This is two year old Bronson Battersby who lived in
Skegness. He was found dead next to the body
of his father, Kenneth Battersby who had suffered a
heart attack between Christmas and New Year. It meant
Bronson was alone which resulted in him dying of starvation
. Lincolnshire police and council are now facing questions over
the boy's death as he was under social workers supervision
. Come on then a social worker had contact with
Mr Battersby on the 27th of December with a home
visit then arranged for the second of January. However
, when they arrived, there was no answer and
again, two days later, no one answered the
door. The police were informed and the bodies were
found on the ninth of January. The head of
Social Services at Lincolnshire County Council believes they did all
they could. Social workers are not allowed to force
entry into properties that would be unlawful. So that
wouldn't be something that we can do. We would
contact the police to be clear in terms of social
workers, social workers would visit the family maybe once
every three weeks, every four weeks is not something
that they would be doing on a daily basis.
So very sadly, in these tragic circumstances, Kenneth's
heart attack has resulted in Bronson's death as well.
Boston and Skegness MP. Matt Warman described the events
as a tragedy. I think the police absolutely are
right to refer themselves to a body that will do
a thorough investment because there are questions to be answered
. That is not to level the blame of any
one individual at this stage. But it is to
say, obviously, this could have been avoided and
we need to understand why it wasn't. The deaths
are not being treated as suspicious. The council has
now launched a review into the case and there will
also be an investigation into the police's response.