Climbie's mother feels betrayed by child deaths

The mother of Victoria Climbie today said lessons over the death of her daughter had not been learned.

The eight-year-old's horrific death in 2000 led to a public inquiry which produced 100 recommendations for reform.

Victoria was sent to Europe from the Ivory Coast by her parents, who hoped she would gain a better education. But she was starved, beaten with coat hangers and bicycle chains, bound naked and kept prisoner in a freezing bathroom in a squalid flat in Haringey, east London.

Marie-Therese Kouao, Victoria's great aunt, and her lover Carl Manning were convicted of murder and child cruelty in January 2001 and jailed for life.

Speaking to the BBC today via a translator, Victoria's mother, Berthe, said deaths of other children in similar circumstances showed nothing had changed.

She said: "I am still learning that other children are still dying. We see the same sort of tragedies here as the things that happened to the little one."

She said she felt "betrayed" by local authorities for not fully implementing recommendations made by Lord Laming, who chaired the inquiry. She said: "They gave their word but they did not live up to their responsibilities."

Mrs Climbie's comments came as the mother of seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq appeared at Birmingham crown court via video link accused of "causing or allowing" her death. Angela Gordon, 33, and her partner Junaid Abuhamza, 29, are both accused after Khyra is alleged to have starved to death.