30/10/2011 Reporters

beaten to death. But hers is just one story. Behind each face are

dozens of others. Every year, hundreds, possibly thousands of

children die in the world's richest democracy. Killed by people meant

to care for them. Clearly it is a huge public health issue. It is a

major epidemic. Let us get to the developing story of the death of a

three-year-old boy. Mother charged with manslaughter. If that was a

health issue, if that was kids getting bums on their hands, it

would be called an epidemic. Police say she was forced into a foot

locker. In the hospital with liver damage. I am so tired of a lack of

response. She is four years old. Child abuse is completely

preventable. At the scene, investigators found two children.

We're breeding an army of future It was March 2007. San Antonio was

in full bloom. But in this street, residents realised something had

gone wrong. They found the bodies of two babies. So the baby was

under this gap? She was there for three months. Three months? Yes.

During the investigation and trial that followed, their mother

admitted to beating her 18-month- old daughter to death because she

would not stop crying. Weeks later she also killed her four-month-old

son Sebastien and buried him next to his sister. Valerie Lopez and

her boyfriend are in prison for life. Four years on their flat is

still up for rent. The community is still in shock. Elsewhere in the US,

thousands of other children have died since in circumstances just as

chilling. Child abuse is a crime like no other. It happens behind

closed doors to those who often have no voice. It is difficult to

detect, more difficult to investigate and extremely hard to

come to terms with. No family, no community wants to admit it is

failing to protect its children. And yet more and more people,

doctors, educators, congressmen, are warning that in the United

States child abuse is a problem of massive proportions. While it

happens everywhere, better reporting of child abuse makes

statistics more reliable in the industrialised world. The only

available comparative UN report from 2003 estimates that every week

on average two children die from abuse in Britain and in Germany.

Three in France. Four in Japan. And 27 in the United States. The

combined population of these countries is bigger than the US.

But the rate in the US is three times higher. The question is, why?

In America, individualism is sacred. In Texas they pride themselves on

being more independent, more self- sufficient than anywhere else. We

came into Texas because everything is bigger here. The latest data

from 2009 shows that 267 children died from abuse here. More than in

any other state. Officials say they are better at reporting deaths. As

we travelled across Texas we found reasons behind this staggering

number. They're far more complex. In her father's memory, Emma will

always be four. She would be sitting on the couch. She would

look at me and I would look at her. I would ask her, are you daddy's

baby? She would laugh and tell me, no I am mummy's baby. I would feign

outrage. She would start laughing. In the final weekend she was over I

asked if she was daddy's baby. She just said, yes. She just said, yes.

We have an update on breaking news. A mother sentenced to prison for

not protecting her little girl from abuse. There was bruising all over

her body. On her stomach. She had a busted lip. Bruising all over her

face. Emma's mother, Abigail Young, moved in with her boyfriend. He had

a previous history of child abuse. Lucas was sentenced to life in

prison for raping and killing Emma. Abigail is serving a 20-year

sentence for failing to prevent her daughter's death. Three weeks

before she died, Emma was diagnosed with genital herpes. Sexually

transmitted disease was not enough of a reason to remove a child from

home. Everybody had a chance to save her. Everybody missed the

signs? Everybody missed the signs. There were signs that CBS missed,

signs that the doctors missed. Within weeks of her death, two

toddlers were killed in Texas. Both were under the watch of Child

Protection Services. The agency launched an internal investigation

into their deaths. Nobody was fired. Generally we do not talk about

case-specific information. There are some times when a woman or man,

whoever we are investigating, lies to us and we believe they are lies.

Surely the fact a four-year old had genital herpes was enough for

investigation? We certainly had medical indications that herpes can

be caused by many things. There were assertions. I have had cases

on this road. You cannot judge a neighbourhood on whether or not

there is an abuse happening here. I would put nothing past anyone.

