PRIOR AGENCY CONTACT AND PHYSICAL ABUSE IN CASES OF CHILD HOMICIDE

This article describes the features of child homicide offenders' previ ous contact with professional agencies and the incidence of prior phys ical violence towards their victims. This is based on an examination o f 48 cases notified to the Director of Public Prosecutions in 1984 in which children had been killed by parents or parent-substitutes in Eng land and Wales. Professional agencies had been involved with two-third s of the offenders. Women's contacts were usually with medical agencie s, and men's with social agencies. Of those cases with prior agency co ntact, whilst almost two-thirds involved a history of violence towards the child, in only a third of the cases had the reason for agency con tact explicitly included concern about physical abuse. In fact, the mo st frequent reason for agency contact was concern about the offender's mental health. Agencies had taken action in two-thirds of the cases s een by them; this tended to be psychiatric treatment for women and chi ld protection measures for men. A quarter of the offenders seen by pro fessionals had been hostile to this intervention. The above findings r un counter to the popular stereotype (fostered by the child death inqu iries) that child-killers will have had extensive contact with social agencies and explicitly concerning physical abuse. Professionals need to be aware of more 'subtle' warning signals in identifying potentiall y filicidal parents.