The mother of Baby P, who died after months of abuse, will today be forced to finally give answers of her son’s death as she makes a fresh bid for freedom.
Tracey Connelly, 44, is facing a two-day public parole hearing after being put back behind bars last year for breaking her licence conditions.
She was handed an indefinite sentence with a minimum term of five years in 2009 after covering up horrific injuries inflicted on her 17-month-old son, Peter, by her sadistic lover.
Known as Baby P, the toddler was found dead in a blood-splattered cot at his home in Tottenham, north London on August 3, 2007 after sustaining more than 50 injuries, including a snapped spine and eight broken ribs.
Connelly has always refused to speak about Baby P’s horrific injuries and letting him die in her care at home in Tottenham, north London in August 2007.
She will be questioned by a three-person parole panel guided by experts – including psychologists – via video link from prison today and on Thursday at a hearing held at the International Dispute and Resolution Centre in London.
Connelly is not expected to be seen in the video link but will give evidence and answer questions in real time to the panel.
Peter Connelly, known publicly as Baby P, suffered more than 50 injuries, despite being on the at-risk register and receiving 60 visits from social workers, police officers and health professionals over eight months.
This will be the first review since Connelly was recalled to prison for a second time in August last year for breaching her licence conditions. Her recall was exclusively revealed by the Daily Mail.
Following normal parole rules, she was referred to the Parole Board within 28-days so it could decide whether she was properly recalled to prison.
Tracey Connelly (pictured), 44, will face a two day public parole hearing after being put back behind bars for breaking the conditions of her release
The wounds Peter (pictured) suffered included a broken back, broken ribs, mutilated fingertips, and missing fingernails
They have the power to order her re-release straight away or reject the appeal – which could keep her behind bars for up to two more years.
As Connelly is serving an indefinite sentence, it will be a matter for the Board to decide if she is ever released again. In total, this is her fifth parole hearing.
Parole hearings are usually held in private, but a judge approved applications for Connelly’s review to be heard in public, concluding ‘there can be no doubt that there is a substantial public interest’ in the case.
Connelly will claim that a decision to recall her to prison was an overreaction and that the breaches of licence conditions were minimal. Her lawyers will insist she is no longer a danger to the public.
The twisted mother was first recalled to prison in 2015 after selling nude photos online – and then recalled to prison just over two years after last being released.
She was subject to 20 licence conditions, including having to wear an electronic tag and disclose all her relationships, having her Internet use monitored and obey a curfew.
She was also banned from going to certain places to ‘avoid contact with victims and to protect children’.
Barker’s brother, Jason Owen, (pictured) received a six-year jail sentence for allowing the toddler to die
Connelly sought, alongside her lover Steven Barker (pictured) and his brother Jason Owen, to cover up the injuries inflicted on the youngster – missed by social service and health workers
In March 2022, the Parole Board announced she had been cleared for release after a panel concluded she posed a low risk of reoffending.
But then it emerged that Connelly had formed a clandestine ‘intimate’ relationship behind bars with another prisoner known only as X whom she told: ‘(I am) crazy about you … I madly love you.’
When Connelly admitted the fling in June 2021, officials banned contact between the pair.
But 10 days later Connelly tried to pass her lover a secret letter under the cell door in breach of prison rules.
She was released again in July 2022 but was recalled in August 2024 when it emerged that she had developed a secret intimate relationship with a man she met online which she hid from probation staff.
Previous Parole Board reports heard that the manipulative mother was too pre-occupied with sex to think about her son.
During her most recent release, Connelly is understood to have reinvented herself as a weight loss guru. Using a fake name, she signed up to Weight Watchers as a reality TV fan – detailing her journey after she previously ballooned to 20 stone in jail.
The evil mum posted updates – including gym snaps – under the name ‘Connie’ in a warped bid to make friends without revealing her vile past. Pictures also showed her reading birthday cards as she held aloft bottles of Prosecco and enjoying fry-ups.
Baby P’s brutal killing in 2007 shocked the nation after it emerged there were 60 missed opportunities to save him.
Connelly was sentenced to an indefinite sentence after covering up the injuries inflicted upon her son. She pleaded guilty to causing or allowing the death of a child in 2008.
Connelly’s lover Steven Barker was jailed in 2009 for a minimum of 12 years for torturing Peter to death, while his brother, Jason Owen, received a six year jail sentence for allowing the toddler to die.
Barker remains in prison. Owen was released in 2011 but returned to prison in 2013 and has subsequently been re-released.
The tragic toddler’s mother was first released in 2013 but was recalled to prison two years later after cashing in on her notoriety with twisted male fans by selling naked photos of herself online.
Connelly was put back behind bars for breaching the conditions of her parole that forbade her from ‘developing intimate personal relationships’ on the internet.
She was released again in July 2022, moved from HM Prison Low Newton in County Durham to a bail hostel in a secret location to begin her life anew.
The then-justice secretary Dominic Raab had sought to prevent her from being released but months later the Daily Mail pictured Connelly walking down the street, enjoying her freedom, hiding behind a face mask.
By then, her weight had ballooned to 20 stone, prompting her own mother to comment to The Sun: ‘Look at her — look at the state of her. She’s got so fat. She looks disgusting.
‘She is wearing the mask because she doesn’t want anyone to recognise her. It makes me feel sick looking at these photos. I don’t know how she can live her life like normal.’
Over the next two days, Connelly will argue that she is suitable for conditional release.
Chair of the parole board panel, Sally Allbeury said that Connelly asked to be called ‘Tracey’ for the hearing.
Today, the hearing was told that she has worked as an orderly in prison on a separation unit in recent years.
A prison offender manager said Connelly had ‘formed friendships with a small group’ of prisoners, but none of them were sexual.
The manager said she had a ‘fear of being judged’.
Connelly has been subjected to constant abuse and threats from other prisoners behind bars, the hearing was told.
The prisoner was said to suffer from ‘fleeting’ thoughts of suicide and has some ‘interpersonal problems’.
Ms Allbeury said Connelly has been diagnosed with ‘various personality disorders’, adding she ’has had a lot of therapy but she keeps on making the same mistakes’.
The chair said the panel had heard ‘extremely moving’ victim statements from Peter’s family.
She said: ‘Those statements told the panel about the ongoing impact on the authors’ of Peter’s death and their concerns about Ms Connelly’s potential release.
‘Each one has also requested in the event of Ms Connelly’s release that certain conditions be put in place to protect them.
‘We found these statements extremely moving.
‘There can be no doubt that Peter’s death has caused lifelong harm to those who loved him.”
Connelly has told the panel that she does not wish to be released without any conditions.
The Justice Secretary opposes her release, saying she is not suitable to be freed.
Panel members for Connelly’s review will assess her risk in whether to release her from prison or recommend a transfer to open prison conditions.
Connelly was reported to have previously befriended child killer Helen Cauldwell, who throttled her own daughter to death with a Piglet toy, at the halfway house in the north of England.
In the aftermath of Peter’s death, it emerged he had been tortured over a long period despite being on the at-risk register and receiving 60 visits from social workers, police officers and health professionals over eight months.
The failure by social workers and doctors to properly raise the alarm over the youngster’s abuse led to the head of children’s services at Haringey council being removed from her position.
