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Esther Rantzen writing in The Telegraph puts Tracey Connelley and Steven Barker, responsible for the death of ‘Baby P’, into an intergenerational context.
Were the social workers in Haringey aware of this? If they weren’t, will they be in the future?

The truth is that ordinary-looking people can conceal crimes so hideous that they are impossible to imagine. Only by assimilating that fact can we take lessons from it. Some of what we learn may be difficult to accept. For instance, we now know that Steven Barker, 6ft 4in and 18 stone, has an IQ of about 60. Many child abusers have IQs of less than 70. In an age when we rightly try to protect people with mental disabilities against stigma and discrimination, it has become fashionable also to protect their parental rights.

But we must, if we are to save lives like Baby Peter’s, recognise the fact that their children are at risk. Add to it Barker’s known record – that, as a child, he enjoyed torturing animals, skinning frogs and breaking their legs, and was prosecuted by the RSPCA – and a very disturbing picture emerges. Serial killers often begin their career by torturing animals. Ten years ago Barker and Owen were arrested when their grandmother, aged 82, accused them of torturing her in a bid to get her to change her will – accusations that never reached a trial because she died a few months later.