When Child Protection Meets Columbo
The rain drummed against the windows of Middleshire Children's Services as Detective Lieutenant Columbo fumbled with his visitor's badge. He'd been seconded from the LAPD as part of some exchange programme nobody quite understood, and here he was, temporarily working as a therapeutic specialist with British families.
"Right then, Mr Columbo," said Mabel Longrug, the team manager, sliding a thick file across the desk. "We've got a Section 47 for you. Possible fabricated illness case."
"Section 47?" Columbo scratched his head, his raincoat still dripping slightly onto the carpet.
"Child protection investigation. Most serious level. We think the mother might be making her son ill, or pretending he's ill. Keeping him from school."
"Oh, that's terrible. Just terrible." Columbo opened the file, squinting at the papers. "Thirteen-year-old boy... missed forty-three days this year... that's a lot of school."
"Attendance is only 68%. He presents with stomach pains, headaches, nausea - particularly bad on school mornings. GP can't find anything wrong with him."
"Convenient, these morning illnesses," said Mabel, her tone meaningful.
"Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean." Columbo nodded slowly. "And the mother, she keeps him home?"
"Every time. Phones in, says he's unwell. Classic FII pattern - Fabricated or Induced Illness. Used to call it Munchausen by Proxy."
Columbo pulled out a small notebook, already crumpled despite being new. "What about the father? Is he in the picture?"
"Mr Darren Hitcat died when Oliver was two," Mabel said flatly. "Tragic incident. Safari holiday with old school friends in Kenya. Attacked by a pride of lions."
"Lions?" Columbo paused, pen hovering. "That's... that's terrible."
"Indeed. The Hitcats have had their share of tragedy."
"Right, right." Columbo made a note. "The school must be worried."
"Extremely. The boy never completes homework, misses deadlines constantly. When teachers ask, his explanations don't add up. Vague stories about being ill, losing track of things. Sounds coached, according to the designated safeguarding lead."
"Designated safeguarding...?"
"DSL. Every British school has one. Person responsible for child protection matters."
"Right, right. We don't have those in LA. Well, not exactly." Columbo stood up, then paused. "Oh, just one thing - this mother, what's she like?"
Mabel consulted her notes. "Defensive when challenged. Insists the symptoms are real. Middle-class, intelligent, articulate. Often are in these cases. They think they can talk their way around professionals."
The house in Lower Middlington was tidy, comfortable. Books on shelves, family photos on the mantle. Mrs Hitcat answered the door, her son Oliver hovering behind her.
"Mrs Hitcat, I'm Lieutenant Columbo. Well, actually, here I'm working as a family therapist, but the Lieutenant thing, that's from back home..."
"Would you like some tea?" she asked, her voice tight with barely controlled anxiety.
"Oh, that'd be wonderful. My wife, she's always on at me about drinking too much coffee. Says tea's better for you. Course, she's not here, she's back in LA, but..."
As Mrs Hitcat made tea, Columbo observed. She didn't hover over Oliver, didn't answer for him. The boy sat separately, tired-looking but not cowed. Columbo pulled out his notebook, dropped it, picked it up again.
"So, Oliver, tell me about school."
"I... I try to go. I want to go. But mornings are hard."
"The pain?" Columbo asked gently.
"It's real," Oliver said firmly. "My stomach really hurts. And my head. Mum doesn't make me stay home. She sees I'm ill."
Mrs Hitcat returned with tea. "They think I'm making him ill. I'm not. Something's wrong, but nobody will listen."
"Oh, I'm listening, ma'am. That's my job. Well, one of my jobs. The other one's solving murders, but here it's mostly listening."
The student support room at St Bartholemew's Academie was small, institutional. Oliver sat across from Columbo, more relaxed away from home.
"Nice room," Columbo said, looking around. "Quiet. Must be good to get out of classes sometimes."
Oliver shifted uncomfortably. "I'm missing maths right now."
"You worried about that?"
"I'm always behind. Always catching up."
