Family of murdered County Durham toddler petitioning for new safeguarding system
Two year-old Maya Chappell died in 2022
There are calls for a new safeguarding system for children by the family of a murdered County Durham toddler.
Two year-old Maya Chappell was shaken to death three years ago by her mum's partner at the time.
Now the toddler's family has started a petition which could see information shared of carers with violent histories of at-risk children and holding professionals to account.
Her great-aunt Gemma Chappell is campaigning for Maya's Law.
She said: "Children are still being killed every week somtimes and that's why we need this in place.
"We sat and went 'right OK. Let's see where these gaps are that are allowing these children, not just Maya, but many children be killed at the hands of people that should've been there to safeguard her, should have been saving her and protecting her in such a way that she hasn't come to harm.'
"We looked at the lessons and said 'there's gaps here, there's grey areas that are allowing these children to fall through' and that's when we looked at Sarah's Law for sexual abuse and Clare's Law specifically for domestic abuse, we need something in the middle to close that gap to protect children that are being abused and neglected.
"There's mechanisms there to protect children that are being abused and being neglected but we need it to be strengthened. We need this gap to be closed and Maya's Law would do that. It would strengthen services to act out rather than not doing anything about it. It would hold them accountable.
"It's difficult and look we're not going to stop every single one but if we can get this in place and ensure that there's somewhere to go for children and adults to say what mechanism can help us? who can help us? where can we go to feel safe? and they have that safe space, then we're winning at life and we can help some people.
"We're not just talking about signatures here, we're talking about children's lives and these signatures are their voices; that's what those signatures are so when you're signing, you're giving these children that have gone through it and lost their lives and that are still going through it, a voice and allowing them to say 'we're here, we're loud and we need a voice in Parliament'.
"Let's give these children a voice. Let's get their voices into Parliament and let Parliament see their voices, hear their voices and show what's going on in our communities and that's the most important thing about this."