve around mental health, they revolve around alcohol or drugs misuse, and they revolve around elements of domestic violence," explains Mr Meredith.

This understanding is shaping child protection mechanisms.

The police, for example, no longer look at an incident of domestic violence as a crime which has one victim. If children are in the house then risks to them are raised, so officers should alert other agencies.

"National learning has shown that if you put artificial boundaries around human life, you start to lose information and make mistakes," says Mr Jackson.

"It is about making sure we don't work in silos." No-one can bemoan a lack of resources for child protection failures in Leicestershire.

The police alone have 43 specialist officers now working in the child abuse investigation unit.

Continuing substantial financial support is promised in this area despite the budgetary squeezes faced by all the agencies.

Everyone is running in the same direction, we are assured.

The aim is to close the cracks in the system through which a vulnerable child could slip.

At present, referrals of potentially vulnerable children in Leicestershire are handled by social workers operating five desks across the county.

These five desks are in the process of being streamlined into a single contact point.

This is being done not to cut costs, insists Ms Collins, but to improve the system.

A single, dedicated desk will enable closer working relationships to be developed with the police's child abuse investigation unit and make it easier for anyone with concerns to ensure they are speaking to the right people.

"It is about communicating with one another on a day-to-day basis and making absolutely sure that what needs to be done is being done," says Ms Collins.

If a youngster is found to be at risk, the next step is to draw up a child protection plan.

A case conference, bringing together all the different agencies responsible for the child's wellbeing, gives everyone the opportunity to share information which will go into the plan.

There are two elements to these plans, explains Mr Meredith. The first seeks to ensure the child's safety.

The second concentrates on things that need to be achieved and addressed in order for their circumstances to be improved.

This could be requiring parents to get help to address their problems with drink, drugs or domestic violence, or perhaps attending classes to improve the way they are bringing up their children.

All of this sounds solid in principle. But, as we will discover at the press conference for the Whitlock case review, such fail-safes have failed before.

Much of this isn't new. It's been happening, or should have been happening, for years.

The inquiry into Leon McIntyre's death urged the police to review all domestic violence referrals when children were in the home.

Other "risky" adults coming into contact with these youngsters should also be looked at, it urged.

Parental mental illness should also be considered when safeguarding children, social services were told.

Were those lessons learned?

The authorities allowed Zak Whitlock's contact with his daughter to be supervised by a step-grandmother who had already had three children taken into care and a grandfather who had convictions for assaults against women.

"We can't go into the details of that case at this time," says Mr Meredith.

"All I can say to you is the system is working very hard to make sure we don't repeat those issues," says Mr Jackson.

But warning signs are missed and mistakes are made. Maybe we should understand a little less and blame a little more.

There's a perception that the state has a tendency to pussyfoot around hopeless, destructive, sometimes dangerous, parents.

Simply not true, everyone insists.

There are 497 children in care in the city and another 350 children in Leicestershire – a 20 per cent increase in the county since December.

Parents do get help, but they also have to help themselves, says Mr Meredith.

The focus is always on the wellbeing of their children.

"The bottom line is that if we can't improve the child's situation, we will probably be looking to remove them," he adds.

Simply taking more and more children into care could create as many problems as it solves, they say.

If social workers are seen as child-snatchers, then parents may be less willing to seek help or even, perhaps, take injured children to hospital. Youngsters from larger families also face the prospect of being parted from their brothers or sisters, says Ms Collins, because few foster parents can take three or four children.

Studies have shown that separating youngsters can be hugely traumatic, she adds, and can jeopardise their long-term wellbeing.

The bottom line is that there are no easy solutions.

They are "trying harder and harder to get better", insists Mr Jackson.

Mindsets are changing insists Ms Collins.

If someone is worried about the way a case is being handled there are "escalation procedures" to raise concerns with senior managers.

From 2001 to 2009, she says she can't remember anyone going down the escalation route. This year it has happened twice.

"It's often said about social workers that they're damned if they do and damned if they don't," says Mr Meredith.

"We are trying to make the system as good as it can possibly be.

"I don't think anybody in this room can say we can construct a system that is 100 per cent safe. The human condition is such that these things will continue to happen. It would take a very brave or foolish person to say otherwise."