How Was This Allowed to Happen?? The Story of Baby Peter Connelly

How Was This Allowed to Happen?? The Story of Baby Peter Connelly

The little boy was brought to the pediatrician again for what would seem to most as way too many times. This visit, he was crying and cranky. The doctor, who was just a fill-in for the day, said that the child just had a head cold but other than that, he was good to go. But then, just a couple days later, the paramedics were rushing to the same little boy’s home.

The case I’m going to be talking about today was actually a request from some of you. Now, this story has many pieces to it, and when we’re talking about these kind of stories that involve children, having many pieces to it usually only means one thing: it’s a history that’s been documented by Child Protective Services and either just brushed aside or ignored. This poor little boy was only known as “Baby P” for years while this case went to trial. His story is one of horrific proportions. There were not one or two, but three adults guilty of this little boy’s death. This is the story of baby Peter Connelly.

Early Life and Background

Peter Connelly was born on March 1st, 2006, to Tracy Connelly and his biological father, whose name has not been released to the public for privacy reasons. Baby Peter’s nickname was “Smiley”—even with everything that he had gone through in his short life, he still very often had a smile on his face. Peter was also a smart little boy. He was able to say his first words very early on, and one of his first words was actually the word “dad.”

Peter’s mom, Tracy Connelly, was born up in Islington, North London, by her mother who had both drinking and drug problems. Tracy’s biological father also ended up getting convicted of rape, which greatly affected her. When she was only 16, she moved in with Peter’s biological father. He was a railway worker from Ireland and he was actually 17 years older than Tracy at the time, though it is said that she lied to him about her age. A year after the couple first started living together, they then moved to another house in Tottenham. Here, Tracy gave birth to her three daughters before giving birth to Peter. Her and the children’s father ended up marrying six years later in September of 2003.

Soon after Peter’s birth, his biological father ended up leaving the family home. Peter was only three months old when Tracy divorced her husband. This was amid fights over the housework, or lack thereof. Tracy made this a trend in her life: keeping a very messy and dirty home. There were also allegations that she had been flirting with other men online in chat rooms. At some point when Peter was little, Tracy was also diagnosed with depression. So, by all accounts, Peter’s biological father was a loving and caring father. He actually had raised concerns to police a number of times when Peter was in his mother’s care. Many say he was duped by Tracy Connelly.

Stephen Barker Enters the Picture

Just a few months after her husband left, Tracy met 32-year-old Stephen Barker. She’d met him when he was doing maintenance work on her friend’s flat. So, this dude is everything you do not want in a man. I think he checks all of those boxes. When he was younger, he actually had to attend a special school in Tottenham. He only had an IQ of 60, which is very low. Stephen was a big guy, standing six feet four inches tall and weighing around 252 pounds. He was obsessed with knives, martial art weapons, and kept a crossbow, as well as a collection of swastika memorabilia. He was also known to stroll around his house in his combat gear.

In his childhood, Stephen often tortured small animals, including guinea pigs and frogs, and the frogs would get skinned and their legs broken. Stephen kept two pet snakes at Tracy’s house along with three dogs.

If all of that isn’t enough to tell you about what kind of guy Stephen is, let me tell you about something that Stephen and his brother, Jason Owen, did a few years prior to Stephen meeting Tracy. Him and his brother Jason had tortured their own grandmother, Hilda Baker, and tried to get her to change her will. The only reason why they escaped prosecution is because she ended up dying of pneumonia before the case went to trial, so they both got away with it. And had they not, baby Peter might still be alive today.

In November of 2006, when baby Peter was only eight months old, Stephen moved in with Tracy and her children on Hermitage Road in Tottenham. Their home was described by social workers as cramped, dirty, and reeking of urine—though it is important to say that the social workers did not know that Stephen ever moved in with Tracy.

