Child Protection Files: Real Cases, Real System Failures
Child Protection Files examines real child protection cases that have already been through courts, inquests, and public inquiries. Each episode explores the full timeline, the trial, the judge's words, and the public inquiry that followed, while focusing on the professionals involved—caseworkers, police, and doctors—and the systemic failures behind individual decisions. The podcast looks at what, if anything, changed in child protection practice as a result, rather than aiming for true crime shock value. Episodes include detailed descriptions of child abuse and neglect, and listener discretion is strongly advised.
Episodes
Who Took Rilya Wilson? Full case file for Rilya Wilson
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.In the spring of 2002, a Florida state worker went looking for a four-year-old girl in a foster home. She wasn't there. The woman caring for her said a stranger claiming to work for the state had taken her away for an evaluation, fifteen months earlier. In that time the Department of Children and Families had kept paying for her care, and o
Approved to Care: Jeffrey Baldwin full Case file
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Nobody Looked: The Jeffrey Baldwin CaseIn 1998, a Toronto children's aid society approved a grandmother and her husband as legal guardians of four small children. The agency held a file on the woman that went back almost thirty years. It held a conviction for assaulting her own five-month-old daughter, and records on the man she lived with,
One of the Most Protected": full case file of Finley Boden
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Finley Boden lived thirty-nine days after a family court decided he was safe to go home. He had been removed from his parents' care within weeks of his birth in February 2020, due to heavy cannabis use, an unsafe home, and the risk of domestic violence between them. Social workers who knew the family best recommended a cautious six-month tr
Thirty Hours: Nia Glassie Case: The Full case file
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Episode Description:Nia Glassie was three years old when the adults responsible for her — her mother, her mother's much younger boyfriend, his brother, and other adults moving through their Rotorua household — began treating her injuries as entertainment. Over roughly three months in 2007, she was spun inside a running clothes dryer, tied t
Jordan Belliveau: The Full Case File
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Jordan Belliveau was two years old when he was reunified with his parents in the summer of 2018, months after his own court-appointed guardian ad litem formally objected. Five months later, his mother told police a stranger had abducted him from a park. It wasn't true — she had killed him weeks earlier and buried him behind a recreation cen
Nixzmary Brown: The Full Case File
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Between October 2004 and December 2005, New York City's child welfare hotline received at least eight separate reports about one Brooklyn family. On January 11, 2006, seven-year-old Nixzmary Brown died weighing just 36 pounds, having been beaten, starved, and confined to a room in her family's apartment. This episode traces the full case fi
Full case file: Star Hobson: When "Malicious Gossip" Costs a Child Her Life
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Child Protection FilesEpisode DescriptionIn the eight months before sixteen-month-old Star Hobson died in Bradford, West Yorkshire, at least five different people who loved her (a family friend, her grandmother, her great-grandfather, her father, her grandfather) independently contacted social services or the police to say she was in danger
Full case file: Held Like a Hostage: The Mason Jet Lee Case
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Episode Notes: Mason Jet Lee: The Full Case FileMason Jet Lee was twenty-one months old when he died in Caboolture, Queensland, in June 2016, from peritonitis caused by an untreated ruptured intestine, inflicted by his mother's partner, William O'Sullivan, days earlier. The day before his death, a neighbour called Queensland's Child Safety
Sent Back to Danger: The Meika Jordan Case
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Episode Notes — Meika Jordan: The Full Case FileMeika Jordan was six years old when she was tortured to death over several days in November 2011 by her father, Spencer Jordan, and his partner, Marie Magoon, in Calgary, Alberta. Her death came roughly ten weeks after a judge reversed an earlier custody order and returned her to their care, d
Full case file: Sherin Mathews: They adopted her from overseas and then killed her
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Sherin Mathews was three years old when she died in Richardson, Texas, in October 2017, months after a forensic child abuse pediatrician told Texas CPS that fractures found on her body were most likely the result of ongoing abuse in her adoptive home. CPS closed the case anyway in April 2017, concluding the abuse "may have happened prior to
The Boy ACS Investigated Five Times: The Zymere Perkins Case
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Episode Notes — Zymere Perkins: The Full Case FileZymere Perkins was six years old when he died in a Harlem apartment in September 2016, after months of escalating abuse by his mother's boyfriend, Rysheim Smith, with his mother, Geraldine Perkins, also complicit. New York City's ACS had investigated five separate reports involving Zymere in
"Arthur Labinjo-Hughes: 130 Injuries and a Lockdown No One Was Watching"
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Episode Notes — Arthur Labinjo-Hughes: The Full Case FileArthur Labinjo-Hughes was six years old when he died in Solihull, England, in June 2020, after months of sustained abuse at the hands of his father's partner, Emma Tustin, with his father, Thomas Hughes, convicted of manslaughter for failing to protect him. This episode traces the cas
!["Thirteen Medications: The Lindsay Clancy Case [Developing : Trial Ongoing]"](https://media.rss.com/child-protection-files-real-cases-real-system-failures/ep_cover_20260903_022805_09624fb9ab7f79e61805657bfdde5845.png)
"Thirteen Medications: The Lindsay Clancy Case [Developing : Trial Ongoing]"
