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Mother of Baby P was thanked for her honesty

Joe Sinclair,Press Association
Monday 13 December 2010 01:00 GMT
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A senior social worker thanks the mother of Baby P for being "completely honest" during an interview taken four months before his death which will be broadcast for the first time tonight.

Sue Gilmore appears to accept readily Tracey Connelly's explanation that the child "banged his chin" when he "caught himself on the table".

And when Connelly says she wishes social workers would "back off and leave me alone", Gilmore says this is a "straightforward thing to want". The 17-month-old boy, now named as Peter Connelly, died at the hands of his mother, her sadistic boyfriend, Steven Barker, and Barker's brother Jason Owen, in August 2007.

All three were subsequently jailed for causing or allowing his death.

Peter had suffered more than 50 injuries despite receiving 60 visits from social workers, doctors and police at his home in Tottenham, north London, over an eight-month period.

BBC's Panorama uncovered the filmed interview last year and will show the footage for the first time tonight.

Ms Gilmore, the senior team manager overseeing the case at Haringey Council, recorded the hour-long video with Connelly as part of a course she was doing in "brief solution therapy".

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