Paul's job is to go from house-to- house investigating abuse that

happens behind closed doors. He was not involved in the case, but for

him it is a reminder about what happens if he fails. The problem,

he says, is that it is easy to fail. John Paul is currently

investigating 38 families. That is more than double the recommended

case load. The main reason that the lot of investigators are afraid to

voice their opinions is because they might lose their job. He was

not authorised to talk to us. But he felt it was necessary to do so.

I have seen so much happen in the five years I have been with the

agency. I feel as if the investigators that are out there

doing the hard work, they are not being heard by the upper level

management. I think a lot of people need to realise that just like you

have police officers that burn out, you can have investigators that are

burnt-out. Overworked and underpaid officers and a slow and often

inefficient chain of command are not the only reasons why so many

children fall through the cracks of the system. The former chief

prosecutor of Harris County says that it is a problem. He says the

agency focuses too much on keeping families together because that what

the Federal Government wants to do. Randy Burton now owns this law firm.

That is how he pays for providing free legal services for children in

trouble. His cabinets are full of stories of children that were

killed because they were allowed to stay at home. In order to preserve

the influx of federal money, which has over half the state's for child

welfare, it has become an end in itself. We're going to make every

effort to try and preserve this. So in a state like Texas, that boasts

the lowest rate of removal from homes in the nation, it is not

surprising they also have the highest number of child fatalities

in the nation. Up to 40% of children who died from abuse in the

US had files with Child Protection Services. This makes it very easy

for the critics to attack the agency. Not for their lack of

desire, but for being too much of a slow, clumsy bureaucracy. Some say

critics are missing a bigger The job of Child protective

services is protecting children after the fact. The job is not to

keep children from being harmed in the first place. That is the huge.

Better think that the public needs to understand. It is all about jobs

to protect children in the first place. More than 30,000 children

are already in. Care in Texas. The system is overloaded. Every year,

hundreds of children come to this. Road as they wait for the

government to find them a new family or to decide if it is safe

enough for them to return to their parents. Some spend months here.

Others years. And no matter how many scars, how many bruises they

were brought here we have, all of their teachers say that especially

the little ones, are dnes, are do go home. Child abuse is possibly

the only crime in which the victims simply does not know that something

has gone wrong. This TV company is an attempt by cent PJ's to start a

public dialogue about child abuse but it is not easy. That taboo got

broken about having breast cancer. We need that on this issue. We need

the heavy is to help break this issue. We need a first lady.

Winning the first lady of the United States to help break this

issue. Dallas Children's is one of the biggest paediatric hospitals in

the US. From cancer to heart transplants, they do everything

year. And yet, child abuse accounts for 37% of the hospital's debts.

And they believe that numbers are on the rise. I see more cases in

our hospital setting and increasing violence. Cases that involve

multiple children in one home are one of -- some of the more striking.

A scenario would be sibling sets you were chronically and severely

neglected, torture type cases where three siblings walked in a bathroom,

for nine or 12 months. Physically abused, sexually abused, tortured,

long periods of time. This doctor is one of the few paediatricians in

the country specialising in abuse. He runs end abuse and neglect

clinic and seize on average, five patients per day. Diagnosing them

is often difficult. Most children do not look like the battered baby

when we talk about bad entrance syndrome. When we think of a child,

we think about bruises and which marks and burns. Most child abuse

does not look like that. Most of them have internal injuries with no

external manifestation. Doctors have to be aware of it, doctors

must think about it. If we don't think about it as a physician, we

will miss the diagnosis and that is where education and training is

really important. Currently, medical students get Renehan day's

work of a leg shares through there, in higher education. Not the

students. Dr Cox makes sure that they learn plenty about it and not

only inside the hospital. We joined Dr Cox as it will give students

where Courthouse in any by a town. Testifying in a case of child abuse

is part of his routine. It is a six-month-old little girls, I saw

her when she was hospitalised in October and she had a head injury

and it required surgery. We are that it -- not allowed to go in

without a camera. During the debrief, after his testimony, Dr

Cox tells his students that this will be a big part of their work.

