Any GP working in the UK in 2001 or since could not fail to be familiar with the name of Victoria Climbié. Aged 7, Victoria was brought from Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), West Africa to live with a great-aunt in London to fulfil her parents' hope of receiving a better education. In the most tragic of circumstances she died as a result of wilful neglect and abject cruelty at the hands of the aunt and her boyfriend, both subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment. A major inquiry followed her death.1 Lord Laming described the response of the health and social services who had been involved with this vulnerable child as ‘lamentable’ and his report catalogues the systematic failure of the many organisations involved with extensive recommendations for change.
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