Outraged judge lays into child welfare workers at sentencing in toddler beating death

After excoriating Adams County social services for its botched effort to protect the child, a judge on Thursday sentenced Donald Scarlett to 42 years in prison for beating a toddler to death.

Scarlett, 33, had initially been charged with murder for killing 22-month-old Michael Ryan Harris, but a jury found him guilty of child abuse resulting in death. He faced up to 48 years in prison.

Michael, who died Feb.

I have seven amazing children ages fourteen through to three (five are boys and two are girls)… That I Love so much,

Sorry for any miss spelling,.. I did quit school to raise my kids.. so that I can give them the life I never had..This all started years back for me lots of corruption.. I was taken off my mom an placed in a foster home because I was drinking.. yes it made me straighten my act up…

They where going to leave my kids with my mom but I cried an cried an begged for them to come with me.. They only allowed for me to take one of them.. which one where only a few months old an the

Their children were taken but no reasons were given

"They came and got them and took them and we had no say."

It's been half a century since Donald and Sylvia Collard's children were taken away from them but the couple from Kondinin in WA's Wheatbelt still don't understand why.

"That's what we're going to court for," Mr Collard said.

"We hope they can answer some of these things."

The Collards and seven of their children are behind WA's first stolen generation claim for damages against the State Government, currently

Child Protective Services is falling down on providing supervised parental visits and other critical services, private agencies hired by the state to provide those services say.

But CPS denies that's the case.

CPS announced it was cutting funding for supervised visits and parent assistance in December due to a $35 million budget shortfall, but reversed the decision a few weeks later in response to public opposition.

Flora Sotomayor, assistant CPS director, said during that time caseworkers were paid overtime to oversee court-ordered parental visits, and no families missed any visits.

But