Many more UK children need to be taken into care at birth to stop them being damaged beyond repair by inadequate parents, the chief executive of the children's charity Barnardo's has told the Observer.
Martin Narey called for less effort to be directed at "fixing families that can't be fixed" and for social workers to be braver about removing children at risk .
After revelations about the neglect and dysfunctional background of two young brothers from Doncaster who viciously attacked an 11-year-old boy and his nine-year-old nephew, social workers have once again come under fire for failing to intervene at an early stage.