How Could You? Hall of Shame-UK-Mazeedat Adeoye case-Child Death

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

A 2024 case has come to light.

From London, UK, a provider, that was arranged by social workers, let “Mazeedat,2, drown in bin containing 9cm of water in a back garden .”

“At the time of her death, Mazeedat Adeoye was being cared for in Dagenham by an acquaintance of her mother, Balikis Adeoye, who had to stay in hospital with Mazeedat’s baby brother when he required urgent heart surgery.

Adeoye had asked social workers at Newham council if they could provide foster care for her daughter for 10 days during the hospital stay.

She had come to the UK on a visitor visa with Mazeedat in spring 2021 to join her partner but the relationship ended in May that year and she overstayed her visa, which expired in September 2021, because she had no means to return home. She was not eligible for state support, a status referred to as “no recourse to public funds” (NRPF).

The NRPF team at the council declined to provide foster care and told Adeoye to look for someone “in her community” who could look after her daughter. A woman from a local mosque agreed to take care of the child until Adeoye and her son left the hospital.

The senior coroner for east London, Graeme Irvine, found that while playing alone and inadequately supervised in the woman’s back garden, Mazeedat fell head first into a plastic refuse bin that contained water. Despite the water’s depth being no more than 9cm, Mazeedat drowned. Irvine described the case as “particularly harrowing”.

This is the first death of a child thought to be linked to NRPF. In his conclusion, Irvine said: “There was a missed opportunity to provide effective care in the form of an offer of a temporary fostering placement which would have probably resulted in the avoidance of Mazeedat’s death … Local authority children’s services failed to support Mazeedat.””

Girl, two, who drowned in bin in London was failed by council, coroner finds
[The Guardian 11/29/24 by Diane Taylor]

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