Almost as soon as Stephen moved in, suspicious injuries started appearing on Peter. During the same month that he had moved in, Tracy actually brought Peter to the general practitioner because she said he had fallen down some stairs. Now keep in mind, Peter was only eight months old at this point, so he wasn’t walking. Falling downstairs is gonna be negligent no matter how you look at it when it comes to an eight-month-old. The general practitioner that day saw the bruise on his head, but he didn’t contact Child Protective Services, and he actually just sent Peter and Tracy on their way after examining him, saying that Peter was just “accident-prone.” Again, he’s eight months old, how active is he?

A month later, on December 11th, Tracy again took Peter to his general practitioner. He noticed that based on Peter’s injuries and the story that Tracy was telling, things just weren’t adding up. She also changed her story and said that he had actually fallen off the couch and then the dog scratched him. This time it wasn’t just a bruise on his head; he had a lump. When the doctor saw Peter, he sent Tracy and Peter to Whittington Hospital in Archway.

At the hospital visit, extensive bruising on Peter’s buttocks, face, and chest were identified, in addition to the swelling that was on his forehead. Tracy couldn’t offer an explanation for the swelling, but suggested climbing, falling, and slapping his body in play was the cause for the bruising. She also added that he bruised easily. Social Services were also called this time. When police questioned her about it, she gave no real reason for the injuries, just a bunch of hypothetical reasons as to how and why it could have happened. Tracy denied that any of these injuries were caused by her mother, though her mother was watching Peter at the time. Peter was taken in by a family friend at that time, and Social Services also made a trip to the family’s home.

Intervention and Systemic Failures

After Peter was removed from his mother’s home, an initial Child Protection Conference was held, but it was extremely insufficient in obtaining crucial information about the family circumstances and concerns. The general practitioner was not invited, and a written report from him was not requested. Consequently, medical opinion tended to be discounted, and the risk of deliberate harm to Peter was played down. The overall view was that Peter was just accident-prone, and Tracy was only guilty of not doing a better job to prevent him from hurting himself. And since social workers still did not know that Stephen Barker was living in the home, he of course was not checked out or questioned.

A week later, on December 19th, Tracy and her mother were both arrested, and just three days later, Peter was placed on the Haringey Child Protection register. The child protection register is a confidential list of all the children in the area who have been identified by Child Protective Services as being at significant risk of harm. I think it’s also important to mention that only Peter and one of his other siblings were on this register. Even though there were four children in the home, all four children were at risk, they were all in this terrible environment. Why only two of them were placed on the register? I’m guessing it’s probably because they were the only ones that showed injuries or signs of neglect or abuse, but that doesn’t make sense to me.

The person that Peter was staying with during this time was named Angela Godfrey, and she reported that Peter had bruises on his testes, but she claimed that they were caused by hospital staff doing a scan. His mother, however, frequently visited him—and three times alone on Christmas. During that time, social workers also made visits with Peter and his mom, and they assessed that the relationship between the two was positive at that time.

So just five weeks later, on January 26, 2007, Peter was returned to his mother’s care. Apparently, they did not have enough evidence to convict Tracy of anything. From that point on, the family received a range of interventions from specialists. Tracy, however, would turn down any mental health services for herself, which is probably the most important part of all of this, I’m guessing. There were also various professionals who had noted that Peter liked to roughhouse and that he was just an active child who loved to throw his body around. They said Peter was accident-prone, which only helped to support Tracy’s narrative for whenever she brought him into the hospital with injuries.

As I had said before, the family home was chaotic, dirty, and smelly—a complete train wreck if you ask me. And with Tracy’s laziness and lack of housework being done, this continued to be a problem, but not a big enough problem to Social Services to remove the children from the home. No, no, they had to give Tracy basic advice about health and safety in the home, and she had to be told very clearly of what the consequences would be if she did not improve the care of her children. They also requested that Tracy get rid of the dogs that lived in the home, including a Rottweiler, as she had told the pediatrician that these dogs had scratched Peter a number of times. However, she refused.

In February of 2007, only a month after Peter was returned to the home, a former social worker wrote a letter to the Department of Health to voice her concerns over the failings of Social Services that she had seen. She actually even singled out the office that was in charge of Peter’s case. She met with them to discuss the letter that she had sent in March of 2007. But regardless, Peter was admitted to the hospital the very next month.

