Daniel Pelka murder: Grandmother blames UK social services over the four-year-old's death

A serious case review will investigate what opportunities to save Daniel were missed

The mother of a woman who battered, abused and systematically starved her son has blamed social services for the four-year-old’s death.

Daniel Pelka was reduced from a happy and bright-eyed boy to a bag of bones before the eyes of his school teachers, health workers and social services in Coventry. A serious case review will investigate what opportunities to save Daniel were missed in a case reminiscent of the failings of authorities in Haringey, London, in the Baby P scandal of 2007.

The trial heard that Magdelena Luczak, 27, and her partner Mariusz Krezolek, 34, starved the boy for months and force-fed him salt during a campaign of physical abuse but convinced authorities that he was suffering from a rare eating disorder.

Luczak’s mother, Jolanta, told Sky News that the UK was “very much at fault” for the death of her grandson. “Social services should work properly there, but they have failed, they have done nothing,” she said.

Coventry North West MP Geoffrey Robinson has called on the head of children’s services in the city to quit and for others to consider their positions.

Just weeks before his death, the boy was sent to school with black eyes and was described as a “bag of bones” who was so weak that he had given up scavenging for food from other children’s lunchboxes and dustbins at the school. He was seen by a paediatrician three weeks before he died who said that he was underweight but not wasted.

Jolanta Luczak also blamed her partner, a former soldier, who was said by his family to have left for Britain because he was wanted in Poland and beat up his sister when she was young.

The couple, who were convicted of murder yesterday at Birmingham Crown Court, are due to be sentenced tomorrow.

Video: Nick Clegg on the 'evil' murder of Daniel Pelka