THE authorities could not have foreseen or prevented the abuse suffered by a Wirral toddler who was murdered by his step-dad, a review has found.

A Serious Case Review (SCR) into the death of two-year-old Teddy Tilston, referred to in the report as Child I, who was killed by his mother’s partner, Craig Mathew Smith, found there were “no opportunities missed” by public services.

Last year, Smith, who was 28 at the time of sentencing, was jailed for life at Liverpool Crown Court, and ordered to serve a minimum of 17 years after he was found to have beaten the toddler to death.

According to the SCR, which called the case “deeply tragic”, Teddy was found to have had 65 “unusual” external injuries, and “catastrophic” internal bleeding in his abdomen.

Teddy’s mother Ashleigh Willett, 25 at the time of sentencing, was convicted of child cruelty after failing to seek medical assistance for Teddy and his twin sister Cassidy. She avoided prison and was given a suspended 12-month sentence.

The review, which also included another child, Child J, examined whether opportunities for services to intervene were missed, if adequate services were available to the family and whether the abuse suffered by the two children could have been prevented.

Dr Maggie Atkinson, chair of Wirral’s Safeguarding Children Board (WSCB), which carried out the SCR, said: “This is a deeply tragic situation and on behalf of the members of WSCB I offer my sincerest sympathies to the family of these children, to those who loved and cared about them.

“This was a family that was deemed to be doing well, with clean, happy and engaging children. There was no history of abuse or neglect in the family and there were no indications of vulnerabilities that would have set them apart from any other families in the community.

“The review of this case found that the children and the family were not known to local services and that based on the information available at the time, there was no evidence that chances to intervene were missed.”

She said the emergency services and health care staff involved “as this awful tragedy unfolded”, responded with “great professionalism and appropriate actions”.

She added: “Social care workers acted quickly to take the surviving two children into foster care immediately.

“All the borough’s services have since worked steadfastly together to share and further reinforce best practice, as the report makes very clear.

“Fundamentally, the review found there were no opportunities missed and it was not possible that professionals could reasonably have foreseen or prevented the abuse suffered by Child I or Child J.”

In its recommendations, the SCR said the current information-sharing protocol should be “reviewed and revised as necessary” to ensure “robust, ethical and effective sharing of information when professionals make enquiries to children’s social care about named children”.

It added: “The purpose of such protocol would be to maximise the likelihood that potential indicators of harm are identified and acted on while having regard to the rights of parents to privacy, where no safeguarding risk exists.”

Responding to the news, Wirral council’s cabinet member for children and families, Cllr Bernie Mooney, said: “This is a case which is beyond heartbreaking. No child should be unsafe at home with their family and for a small child to lose their life at the hands of someone who should be caring for them, nurturing them and raising them is devastating.

“It is a very difficult situation when tragedies occur in families such as this, where there have been no previous indications of what dreadful events were to follow.

“My thoughts are with the siblings and all the loving family members of these children.”

On Thursday, it was revealed Smith, who lived with Willett at their family home in Woodville Road, Birkenhead, failed to convince senior judges his trial was unfair.

At London’s Appeal Court this week, he had argued his conviction was “unsafe” and should be overturned.

Lawyers for Smith argued that the statement and evidence about his fits of temper should never have been heard by jurors during the trial last year.

But, throwing out his challenge, Sir Brian Leveson said the trial judge had rightly allowed jurors to hear the crucial evidence.