The screening of registered childminders was come under renewed scrutiny in Britain after a woman who hid her past as a prostitute with three children in care or adopted was jailed for life for murdering a six-month-old boy.
Convicting Helen Stacey (41) at Norwich Crown Court, the judge, Mr Justice Blofeld, called for a "searching inquiry" into how she was able to conceal convictions for soliciting, her depressive illnesses and the fact that three of her four children had been taken into care or adopted as infants.
Joseph Mackin's parents, Tony and Corinne, said they had concerns about the checks Norfolk social services made before registering Stacey. "We do not want Joseph to have died in vain, and will therefore continue in our efforts to establish whether adequate checks were undertaken by the authorities on Helen Stacey's registration as a child-minder," they said in a statement.
Norfolk County Council admitted that Stacey would not have been registered as a child-minder if her background had been known. However, because she had withheld details from the council, its staff could not be blamed. Since Joseph's death, loopholes had been closed, and the council called for these new checks to be made a national standard.
The jury of eight men and four women took seven hours and 35 minutes to return a majority verdict of 10-2 that Stacey had murdered Joseph by shaking him vigorously in a "flash of temper".
Severe head injuries were inflicted in a "classic case of shaken-baby syndrome", the same fate which met eight-month-old Matthew Eappen, the baby killed by the British au pair, Louise Woodward.
The verdict was met with a cry of "Yes" from the public gallery, where Mr and Mrs Mackin, an RAF air traffic controller and an auxiliary nurse, appeared stunned. In the dock Stacey, of North Walsham, Norfolk, sank to her chair and wept silently.
Sentencing her, the judge said she had murdered a helpless child in her care.
"For reasons which are not wholly clear, you lost your temper with him and shook him with such ferocity that he met his death. As a result of that, that death will remain a tragedy for his parents and relatives for the rest of their lives," he said.
Norfolk social services insisted a detailed review of Stacey's registration as a child-minder had been carried out and exonerated its staff from blame.