Baby P’s mother also abused as a child

From Baby P, to Baby Peter to Peter Connelly – the boy whose death sparked national outrage and a review of child protection is finally given his full name in public.

Named and shamed for the horrific death of Baby Peter – Tracy Connelly, Stephen Barker and Jason Owen.

They were identified by the courts – no matter what impact it might have eventually on their remaining children.

But the mother who allowed the death of her baby, her boyfriend and his brother will now be entitled to protection from revenge attacks – and new identities if they are released.

Also revealed were their own histories of being abused – should they be held up as evil or understood as victims?

A dark history
Tracey Connelly’s biological father was a convicted paedophile and her mother a drug addict.

Channel 4 News has learned that social services were so concerned for her welfare that they had placed Connelly on the child protection register. Tracey had already been neglected and abused.

Channel 4 News revealed in May this year that Tracey had been abused by a male relative in the 1990’s. This male relative was known to the authorities as Child A – a teenage pimp helping to run a care home paedophile ring in the London borough of Islington. Child A had also been abused at the hands of a paedophile ring.

Channel 4 News also revealed in May that Baby Peter’s grandfather and Tracey Connelly’s biological father, is a convicted sex offender. He raped a minor in the Midlands in the 1970s and was convicted of another sex offence in the 80s.

Last November 28 year old Tracey Connelly was convicted of allowing her infant son’s brutal death.

Baby P mother and stepfather named
Tracey Connelly and her lover Steven Barker were responsible for the death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly in his blood-spattered room in August 2007. He had suffered 50 injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken back.

It can also be disclosed that the third defendant in the case, Jason Owen, 37, is Barker’s brother.

And the Barker brothers’ past does not stop at taunting and torturing a toddler. They were also accused of assaulting their own grandmother.

Connelly, who has four other children, is the daughter of a woman with drink and drug problems.

She was involved with social workers throughout her childhood and knew how to manipulate them.

She started a relationship with Peter’s father, who was 17 years her senior, when she was just 16 having lied to him about her age. They went on to marry.

Owen changed his name after Peter’s death to try to distance himself from the Baby P outrage, were charged with assaulting their grandmother Hilda Barker, 82, at her home in Whitstable, Kent, in 1995.

She told police they locked her in a wardrobe to make her change her will in their favour.

The case was dropped the following year, before the Barkers came to trial, after the frail grandmother died from pneumonia.

Connelly, 28, and Barker, 33, of Penshurst Road, Tottenham, north London, were sentenced in May for causing or allowing Peter’s death.

They could not be named until now for legal reasons, although their names and photographs have appeared on the internet.

Father-of-four Owen was also jailed for the same offence, which took place while he was staying at Peter’s home with his 15-year-old runaway lover.

In addition to Barker’s presence at the house, social workers had also missed Owen and his girlfriend, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

The semi-detached, church-owned house was filthy.

Connelly’s two dogs and Barker’s rottweiler Kaiser, which was used to terrify Peter, also lived there.

Doctors, social workers and police failed to save Peter despite him being on the Haringey Council child protection register.

After the trio’s Old Bailey trial ended in November last year, there was public outrage at the way Peter was let down by the authorities.

All three defendants were cleared of murder.

Judge Stephen Kramer ruled that there was insufficient evidence against Connelly and Owen.

Barker, whom Peter called “Dad”, was cleared of murder by the jury.

But Connelly pleaded guilty to causing or allowing the death of her son and the brothers were convicted of the same offence by the jury.

In May, Barker and Connelly were tried in secret for the rape of a two-year-old girl just before Peter’s death.

Barker was convicted of rape but Connelly was cleared of a child cruelty charge.

They were tried under the names of Young and Wilson to avoid the jury linking them to the Baby P case.

The brothers and Connelly were jailed later that month.

Barker was told he had played the major part in Peter’s death and was given 12 years. He was also jailed for life with a minimum term of 10 years for raping the girl.

Connelly was given an indeterminate sentence with a minimum term of five years.

Judge Kramer told her she was “manipulative and self-centred”.

“I am satisfied that you acted selfishly because your priority was your relationship with Barker,” he said.

Since being jailed, she has written to a friend saying that she wants to party when she is released.

She is also still claiming she did not know about Peter’s abuse.

Owen was given an indeterminate sentence, with a minimum term of three years. He was said to be more worried about being discovered at the house with his 15-year-old girlfriend than protecting Peter.

They are all said to be trying to appeal against their sentences.

It is understood Connelly was recently moved from London’s Holloway Prison to Low Newton, near Durham. She is not believed to be on suicide watch.

Connelly and Barker’s crimes are so notorious that they are likely to need protection, and possibly new identities, on release from prison, an expert said.

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of probation union Napo, acknowledged that such a move would be “hugely controversial”.

He said: “The question will be, how well known are they in five years’ time, or whatever? And will Baby P still resonate with the public in terms of horrendous crime?

“If it does, and I suspect it will, the probation service and police will have no choice but to put in place a protection plan.”