In March 2012, four-year-old Daniel Pelka died in Coventry, England, after months of starvation and abuse by his mother and her partner. Police had been called to his home twenty-six times over six years. A social worker had assessed him as recently as months before his death. His teachers watched him scavenge food from classroom bins. By the time he died, his body was compared by police to that of a concentration camp victim.

This episode goes forensically through the case: the domestic violence history that spanned years, the serious allegations made to police that were never properly investigated, four separate social care assessments that all missed the risk to him, and the specific procedural failure, Daniel never once interviewed away from the parents abusing him, that connects this case directly to others we've covered on this show.  ...