Tracy had again taken Peter back to the hospital following another injury to his head which had occurred four days prior. He had two black eyes and swelling to the left side of his head. She again claimed that it was only an accident and she didn’t bring Peter in sooner because he “didn’t start to feel unwell until today,” which was definitely a lie. He’s a baby with two black eyes, I think he was feeling unwell from the minute they happened, Tracy. He was admitted to the hospital for a 48-hour observation. However, the hospital staff was all too willing to accept Tracy’s explanations for what had happened and they ended up discharging him and letting him go home with her.

In the same month, another incident was reported to Social Services. A nurse at Tracy’s daughter’s school had actually seen Tracy out in the parking lot slap her daughter in the face, and she had called.

On April 9th, Peter’s general practitioner saw him with bruising on his face. Peter was admitted to the North Middlesex Hospital in Enfield. A nurse noted a large boggy swelling to the left side of his head. Tracy’s explanation was actually that another child had pushed him into a marble fireplace, and that’s what caused the large lump on his head. At the hospital, they did a number of tests on him, including one for meningitis, though it did come back negative. For some reason, Tracy was heard boasting, saying that her son had meningitis. She thought this was a way to explain away some of his injuries somehow.

On their admission to the hospital, Tracy said that there was actually a friend out in the waiting room who had witnessed what had happened to Peter and could back up her story, though it’s believed that this witness was probably just Stephen. A hospital nurse told a social worker at that time that the injury was just viewed as accidental because it had been caused by another child. How easy is it to say that it was caused by another child and nothing gets looked into? That’s end of the story, case closed.

The Escalation of Abuse

A social worker named Maria made an unannounced visit to the family’s home, and at that time, she observed another bruise on Peter’s face. This one was under Peter’s chin, but Tracy said that he had again been hurt by another child. She said the two had just gotten in a fight over a toy, and when Peter grabbed it to pull it back, it whacked him in the face. The social worker actually insisted on a medical examination of Peter at this time, and during this, it was discovered that he had other injuries as well, which included multiple bruises and scratching of all different ages. The social worker agreed that he could return to the home again, however, because they seemed “minor enough.” Tracy was questioned by the police this time, but again, their findings were just inconclusive.

Shortly after, in June of 2007, Stephen Barker’s brother, Jason Barker (who later changed his last name to Owen to avoid all the hate that was coming his way for his atrocious crimes) started staying in the family home with his 15-year-old girlfriend and four children. The reason why? Well, because he was trying to avoid police because he was, you know, dating a 15-year-old. The social workers would again say that they knew nothing about these extra people living in the family home. Now that’s an extra seven people that Tracy’s concealing along with her and her four children, all in a four-bedroom home. Jason was 30 at the time, and the reason why he had moved into the family home, you ask? Well, he was dating a 15-year-old and he needed to avoid the police obviously. What else would you do besides not date a 15-year-old when you’re 30? Keep in mind, this is also the same man that had assaulted his grandmother a few years prior.

So needless to say, the situation at home became even more chaotic, and more injuries started to appear on Peter.

In the same month that Jason moves in, in June, a social worker again found bruising on Peter, as well as an infected finger. He was removed from the home on June 4th and was again sent to live with the family friend. Tracy was re-arrested. She offered a variety of possible causes for the injuries in the recorded interview. She said:

“I have never hit him whatsoever, which is why I keep getting upset because I’m being accused of something which I haven’t done.”

The interviewer said to her:

“There are various different bruises, various different injuries… that’s a lot of injuries in only one week. He’s either the most accident-prone, unlucky child I’ve ever seen, or there’s something else going on here.”

To which Tracy replied:

“It’s not something more, I swear. My world would fall apart without him. I’ve been trying for a boy for so long, I’m lucky to have him.”

On June 12th, the babysitter, Ann Walker, told a social worker that she was concerned about Peter’s condition. She said that he had a head injury which was often bleeding and weeping, he was always dirty, smelled of vomit, and was constantly hungry. So on the 15th of June, a family support service worker went out to the family home. Stephen was present. The babysitter told Social Services that there was a bruise on Peter’s chin as well, but it was decided that that was just a pre-existing injury, so Peter continued to stay in the home with regular visits from social workers.

