No way to predict Satanist's killing of boy, report says
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The mother of a 12-year-old boy murdered by a Satanist yesterday condemned as "lies" a report that said nothing could have prevented his death.
Angela Fernandez said she had relied on police and child protection agencies to safeguard her son, Diego Pineiro-Villar, and found yesterday's conclusions "disgusting".
The report by all the agencies involved in the case highlighted failures of communication and criticised the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, but said blame for the boy's death lay solely with his killer, Edward Crowley.
Crowley, 53, a homeless devil-worshipper who named himself after the notorious Satanist Aleister Crowley, was jailed for life last year for stabbing Diego 30 times with a kitchen knife in Covent Garden, central London, on 7 May 2000.
He had become obsessed with the boy after meeting him in a playground and stalked him for a year. He was arrested three times and charged with gross indecency, but the charge was later dropped through lack of evidence. Crowley was remanded in custody for three months when charged with indecency and harassment, but released on bail after the indecency charge was dropped. He attacked Diego six weeks later.
After reading the report, commissioned by the Metropolitan Police and Camden Council, Ms Fernandez said: "To say there is nobody who can save my son is lies when there are so many agencies, the child protection committee, the police. I think it is disgusting.
"They were aware that he [Crowley] was talking to him but it was all in the hands of the police. If you can't trust the police, who can you trust?"
Speaking for all the agencies involved, Jane Held, director of Camden Social Services, denied the report was a "whitewash".
She said: "We accept there are many things we could have done differently and we will learn from that, but even if we had done them differently, tragically the death could not have been foreseen or prevented.
"Bluntly, this boils down to the fact that Diego could only have been protected by removing him from his family, which was neither right nor desirable, or by removing Crowley from the streets – there were no legal reasons to do the latter."
The report examined the role of Camden social services, police, Camden and Islington Health Authority, the North London Forensic Service, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Probation Service, and made more than 60 recommendations. It highlighted lack of communication between social, mental health and child protection services that meant Crowley's case workers did not know he had not been seen by his GP for more than a year and was not taking drugs that stabilised his mental state.
It also criticised the police for the way they investigated Crowley after Diego's family reported him for harassing the boy, and the Crown Prosecution Service for being badly prepared for Crowley's court appearance on 20 March 2000, when it was not ready to proceed on the harassment charge. A CPS spokeswoman yesterday accepted that if it had been ready it was possible Crowley would have been remanded in custody for longer. However, she said that lapse could not be blamed for the whole tragedy.
"Had we been prepared the outcome might have been the same because at some point he was going to be released," she said.
The report also recommended that the Government issue new guidance that police child protection teams should always deal with cases when child sexual abuse has been alleged or is suspected.
The Metropolitan Police said Crowley had not been a registered sex offender and there was not a significant history of violence in his past.