They talked for forty minutes. School, home, the mysterious morning illnesses. Columbo noticed the analogue clock on the wall, its hands creeping toward the hour.
"Well, I guess we should wrap this up. You'll need to get back to... what class is next?"
Oliver looked blank. "I... what time is it?"
"Coming up to two o'clock. That clock right there."
Oliver glanced at it, then away. "I can't read those clocks. The ones with hands."
"Oh, me neither sometimes. My wife bought me a digital watch, see?" Columbo showed his wrist. "But hey, you must know we've been talking for a while?"
"Have we?"
Something in the boy's confusion made Columbo pause. He pulled out his notebook, pretended to check something, watching Oliver from the corner of his eye.
"How long would you say we've been here? Just roughly?"
"I don't know. Ten minutes? An hour? I can't tell."
Columbo visited the Hitcats again the next day.
"Mrs Hitcat, can I ask you something? Does Oliver have trouble with time at home?"
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well, like, does he know when to do things? Homework and such?"
"He..." she paused, thinking. "He says he'll do it after he's relaxed a bit. Plays his Xbox. Then suddenly it's bedtime and nothing's done. I thought he was just being lazy."
"This Xbox," Columbo scratched his head, "how long does he play?"
"I don't know. He goes to his room after school, I call him for dinner..."
"Does he seem surprised when you call him?"
"Actually, yes. Always says he's only just started playing."
"Huh." Columbo made a note. "You know, my wife, she gets absorbed in her painting. Loses track of time. But when I tell her it's been three hours, she believes me. Does Oliver believe you?"
"He... he seems genuinely confused. Argues it can't have been that long."
"Mrs Hitcat, I want to try something. You got any cookie dough? The kind you bake?"
She looked bewildered. "I think so?"
"Oliver!" Columbo called. "Want to help me make cookies?"
"Okay, Oliver," Columbo said, reading the package. "Says here bake for twelve minutes. Now, that's important. Too short, they're raw. Too long, they burn."
"Okay."
"So we put them in... now. How will we know when twelve minutes is up?"
"The timer?"
"Sure, but without the timer. How long is twelve minutes?"
Oliver looked uncomfortable. "I don't know."
"Like, is it longer than a song? Shorter than a TV show?"
"I... I don't know how long songs are either."
Columbo put the cookies in anyway, set the timer. "Tell you what, you tell me when you think twelve minutes is up."
They sat at the kitchen table. Mrs Hitcat watched from the doorway. After three minutes, Oliver said, "Now?"
"Not yet."
After another two minutes: "Must be now?"
"Still waiting."
By six minutes, Oliver was agitated. "It feels like forever."
"Halfway there."
When the timer finally rang at twelve minutes, Oliver looked shocked. "That was twelve minutes? But it felt like... like an hour."
Back at Children's Services, Columbo spread his notes across Mabel's desk.
"So here's the thing," he said, raincoat draped over the chair. "This boy, he's not being coached. He's not lying. He's got no internal clock."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean he can't tell if five minutes have passed or fifty. When he plays that Xbox after school, he genuinely doesn't know if it's been twenty minutes or three hours. When a teacher says 'spend fifteen minutes on this,' he's got no idea what that means."
Mabel frowned. "But that would mean..."
"Every day at school is like navigating blind. Never knowing if you're taking too long, going too fast. That'd make anyone anxious, right? Stomach aches, headaches - that's real stress, real symptoms."
"The homework..."
"He means to do it. But 'later' never comes because he can't feel time passing. His mum calls dinner, he's surprised. Goes back to the Xbox meaning to do homework after 'one more game,' but suddenly he's tired and it's bedtime."
"Temporal processing disorder?"
"That's what the educational psychologist will probably call it. Point is, it's not abuse. It's neurology."
Columbo stood in the Hitcat's living room one last time.
"So here's what we're going to do," he said, notebook in hand. "Oliver needs to learn to use external time markers. Clocks, timers, alarms."
"That's it?" Mrs Hitcat asked.
"Well, no. School needs to help. Instead of saying 'fifteen minutes,' they give him concrete goals. 'Write five sentences.' 'Complete ten problems.' Things he can see and count."
