Campaigners are calling for a fatal accident inquiry after a child was left alone in a Glasgow flat for four days following the death of his mother.
Adriel Nnanna was left to suffer at a Govan residence following the death of his mother, Mercy Baguma, and was discovered malnourished and crying days later.
Father Eric Nnanna launched legal action against both the Home Office and Mears Group, who were responsible for the care of Baguma and her child, but it appears there are no rules that explained what officials and care workers were meant to do in the event they can’t contact or locate a parent.
Now Adriel's father is calling for a fatal accident inquiry to prevent similar tragedies happening in the future.
Eric said: “The legal action was never about money - it was about making Home Office and Mears Group hold their hands up and admit they got things wrong.
“Have these two organisations even made any changes to how they do things since August 2020? They should be telling us if they have so people know they are safe.
“There’s still so many mysteries about what happened around the whole incident and as the Home Office and Maers Group won’t tell us openly I think an FAI is the best and maybe the only way to see, learn and improve things.
“Something needs to happen so things can improve as we can’t have a care system where there are no rules.
“Adriel is now doing well and becoming a big boy and I thank everyone for their help but we are trying to build a future at what is still a difficult time so we ask that our privacy is respected.”
Kim Leslie, Partner at Digby Brown, added: “What happened to Adriel was utterly devastating and understandably affected the nation because how can we have a care system with gaps so large it leaves a child alone for days after the death of his mother?
“I can only hope the Home Office has now bridged such gaps and equally, I would encourage the COPFS to conduct a fatal accident inquiry so a tragedy like this never again occurs.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel