Agencies ‘failed to share details’ about woman who went on to murder baby

Information about drinking, debts and mental health that could have prevented a baby being placed with a woman hoping to adopt him, who went on to murder him, was not shared between agencies, an investigation has concluded.

- Mark Brown

When the mother told social workers she was struggling to bond with the child, not enough support for the family was put in place, it found.

Leiland-James Corkill was taken into care at birth and, at the age of seven months , was placed with Laura and Scott Castle , a couple from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.

Five months later , in 2021, not long after his first birthday, the boy died as a result of catastrophic head injuries.

Laura Castle , aged 38, was found guilty of murder in May and was jailed for life with a minimum term of 18 years. Precise details of what happened may never be known. But the trial at Preston crown court heard that Castle lost her temper with the baby when he would not stop crying after breakfast, and that she violently shook him to death.

In a letter to the trial judge, the baby’s birth mother, Laura Corkill , said: “He was placed in the home of a monster.” Corkill, of Whitehaven, Cumbria, said that her son would be alive today if she had been allowed to keep him, and she criticised the actions of Cumbria county council. Speaking to the BBC, she said: “Why did they place him there? Why did it take them so long to pick up on it? They should have cancelled the adoption order.”