Actually, only four days later, a social worker went to the babysitter Ann Walker’s house to check on the children. The only thing she noticed at that time were a few scratches on Peter’s scalp, she said. And it’s to be noted that the babysitter, Ann Walker, continuously raised concerns about Peter’s condition, but nothing was done. She was later quoted as saying:

“He was dying. I told them about his state. I said things were not right but nothing was done. If someone had taken action, we would not be mourning the loss of a baby’s life. The warning signs were all there. It was upsetting. Four or five times I phoned about bruises, marks, nappy rash, and dried blood in his ear. He always smelled of vomit, his clothes were dirty, his fingernails were black and nails were broken. Once he was able to pull off one of his fingernails. He had a large scab on his head that would weep blood. He was in a terrible state.”

So, since the child service worker said there were only a few scratches to Peter’s head, there was not enough evidence to do anything else at this time.

On July 25th, Peter was again sent to live back with his mother, who had also been released from prison at this point. A few days later, a social worker who went out to visit the family home again to check on the family missed injuries to Peter’s face because Tracy and Stephen had smeared chocolate all over his face in an attempt to cover it up.

The next day, Peter had an appointment with his pediatrician and they couldn’t use chocolate this time to cover up anything, but they weren’t gonna need to, so don’t worry. At this appointment, it was discovered that he had at least a dozen bruises to his body, an infection to his ear, scalp, and finger, and as the babysitter had previously said, he was missing a fingernail. The doctor, however, noted that Peter was just simply cranky and had a little cold, but other than that he was fine, so she didn’t do anything about the other issues. And at this visit, she failed to notice that Peter had a broken back. Mm-hmm. Now, this wasn’t Peter’s normal pediatrician; she was only a stand-in that day at the hospital due to a shortage of doctors. She did, however, have plenty of reason to alert Social Services as she had physical evidence. She later said that she didn’t want to further examine Peter that day because she was afraid of just making him even crankier as he had come in rather upset that day—because he had a broken back, along with other things! I’d be crabby too. She also didn’t notice that he had eight broken ribs on top of his broken back.

The Tragic Discovery

Only a couple days after his doctor’s appointment, on August 3rd, 2007, Peter was found dead in his crib. He was only wearing a diaper, he was completely blue, and not breathing. Peter Connelly was only 17 months old.

Ambulance crews stated that it was very clear Peter had already been dead for some time before they were called and got to the scene. Though they said when they got there, not only was the house disgusting, but Tracy was more concerned with doing her hair and getting her cigarettes than the fact that her baby was dead. Paramedics said that there was also human feces smeared all over the walls, as well as dismembered animal body parts scattered through the house. That’s disgusting.

By the time the ambulance had arrived, Stephen, Jason, and his 15-year-old girlfriend had already left to dispose of Peter’s bloodied sheets and other evidence, and then go on the run. They were eventually found by police at a campsite near Epping Forest with a stash of weapons. All items of clothing owned by Peter were found by the police to be bloodstained. All of them. Jason, Stephen, and Tracy were all arrested.

An autopsy revealed that Peter had sustained 22 different injuries, including the loss of a fingernail, a toenail, a tooth, and broken ribs. The tooth was actually found in his colon, which means that he was hit in the face so hard it knocked his tooth out and he swallowed it. He also had the numerous bruises to his face and body, and on top of the broken ribs, he also had some ribs that were fractured, and his spinal cord had been broken. It looked like many of these injuries had been sustained several days before his death; some had occurred up to a month prior. It was ruled a homicide, and they believed that his death may have been caused by his fractured spine which had given him internal bleeding. Peter had been seen 34 times by health professionals from North Middlesex University Hospital.

Trials and Sentencing

On November 11, 2008, Stephen, Jason, and Tracy were found guilty of causing or allowing the death of a child or a vulnerable person. Tracy had already pleaded guilty to this charge earlier in the trial. Jason and Tracy had been cleared of murder because of insufficient evidence. Stephen was found not guilty of murder by a jury.