There is a lot more to this story than what was presented, but

ultimately, I am concerned about the safety of the child. How do you

prepare for the case? Normally, because this one has been set a

couple of times, so I have read through a couple of times. This was

ten months ago. And I have seen well over 1,000 kids since then.

How often are you called as a winners? Too often. An average of

about once a week. We could not fathom what some kind of kids go

through, what kind of environment a living. In Washington, some

politicians are beginning to recognise what many have told us is

a real national crisis. Our role here today is to be a

voice to the boys as. Congressional report says that the

current numbers of child deaths are in fact a gross underestimate.

I have been in for nearly 25 years. And I have attended many earrings.

But this has been one of the most painful. In 2009, 1,000, 770

children died from abuse according to the official data. The real

number, according to Congress, could be 2,500. Expert witnesses

explained why the government had to play a more active role.

They need emergency help now third child protection, resources are

dwindling wild child abuse and neglect is increasing. Here is an

example of a programme that many believe can prevent abuse. Crystal

is a qualified nurse. Every week, for the next two years, she will

visit this house, because the state of Texas says that he fits the

criteria of a child at risk. Rennie one person in this family of 10 has

a job. Nobody has health insurance. And his parents just turned 18.

While cause as blind child abuse are complex, statistics show that

it is more common in areas with high rates of poverty and teenage

pregnancy. At this stage, lots of new parents will get so frustrated

and so overwhelmed that they either throw the baby down on the couch or

shake the baby. Thailand and any are determined to be good parents

but they say that teenagers need help. I get frustrated. He is

crying and I do not know what to do. But I would never heard my son. I'm

conscious about what I'm doing. But it does sound like a lot of parents,

especially dads, the some of them, they just feel like they're a

teenager and they should be going out and having fun and instead they

are stuck inside with the baby it is crying. They are going to get

frustrated. And they're going to do something that they will regret

later. But it happens. Prevention could be an important part of the

solution. But because of the recession and budget cuts, dozens

of states, including Texas, are cutting their prevention budgets.

Leaving millions of children without any safety net. A tireless

campaigner and the creator of the nest -- mares visiting programme in

Texas, Manawanui says that it is getting harder to push prevention

programmes through the Texas legislature. Legislators from both

sides absolutely love and adore children. I do not think that they

are absolutely educated on the consequences of abuse and how

they're paying for it. They will look at Medicare costs going this

way, they look at prison costs, remedial education. Guess what,

this is one of the most important groups of all. I can see a jury

having a tough time with this one. The televised trial as a Florida

woman, accused of helping her brother to kill their parents.

Prosecutors said that abuse that they had experienced in their

childhood was a motive in the manner. Stacey was found innocent.

She agreed to talk to us about what it was like to grow up in an

abusive home. Crying was forbidden in my house. If you cried, you got

beaten up. If you made a sound when you got it, you got it more. If you

made her sound will try to move when you got raped, it lasted

longer and it got more violent. You just took it and dealt with it. And

you just gone up the next day. When you are abused, you do not know

anything else but anger and violence and that's all you know

how to live and you really have to work at it to change it. 40 years

on, Stacey is still in therapy. Her brother is in jail for murdering

their parents. The more damage to our children

become, the more damage to our society becomes. And we need to

open doors for these kids to get help and we need to make it

affordable for people to get help. A study done by the US Justice

Department in NUS -- New York prison, found that 68% of inmates

were abused as children. Those numbers are riding up and

they are riding a bin a terrible way for the future of our country.

-- adding up. Across the US, many are trying to bring the cycle of

violence that starts in childhood to an end. But it is a battle, and

it will be won only when the rest of America acknowledges the problem.

How would our society acknowledged and allow this to happen? How do we

not put more effort into preventing this? Supporting parents when

they're in a time of need would be another way. Our government just

does not do that. That is not a priority. There are the things that

are deemed more important. A until that changes, every six hours, a