A damning report into the death of tragic four-year-old Daniel Pelka has revealed there were a staggering 27 'missed chances' to save the little boy.
Daniel died after suffering an appalling catalogue of abuse at the hands of his mother Magdalena Luczak, 27, and his stepfather Mariusz Krezolek, 34.
Now, a Serious Case Review into his death reveals that despite being called to his home 27 TIMES, the authorities failed to notice that the little boy was being starved and beaten.
The report highlights how Daniel was so hungry he was forced to scavenge food from school bins and steal from his classmates, yet no one ever queried his home life with him - even when he arrived at school with a black eye, broken arm and looking like 'a bundle of bones'.
The official report said Daniel was 'invisible' to the authorities, and resembled a 'concentration camp victim' because of the treatment from his 'callous and wretched' mother and step-father.
"At no point were practitioners who had contact with him prepared to think the unthinkable and consider that he might be suffering abuse," the case review states.
The Mail reports that the review reveals for the first time that the police visited the violent family home 27 times, and that Daniel's mother was often involved in drunken rows which sometimes involved knives. Despite this, the report says, 'child protection risks in this volatile household were not fully perceived or identified'.
During his short life, Daniel was force-fed salt, tortured and locked in a tiny room. His bed was a soiled mattress.
His teachers were said to have been 'too ready to accept' that his black eyes and broken arm were an accident, and although he weighed just 11kg when he died, and had been seen eating dried beans in the sandpit at school, staff never asked him about his home life.
"With the background of mounting concerns by the school about Daniel's obsession to seek out food, as well as poor growth and possible loss of weight, it was surprising and very concerning that these injuries were not linked to those concerns," the review found.
The report says that Daniel's mother and stepfather 'set out to deliberately harm him and to mislead and deceive professionals about what they were doing' and that his school failed to act even though they had seen a 'pattern of injuries and marks' on him during the four months prior to his death.
The inquiry additionally found that at a paediatric appointment, Daniel's weight loss was not recognised and child abuse was not considered as a 'likely diagnosis for Daniel's problems'.
The review concluded that if 'professionals had used more enquiring minds, and been more focused in their intentions to address concerns, it's likely that Daniel would have been better protected from the people who killed him' but said that ultimately, nobody could have predicted his death.
Luczak and Krezolek, both originally from Poland, were convicted of Daniel's murder earlier this year and are both now serving a minimum of 30 years in prison.