Sensationalism will obscure the point of the Climbié inquiry

If the chief executive of Railtrack had gone before the public inquiry into the Paddington rail crash and denied any responsibility for the disaster there would have been no end of public outrage.

Yet when the former chief executive of Haringey council took exactly this attitude at the inquiry into the tragic fate of Victoria Climbié - the eight-year old girl abused and murdered while in the care of the London borough - there was barely a whiff of interest. Even though the former local authority chief was Gurbux Singh, head of the commission for racial equality.

The contrast between this apparent indifference and last week's blanket coverage of the hysterical testimony of the great aunt who murdered Victoria could not have been more marked.

What's more it highlighted that we are in danger of losing sight of the aims of the inquiry: to discover how the child protection services failed to protect Victoria and recommend how the system should be overhauled to best prevent such tragedies in the future.

It would be disingenuous to suggest that Kouao's lurid disclosures of alleged sexual abuse and her paranoid claims to be the victim of a conspiracy did not offer a more exciting - and accessible - story than the damning but dry revelations of professional incompetence.

Draped in a scarlet shawl, her greying hair tied back tightly from her drawn but severe face, she spat out "I am not a monster" before launching into a heartless attack on Victoria's parents.

But for all its shock value, the killer's ranting and raving told us nothing we didn't already know: that she is unstable and unrepentant.

In contrast, Mr Singh's evidence fundamentally questioned the role of public sector chief executives - if he was not ultimately accountable for the failings of Haringey's child protection staff then who was?

The inquiry team has certainly tried to get across that the impact of its investigations could be as significant as the Macpherson report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

But among the national press only the Guardian and the Independent have regularly devoted substantial column inches to the evidence of the professionals involved in Victoria's case.

This is not surprising given the complexities of the inquiry - and that much of the evidence has been concerned with social services, which many other papers view as a politically correct waste of money for the undeserving.

A cynic might suggest the decision to bring Kouao before the inquiry was based on a desire to re-invigorate the media's interest. Inquiry chairman Lord Laming and his team must have known the killer refused to cooperate at the murder trial - so did they really think she would shed any new light on Victoria's plight?

The lesson of the Alder Hey inquiry into organ retention is that exploiting the media's desire for theatrics and the macabre can result in losing control of the message.

This poses a dilemma to the Climbié inquiry team - without the oxygen of publicity lessons will not be learned but in playing by the media's rules they risk their aims being obscured by sensationalism.

For if the impression we are left with is that Victoria's death was simply down to a madwoman and a bunch of incompetent social workers this would allow those who are paid good wages to take the buck to escape accountability again.