Probes into young brothers' deaths
Investigations are under way after the deaths of two young boys intensified the scrutiny on child protection in Britain.
Manchester City Council is reviewing how troubled young mother Jael Mullings, 21, who is feared to have stabbed her children to death, no longer had a social worker to help her family although they were known to social services.
And police involvement was also being examined after it was revealed that officers had called at the house just hours before the brothers were killed.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission said that it was launching an investigation hours after Manchester City Council announced that it was also reviewing social services' involvement in the tragedy.
Ms Mullings was arrested on suspicion of killing her boys, Romario Mullings-Sewell, two, and his three-month-old brother Delayno, on Wednesday afternoon.
Both boys, described as "gorgeous" and "beautiful", were stabbed in the stomach and found dead at the family home in Cheetham Hill, Manchester. Their mother has been sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
The boys' deaths come in the aftermath of a child protection scandal in London involving Baby P, prompting another investigation ordered by Children's Minister Ed Balls and Haringey Council issuing an apology.
The Mullings family did previously have a social worker. But this arrangement ended at some point before the children died, according to a spokeswoman for social services at Manchester City Council.
The council said that, as an investigation had begun, it was "not appropriate" to explain why and when contact was ended with social workers or say when the family were last seen by social services.
The council declined to answer further questions, but the local authority confirmed the family were not currently on the "at risk" child protection register and released a statement saying that, while they were known to the council's children's services, they were not "currently involved" with them.
