'No missed opportunities' to prevent West Brom toddler's death
3-year-old Kemarni Watson Darby died in 2018
A serious case review's found there were "no missed opportunities" for professionals to prevent the murder of a three-year-old boy by his mother's partner in West Bromwich.
32-year-old Nathaniel Pope was sentenced to a minimum of 24 years in prison for killing Kemarni Watson Darby, who died from abdominal injuries in June 2018.
The Sandwell Children’s Safeguarding Partnership identified no safeguarding concerns.
Lesley Hagger, Chair of the Sandwell Children’s Safeguarding Partnership, said:
“Our thoughts and sympathies are with all those who knew and loved Kemarni.
“Partners in Sandwell always look at what we can learn from sad cases like this and where we can identify areas for learning and improvement.
“The review did provide some learning from this case and I can confirm this has already been shared with professionals and implemented by agencies.
“This learning was around training for agencies regarding the thresholds for Early Help for families, promotion of funded nursery provision and childcare, and the need to better reflect the ‘voice of the child’ in records.
“Kemarni and family members did have contact with a number of services across the partnership. Kemarni himself had contact with ‘universal services’ – being those services we would expect any young child to have contact with.
“The independent review has concluded that there were no missed opportunities for professionals to intervene and prevent his death."