FOR the second time in a couple months Social Services in East Lancashire are setting up an inquiry into the death of a baby.

Both infants were the victims of woefully inadequate parents.

In the latest, dreadful incident the drug-taking parents of an 18-week-old girl from Darwen allowed her to starve to death.

John Howe and his wife, Amanda, both 23, were jailed for the manslaughter of little Tara.

It is an absolute disgrace that a baby so obviously at risk could be allowed to die a lingering death.

It was plain from the moment the mother became pregnant that this couple, heavily hooked on drugs, would face tremendous problems both during the mother's confinement and after the baby was born.

Social Services must surely have been well aware of this.

One of the baby's grandmothers said she was disgusted that the little girl was never put on the at-risk register, and added that Social Services had to take some of the blame for what happened.

She is right. How, in this day and age, that could happen is beyond us. No baby was ever more at risk than this one. She was born well below normal weight and was suffering from drug withdrawal at birth. Her parents were known to take drugs.

If Social Services had done its job the child would be alive today and a young couple would not be in prison.

Lancashire Social Services and Communicare NHS Trust say their "detailed review" of the case, which started following Tara's death, can now be completed. This comes hard on the heels of another joint agency review of the management of a case in which a five-month-old Burnley baby died at the hands of his parents.

When babies die in such terrible circumstances we need more than some mealy mouthed statement at the end of a so-called review.

We must have a full public airing of exactly what went wrong. We need to know who was to blame. And we need to know what positive steps are being taken to ensure that such tragedies are never repeated.

For this to happen once is once too often. For it to happen twice in the space of a few months is an absolute scandal.

Social Services and Communicare NHS Trust must not be allowed to sweep the details under the carpet.

We wonder whether the MP for the area, Janet Anderson, feels the same and whether she will be demanding to know what really went wrong?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.