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Episode Notes — Thirteen Medications: The Lindsay Clancy Case [Developing — Trial Ongoing]Case: Lindsay Clancy Location: Duxbury, Massachusetts Status: Ongoing — trial nearing conclusion, no verdict as of publication Period covered: 2022–2026 (production date: August 2026)Key people:Lindsay Clancy — former labor and delivery nurse, pleaded
"Mum Did That": The Kiesha Weippeart Case
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Episode Notes — Four Days of School: The Kiesha Weippeart CaseCase: Kiesha Weippeart Location: Mount Druitt, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Period covered: 2004–2013Key people:Kiesha Weippeart — the child at the centre of this case, murdered 14 July 2010, age 6Kristi Abrahams — Kiesha's mother, pleaded guilty to murder, sentenced to 22
The Woman Who Couldn't Speak: The Grace Case
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Episode Notes — Overturned: The Grace CaseCase: The Grace case (Ireland) Location: South East Ireland (Waterford region) Period covered: 1989–2025Key people:Grace — court-protected pseudonym for a woman with a significant intellectual and physical disability, non-verbal, made a Ward of Court. Her real identity has never been published and i
The Warning That Came True: The Hart Family Case
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Episode Notes — The Warning That Came True: The Hart Family CaseCase: The Hart family Locations: Minnesota, West Linn (Oregon), Woodland (Washington), Mendocino County (California) Period covered: 2006–2019Key people:Jennifer Hart and Sarah Hart — adoptive parents, ruled to have died by suicide after intentionally killing their six children
Full case file. The Boy in the Shower Stall: The Adrian Jones Case
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Episode Notes — Fifteen Reports: The Adrian Jones CaseCase: Adrian Jones Locations: Kansas City, Kansas; Plattsburg, Missouri Period covered: 2011–2024 (case, trial, and subsequent legislative reform)Key people:Adrian Jones — the child at the centre of this case, died September/October 2015, age 7Michael Jones — Adrian's father, pleaded gui
Full case file, Warren Jeffs and the FLDS
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Episode Notes — Warren Jeffs and the FLDSCase: Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) Locations: Hildale, Utah; Colorado City, Arizona; Yearning For Zion Ranch, Eldorado, Texas Period covered: 1953–2026Key people:Warren Jeffs — FLDS prophet from 2002, convicted in Texas in 2011 of aggravated s
Full case file. The Ten-Day Warning: The Moko Rangitoheriri Case
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Case: Moko Rangitoheriri, Taupō, New Zealand Age at death: 3 years old Date of death: 10 August 2015Key people:Moko Sayviah Rangitoheriri — the child at the centre of this caseNicola Dally-Paki — Moko's motherTania Shailer — informal caregiver, convicted of manslaughter and ill-treatment of a childDavid Haerewa — Shailer's partner, convicte
Full case file. Daniel Pelka, They Compared His Body to a Concentration Camp Victim
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.In March 2012, four-year-old Daniel Pelka died in Coventry, England, after months of starvation and abuse by his mother and her partner. Police had been called to his home twenty-six times over six years. A social worker had assessed him as recently as months before his death. His teachers watched him scavenge food from classroom bins. By t
Full case file. Tiahleigh Palmer, He Buried Her, Then Carried Her Coffin
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.In October 2015, twelve-year-old Tiahleigh Palmer was reported missing from her foster home in Logan, Queensland. Six days later, her remains were found in a river. Her foster father stood as a pallbearer at her funeral, nearly a year before anyone knew he had killed her.This episode goes forensically through the case: a five-year history o
Full case file. Gabriel Fernandez: The Case Where "Very High Risk" Wasn't Enough
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.In this episode (extended, ~60-minute edition): the case of Gabriel Fernandez, an eight-year-old boy tortured to death in Palmdale, California, in May 2013. Before his death, his first-grade teacher called the county's child abuse hotline repeatedly, and a social worker who visited the home three times in four months rated him "very high ri
Full case file. Chloe Valentine: The Case File Australia Couldn't Ignore
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.In this episode: the case of Chloe Valentine, a four-year-old girl killed in South Australia in January 2012 after being repeatedly put on a motorbike she was physically unable to control, then left without medical care for more than eight hours as her injuries turned fatal.Before her death, at least twenty separate notifications about Chlo
Phoenix Sinclair: The Case File That Took Nine Months to Discover
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.In this episode: the case of Phoenix Sinclair, a five-year-old girl killed in Manitoba, Canada, in June 2005. Her death went unreported for nine months. She had been known to child welfare services since birth, with her file opened and closed six separate times, and the man she was living with in her final year was never identified by name.
Baby P — The Full Case File
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Peter Connelly, known publicly as "Baby P," was seen sixty times in eight months by social workers, doctors, and police, in the same London borough that had already been through the Victoria Climbié case seven years earlier. He died in August 2007, aged 17 months, from sustained abuse that was actively concealed from every professional moni
Episode 1: Victoria Climbié — The Full Case File
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.Episode 1: Victoria Climbié — The Full Case FileIn eleven months, Victoria Climbié had twelve separate, documented contacts with social services, police, and hospitals across three London boroughs. She died in February 2000, aged 8, with 128 injuries on her body. This episode goes well beyond the headlines: her full timeline, the Old Bailey
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