The claim was made by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in its new report, Out of Sight, which gives accounts of 100 children who died from injuries at the hands of their parents or carers between 1973 and 2000. Contributors to the report considered the need to improve the diagnosis and investigation of all child deaths, to learn lessons from child abuse tragedies, and to introduce wide-sweeping reforms to protect children.
The report follows an independent inquiry last month into the death of eight-year-old Anna Climbie. She was neglected and tortured by her carers, great-aunt Marie Therase Kouao and Carl Manning, who have been jailed for life for her murder.
Among the NSPCC report's key recommendations is the introduction of Child Death Review Teams to look at all unexplained child deaths, and targets to reduce child killings by half in ten years. The NSPCC wants the introduction of independent Children's Commissioners in England and Scotland, alongside the forthcoming ones in Wales and Northern Ireland, to act as watchdogs and champions for all children. The charity is also calling on the Government to issue a consultative green paper on the legislative and policy changes needed to implement a national strategy to reduce child deaths.
NSPCC director Mary Marsh said, 'Death from abuse is the most extreme form of child cruelty. Child protection services have improved significantly over the past generation. If we could now halve the number of child abuse deaths in the UK, we could save the lives of some 500 children every decade.
'We need to know much more about the numbers of children who die from abuse and how they come to die. We need to take a radically different approach to investigating and acting on reports following child abuse deaths. And we need to find new ways to prevent child abuse deaths and protect other children from suffering. As a country we must open our eyes to the reality of these killings.'
The report costs 12.50 (inc p&p) from the NSPCC Publications Unit on 020 7825 2775.