"And the Xbox?" Oliver asked anxiously.
"Timer on your phone. When it goes off, homework time. Another timer for homework. Make time visible, you know?"
"This whole investigation," Mrs Hitcat's voice shook. "They thought I was..."
"I know, ma'am. I know. But here's the thing - the school, they were doing their job. They saw a pattern that usually means something bad. They couldn't see what we can see now."
He turned to Oliver. "You're going to need to work on this. Reading clocks, using timers, doing activities where time matters. Baking's good - cookies burn if you don't watch the time. Music too - songs have definite lengths."
"Will I ever... be normal?"
"Oh, Oliver." Columbo smiled. "My wife says I've got no sense of direction. Can't find my way out of a paper bag. But I use maps, ask for help, found ways around it. You'll find ways around this."
Re: Hitcat Family - Section 47 Investigation
Findings: No evidence of Fabricated or Induced Illness. Child presents with temporal processing difficulties resulting in chronic anxiety and somatic symptoms. School absence is consequence of genuine stress response, not parental fabrication.
Recommendations:
Note: This case reminds me of something my wife always says - "Things aren't always what they seem." Though she's usually talking about her sister's cooking.
The real mystery here wasn't what the mother was doing to her son, but what his brain wasn't doing for him. Sometimes the best investigations reveal not crimes, but conditions. Not villains, but variations.
Case closed.
Mabel read the report twice. "Columbo?"
He paused at her office door, raincoat half on. "Ma'am?"
"Good catch. We could have destroyed that family."
"Oh, well, you know. Sometimes you just gotta notice when something doesn't fit. Speaking of which, have you seen my pen? I'm always losing... oh, here it is."
He shambled out, leaving Mabel shaking her head. Three months he'd been here, solving cases everyone else had misread. The exchange programme ended next week, and Middleshire Children's Services would miss their rumpled detective who saw what others couldn't.
In Lower Middlington, Oliver Hitcat was learning to read a clock.
From the Repositorium: When Child Protection Meets Columbo
An exploration of how careful observation can reveal truth behind concerning patterns
While Columbo is fictional, temporal processing difficulties are very real. This neurological variation affects how the brain perceives and tracks the passage of time, with profound implications for daily functioning (Allman & Meck, 2012).
Time perception involves multiple brain regions working in concert (Wittmann, 2013):
The Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN): Located in the hypothalamus, this acts as our master biological clock, regulating circadian rhythms. However, it doesn't help us judge whether five minutes or fifty have passed.
The Basal Ganglia and Cerebellum: These structures help track intervals in the seconds-to-minutes range. The basal ganglia particularly involves dopamine pathways - disruptions here can affect temporal judgement (Rubia et al., 2009).
The Prefrontal and Parietal Cortices: Essential for conscious time estimation and temporal sequencing. The right posterior parietal cortex specifically processes duration judgements.
The Hippocampus: While primarily associated with memory, it's crucial for temporal ordering of events and understanding temporal context (Droit-Volet & Zélanti, 2013).
Temporal processing difficulties can arise from:
Research by Toplak et al. (2006) suggests 20-30% of children with ADHD show significant temporal processing deficits. They consistently underestimate time intervals and struggle with tasks requiring temporal organisation. Adults with temporal processing difficulties may have developed compensatory strategies over years, though many continue to struggle silently, having internalised their challenges as personal failings rather than neurological differences (Barkley, 2015).
Without reliable temporal processing, as Mioni et al. (2016) demonstrate:
Research supports several approaches (NICE, 2019):
External Scaffolding:
Skill Development:
Educational Adaptations:
This case illustrates why safeguarding professionals need awareness of neurodevelopmental variations. The presentation perfectly mimicked fabricated illness (RCPCH, 2021):
Yet the underlying cause was neurological, not abusive. This highlights the need for:
As the Department for Education's (2024) guidance emphasises, safeguarding requires professional curiosity and multi-disciplinary thinking - exactly what Columbo demonstrated in this case.