Brady Family

Brady family

Jo is a single mother with mixed white British and Black-African heritage with three children,  Alana and Awanna who are twin girls aged 6,  and their brother David aged 8. The family live in a privately rented two bedroomed terraced house near to the children’s school and the community health centre.  The family was known to the police for domestic abuse from the children’s father who no longer was resident in the property. 

The social worker had undertaken a child in need assessment, and a written agreement was in place that the father would not live in the house. 

Alana has severe eczema and asthma so the community paediatric nurse regularly visits to support mum with the treatment.  She had only recently become known to the family, and did not know that there was previous social care involvement. 

When Jo last visited, the  GP receptionist asked where Awanna was as she was used to seeing the twins together and knew Jo lived alone. Jo responded that Awanna was at home with David doing homework. 

The GP called Jo into the appointment room to say that she could not leave the children unsupervised. Jo told him that it was a one off as she had been running late and was worried she would miss the appointment. GP took no further action as he was reassured it would not happen again. 

The school recently visited to discuss Alana’s  low school attendance which mum explained was due to health issues. The school held a team around the child meeting with the mum and the paediatric community nurse to discuss what support was needed to improve school attendance. Jo engaged well in the meeting and said that she had felt overwhelmed and that the stress had got too much for her. She accepted a referral to the local Home Start for family support. The school attendance soon improved and the community paediatric nurse  continued to visit as previously. 

The professionals were not aware of the recent concern of Jo leaving the children alone as the GP had not been invited to the meeting. 

In the evening on 22 December, a neighbour made a 999 call to the fire brigade.  On arrival they found the front room alight, Jo was outside but said she couldn’t get into the house and her children were upstairs in their bedroom. 

The fire service investigation found that Jo had been visiting a neighbour after having put the children to bed, and they were all asleep in one bedroom when the fire broke out.  

The fire service rescued the three children from the first floor front bedroom. They were then taken to hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation and were admitted overnight as a precaution and then discharged the next day. 

In the child protection strategy meeting that took place the morning after, the fire service reported  that there were no beds, just old mattresses for the children to sleep on. The other bedroom had a double bed with a lot of electrical adaptors and paper boxes stored on shelves across one wall of the bedroom. 

The kitchen was dirty with food and unwashed pots and pans on the cooker. There was evidence of a smoke alarm on the hall ceiling, but the battery had been removed.

The school had wanted to make a referral to children’s social care as the school attendance for all children had deteriorated. They were coming to school with a poor packed lunch, and had not taken up the free school meals that they were entitled to. The week before when there was a cold snap they turned up in clothing that was inadequate for the cold weather,and often present in unwashed school uniforms. When in school, staff had observed that they were being collected by their father. 

Home Start was no longer involved as Jo had not let them in when they attempted to visit. 

Jo later told fire investigators, who had found an ashtray on the table next to the Christmas tree,  that she occasionally  smokes in the front room but only after the children have gone to bed. 

It was however established that the smoking was not the cause of the fire, as  most likely caused by an electrical socket.  It had remains of a phone charger that probably had ignited the fire which then quickly spread to the Christmas tree.