A second trial took place in April of 2009, and this one was related to both Tracy and Stephen raping a two-year-old girl. This little girl was also found on the child protection register. Stephen was found guilty of rape, and Tracy was found not guilty of child cruelty charges.

Sentencing for both trials took place together on May 22nd, 2009:

• Tracy Connelly received a sentence of indefinite imprisonment for public protection, subject to a minimum term of five years.

• Stephen Barker was sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape with a minimum sentence of 10 years, and a 12-year sentence for his role in the death of Peter to run concurrently.

• Jason Owen was also jailed indefinitely with a minimum term of three years.

The three appealed against their sentences. Stephen’s was against both convictions and sentences. Jason Owen’s sentence was changed on appeal to a fixed six-year term. He was released in August of 2011.

Tracy Connelly was released in 2013, though she was briefly sent back in 2015 for breaching her parole by selling indecent photographs of herself online (who wants those?). She was then ineligible for Parole Review for the next two years. Stephen also tried to apply for parole in August of 2017, only to have his application turned down.

The parole board again reviewed Tracy’s case in 2019, but it was denied. In 2020, she appealed against this decision but lost. Finally, on her fourth review by the parole board, it was decided to again release her from jail. She was then released on July 7, 2022. The parole board said it was satisfied Tracy Connelly was suitable for release after hearing she is now considered to be at low risk of committing a future offense and that her probation officers and prison officials support the plan. They defended their decision by saying parole board decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community. “Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care; protecting the public is our number one priority.”

So, Tracy is subject to restrictions on her release including her activities and who she contacts, as well as 20 other conditions including living at a specified address as well as being supervised by probation by wearing an electronic tag and adhering to a curfew. She also has to now disclose any of her close relationships, her use of the internet and phone will be monitored, and there are certain places that she is not allowed to go in order to avoid contact with the victims and protect other children. So very safe for the community—if she’s not allowed to go somewhere because they’re trying to protect children, keep her in jail and then she definitely can’t go there! Hello!

Systemic Accountability and Aftermath

An investigation found that both social workers that had been assigned to Peter’s case had made enough mistakes to amount to misconduct. They failed to visit Peter enough and they failed to keep adequate records of the visits that they did make out to the house. They also said that the manager of the social worker had failed to provide enough supervision of said social worker. Both the social worker, though, and her manager were not barred from being social workers; instead, they were issued with suspensions after it was concluded that their violations were not serious enough for them to be fired. The committee handling the investigation said a firing of both of them would have been disproportionate and would serve no other purpose than to give the public someone to blame and punish.

Baby Peter’s real father is now dedicating himself to his daughters and making sure that the rest of their childhoods are normal. He even quit his job to take care of his girls. He wants to give them back whatever part of their childhood he can. Even though he’s gone from a man living alone to now having three girls in the house, he says he’s happier than he’s ever been. Baby Peter’s three sisters have been receiving counseling since his death, but their father says they are managing very well. Considering Tracy has also tried to get back in the girls’ lives, and all three of them have refused.

Baby Peter Connelly was cremated and his ashes were scattered near to where his grandparents are laid to rest.

Well, thank you for listening to all of baby Peter’s story today. There were so many systematic failures in this case. So many people who, in my opinion, just looked the other way when it came to this poor little boy. And even though it said there was some reform with Social Services in England after this, it still wasn’t enough because I’ve already found a few other cases that happened in England right after baby Peter’s death, like they learned nothing. And I’ll probably be bringing one of those to you soon as well.

It’s terrible that when all this physical evidence is being thrown in so many people’s faces and nothing is still done. And to blame a baby for all these injuries is absurd. I can’t believe anybody believed half of these.

So anyways, thank you so much for those of you who suggested I do this case, and if there’s any other ones you want to see, don’t forget to drop that below in the comments. If you like True Crime and you want to hear it from me, then don’t forget to also hit that subscribe button below and give this video a like if you feel like it. Until next time guys, take care now. Bye now.