Two of the shortest sentences in this book are ‘Peter was 17 months old when he died’ and ‘Sharon Shoesmith was scapegoated’. The first was on 3 August 2007. The second reports the Court of Appeal judgment on 27 May 2011. This book is largely about what happened between these dates in the telling of the story of ‘Baby P’. But first, who was the little boy who continued to be called ‘Baby P’ even when his real name was known?

Peter Connelly was born on 1 March 2006 in Tottenham, North London. Few will recognise him by this name – most will know him as ‘Baby P’, as he was named in November 2008 when there was the first significant media coverage following the criminal trial of his mother, her boyfriend and the boyfriend’s brother, each of whom were found to have been culpable for and to have contributed to his death. He was later identified as ‘Baby Peter’, and in the serious case reviews that were undertaken to track the involvement of public agencies and others with Peter and his family, he was anonymously named ‘Child A’.

Throughout this book he will be known as Peter or as Peter Connelly, the names he was probably beginning to recognise for himself when he was killed, aged 17 months, on 3 August 2007. However, across the UK and much further afield it was the media’s renaming Peter as ‘Baby P’ which was and is remembered, along with the iconic picture of Peter looking up from a squared-tiled kitchen floor, which was widely used across the national and international print press, television and internet. Even when I showed it in Siberia in 2010 during a presentation to 300 Russian social services directors and policy makers, it was readily recognised.

When Peter was examined following his death, his injuries included a fractured spine, eight fractured ribs on his left side, a torn frenum (the tissue that connects the tongue to the lower mouth or the gum to the cheek), bruising, marks to his head and a tooth was found in his colon. In total, it was noted that he had over 50 injuries.