Britain's Prime Minister promised to examine the country's system for protecting children yesterday after a man was jailed for the repeated rape of his two daughters during more than two decades of abuse.
The case, which sparked comparisons with Josef Fritzl, the Austrian who imprisoned and raped his daughter for 24 years, has alarmed the nation. It comes barely two weeks after a mother and two men were found guilty of causing the death of the woman's 17-month-old boy following horrific abuse.
A court in Sheffield, northern England, heard that the 56-year-old father abused his daughters for 25 years and fathered nine children by them. He escaped the glare of the authorities by frequently moving his family.
He was jailed for life on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised urgent investigations into what he called "unspeakable" abuse.
"People will rightly want to know how such abuse could go on for so long without the authorities, and the wider public services, discovering it and taking action," Mr Brown said.
"If there is a change to be made in the system, and the system has failed, then we will change the system," he told Parliament.
The incest case, which is subject to strict reporting restrictions to protect the identity of his daughters, followed the conviction of a mother, her boyfriend and their lodger for causing the death of "Baby P".
The toddler was battered, beaten and died despite repeated visits from local authorities responsible for child welfare.
"Baby P and the Sheffield father are just the tip of an iceberg of abuse and neglect, which needs now to be addressed strategically by government," said Graham Allen, a member of parliament for the ruling Labour Party.
Details of the miserable life of Baby P shocked Britons all the more because he was under the watch of Haringey social services, the same London council that was exposed five years ago as failing in one of Britain's worst child abuse cases.
Baby P suffered more than 40 injuries, including a broken back, before he died in August last year, despite being on the council's "at risk" register and having been visited 60 times.