Baby P’s mum speaks about toddler’s death for the first time at parole hearing

Baby P’s evil mum has admitted she ‘knew deep down’ he was being abused by her partner before he died.

Tracey Connelly, 42, acknowledged she was a ‘shit’ mother while giving her first public account of the toddler’s harrowing death as she makes a fresh bid for freedom in front of the parole board.

She was jailed at the Old Bailey in 2009 for causing or allowing the death of her 17-month-old son Peter at their home in Tottenham, north London, on August 3, 2007.

Her then boyfriend, Steven Barker, and his brother, Jason Owen, were convicted of the same crime. Barker, was given a 12-year sentence, with the court hearing how he tortured the 17-month-old.

The parole hearing heard how Baby Peter had been subjected to a number of violent assaults and suffered more than 50 injuries, including a broken back, fractured ribs, missing fingernails and bruising all over his body.

Connelly had failed to disclose to social services that others were living in the house after her partner and his brother moved into the home, and a Parole Board hearing in 2013 said she had been keen to preserve her intimate relationships at all costs.

She told the panel there is ‘a lot more I probably could have done to protect my children’ before Peter was killed under her nose.

Giving evidence, Connelly said: ‘If I had told the professionals this man was living with me, if I had explained we were more than he was just visiting, there are 101 different things I could have done.’

She told the panel Barker moved in around the end of 2006 and she put her wish for a ‘prince charming’ above the welfare of her own children – including one who ‘couldn’t stand him’.

Connelly said: ‘I’m ashamed to admit, I was in my own head, in my own bubble. I wanted my prince charming and unfortunately my children paid for that.

‘They were stuck in a worse situation that allowed my son to die.’

Connelly told the hearing she ‘knew deep down’ Peter was being abused by Barker.

She said: ‘I knew deep down because the injuries weren’t making sense and I was so busy trying to prove all the professionals wrong that I ignored my gut.

‘I challenged him (Barker) once and he made me feel so small that I didn’t challenge him again.

‘I wanted to prove… that it couldn’t be possible that I could love a man who was capable of this.

‘I wanted to prove everyone wrong.’

She agreed that she tried to prevent social services from finding out what was going on by lying that Barker did not live with her.

Connolly was first released on licence in 2013 but was recalled to prison in 2015 for breaching her parole conditions. She was freed for a second time in July 2022 and recalled again two years later.

Previous parole bids, in 2015, 2017 and 2019, were rejected.

Connelly told the hearing she was first recalled to prison in 2015 after failing to disclose an online relationship with a man who lived in a different country.

She said: ‘I developed an online relationship and I didn’t declare it which was a breach of my licence.

‘My justification for that one is pathetic now but because it was an online relationship and the person didn’t even live in the country… I didn’t view it as a relationship. I now understand that even an online relationship is a relationship but at the time it was just a bit of distraction.’

Connelly said the relationship only lasted about a month, adding: ‘It was safety because he didn’t know who I was, I came with no baggage, so I could just be me without the history, without the past.

‘The fact that I was never going to meet him and he lived in another country made it easier.’

She said she does not have ‘a good enough answer’ for why she did not tell her community offender manager.

Speaking about the relationship which led to her second and most recent prison recall last year, Connelly said she ‘lied’ to supervising professionals because she feared being rejected if she had to disclose her offending.

She told her parole hearing that she developed a friendship with a man, which started as ‘flirty banter’ online, and which eventually led to the pair meeting and starting a sexual relationship.

Connelly did not tell her community offender managers that the relationship had progressed from platonic to sexual, and told them a series of lies about what she was really doing on a weekend when she met up with the man, the parole board panel heard.

‘At the time there was a whole fear of judgment, fear of being recalled, fear of rejection because if I had to tell him who I was, anyone in their right mind would run a mile,’ she said.

‘Even though probation had really worked with me and reassured me about disclosure, I got in my own head and let my fears take over.’

Connelly admitted she would pose a risk to children in her care.

Asked if she perceives herself as being a risk to children, she said: ‘Children in my care? Yes.

‘Given how bad I was at it, I have to always accept that there is always a risk if I am left looking after children, which I can’t see ever being the case.

‘Am I a risk to children walking down the street? No.’

Connelly said she would not have a relationship with someone who has regular contact with children or grandchildren.

She said: ‘I wouldn’t be involved with anyone who had children or grandchildren around them.

‘I don’t want to be around other people’s children or grandchildren.

‘I was shit with my own, I don’t want to put anybody else at risk from me.’

Earlier in the hearing, panel chairwoman Sally Allbeury said the panel has heard ‘extremely moving’ victim statements from the child’s loved ones.

‘There can be no doubt that Peter’s death has caused lifelong harm to those who loved him,’ Ms Allbeury said.

Panel members for Connelly’s review will assess her risk in whether to release her from prison or not, or recommend she is transferred to open prison conditions.

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