\n<\/p>\n
The weekend before Genevieve Meehan died was one of the best of her short life.<\/p>\n
The nine-month-old with the beaming smile and emerald eyes was leaping through her milestones: she had taken her first tentative steps, hands clasped to her mother\u2019s, and said her first word: \u201cDadda\u201d. She tried on sunglasses and a swimsuit for their first family holiday two months later.<\/p>\n
The following morning, Genevieve\u2019s mother, Katie Wheeler, took her to Tiny Toes nursery for only her second full day. Wheeler told staff that Gigi, as she was known, had been a bit \u201csnotty\u201d but was otherwise fine. And with a goodbye, she said: \u201cI love you, sweetie.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just over seven hours later, Genevieve was pronounced dead. In what was supposed to be the safest place in the world, she had been strapped face down to a beanbag for an hour and 37 minutes and her cries of distress ignored. She was eventually found lifeless and blue, having died of suffocation.<\/p>\n
Kate Roughley, the deputy manager of the nursery in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, was last year found guilty of manslaughter and jailed for 14 years after a trial at Manchester crown court. But the fight for justice continues.<\/p>\n
In their first national newspaper interview, Genevieve\u2019s parents said they had been left distressed and shocked by what they had learned since \u2013 about the practices of that nursery but also wider \u201csystemic\u201d safety lapses they believed risked further tragedies in early years settings across the country.<\/p>\n
John Meehan, Genevieve\u2019s father, said his daughter\u2019s killer would not have been convicted without CCTV footage, which they are now campaigning to be made mandatory in nurseries.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Katie Wheeler and John Meehan, the parents of nine-month-old Genevieve.<\/span> Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Video played in court showed Roughley impatiently handling the baby girl before she died, muttering: \u201cVile\u201d and singing: \u201cOh Genevieve. Genevieve go home, Genevieve go home, go home Genevieve,\u201d as the she cried on the play mat.<\/p>\n The CCTV also disproved the nursery worker\u2019s claim that she had checked on Genevieve every couple of minutes. And it later led to the conviction of one of Roughley\u2019s colleagues, Rebecca Gregory, for the \u201cdeplorable\u201d neglect of four other babies. An ongoing health and safety inquiry could result in further prosecutions.<\/p>\n \u201cBut for the CCTV, we would have had absolutely no way of knowing about the way Genevieve was placed on a beanbag, about the infrequency of the checks, or about the general conduct towards Genevieve on the day. We really only got an answer because of the CCTV,\u201d said Meehan, 39.<\/p>\n This week, Roksana Lecka, 22, was convicted of abusing 21 babies at a nursery in Twickenham, south-west London, after footage showed the worker pinching and scratching children and kicking one boy in the face. In that case, as Genevieve\u2019s, CCTV was essential to the prosecution.<\/p>\n <\/span>Life without Genevieve was \u2018agonisingly painful\u2019, her mother said.<\/span> Photograph: Katie Wheeler<\/p>\n Meehan said: \u201cMany responsible nurseries are already using CCTV very effectively, so all we\u2019re saying is to make it so that all nurseries have it. It\u2019s good for the nursery, it\u2019s good for the parents, it\u2019s good for Ofsted.\u201d<\/p>\n Figures obtained by the BBC last year, and described by the couple as \u201chorrifying\u201d, show there were almost 20,000 reports of serious childcare incidents in England\u2019s nurseries in the five years to March 2024 \u2013 up 40% on the previous five-year period. The law firm Farleys Solicitors has said the number of legal claims involving injuries to children in nurseries has increased tenfold over the past decade.<\/p>\n Wheeler, 40, said Ofsted should be given greater powers to undertake more frequent announced and unannounced inspections of nurseries. At present, the regulator is only obliged to inspect nurseries in England once every six years, compared with once every four academic years for schools.<\/p>\n Tiny Toes nursery, where Genevieve was killed, was rated \u201cgood\u201d by Ofsted five years earlier, but the trial heard evidence suggesting it was run \u201cshockingly\u201d. On the day Genevieve died, Roughley was one of only two members of staff looking after 11 babies. The previous weekday there were 16 babies \u2013 far in excess of the one-to-three ratio for under-twos in England.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the system definitely fails parents,\u201d said Wheeler, who wants Ofsted to increase its number of unannounced inspections \u2013 which it currently only does when a specific concern has been raised \u2013 and to review CCTV when it is available.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re never going to get a true snapshot of what a place is like and how safe it is unless you go out on a no-notice inspection and when you look at it regularly. A lot changes over six years. It\u2019s life and death \u2013 and it\u2019s not overstating it to say that.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018Many responsible nurseries are already using CCTV very effectively, so all we\u2019re saying is to make it so that all nurseries have it,\u2019 said John Meehan.<\/span> Photograph: Katie Wheeler<\/p>\n Life without Genevieve was \u201cagonisingly painful,\u201d Wheeler said, describing the nine-month-old who relished her world full of cuddles, singing, dancing, food, her favourite green toy tambourine and \u201cher everything\u201d: her big sister, who is now nine.<\/p>\n The parents are planning to meet Labour\u2019s early education minister, Stephen Morgan, later this month to press for improved safety in nurseries, including CCTV, more Ofsted inspections and a new legal framework to ban unsafe sleep practices, supported by the Lullaby Trust.<\/p>\n Failing to enact the changes, Meehan said, risked further tragedies: \u201cThere could be more deaths. There is absolutely that risk.\u201d<\/p>\n The Department for Education said it was boosting safety in nurseries with new measures from September, including strengthening whistleblowing and recruitment, but that it would closely monitor whether further changes were needed.<\/p>\n It added: \u201cGenevieve\u2019s death was a tragedy and should never have happened. This government is committed to doing everything possible to keep children safe, as part of our mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life.\u201d<\/p>\n Ofsted said it would be inappropriate to comment during an ongoing investigation but that \u201cour thoughts remain with Genevieve\u2019s family and we are deeply sorry for their loss\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The weekend before Genevieve Meehan died was one of the best of her short life. The nine-month-old with the beaming smile and emerald eyes was leaping through her milestones: she had taken her first tentative steps, hands clasped to her mother\u2019s, and said her first word: \u201cDadda\u201d. She tried on sunglasses and a swimsuit for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[631,634,636,376,442,496,632,337,635,633,630,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-8976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-baby","9":"tag-call","10":"tag-cctv","11":"tag-death","12":"tag-early","13":"tag-education","14":"tag-killed","15":"tag-life","16":"tag-mandatory","17":"tag-nursery","18":"tag-parents","19":"tag-years"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}