THE father of a murdered Swansea child has called for more government funding to protect children such as tragic London toddler "Baby P".

Gareth Gilbert says the notorious case of the 17-month-old from Hackney, who died after being abused by his mother and two other men, brought back nightmarish memories of the loss of his own son, Aaron.

The 13-month-year-old baby died at his Townhill home in 2005 after being repeatedly hit by his mother's new lover, Andrew Lloyd, who left him with 50 injuries to his body.

Lloyd, aged 23, at the time of his conviction, is serving 24 years in jail, while Aaron's mother Rebecca Lewis was jailed for six years after creating legal history in the UK by being convicted of familial homicide, because she failed to prevent Lloyd from killing her son.

Meanwhile, Gareth Gilbert says the case of Baby P has reopened raw feelings, as have plans for a memorial walk in his name through Llanelli next weekend.

The 28-year-old said: "Why was there nothing like that down here?

"I don't want to disrespect Baby P in any way at all, but there have been other babies who have lost their lives through abuse and neglect.

"The Government needs to make more money available to protect the welfare of children."

Mr Gilbert, from Gendros, has found some happiness since the loss of his son, with a new relationship.

And 18 months ago he and partner Barbara-Ann celebrated the birth of their son McKenzie.

But despite their joy, Mr Gilbert still suffers from bouts of depression which have hampered his attempts to get back to work.

And he says he wants to know whether Swansea's Safeguarding Children Board, which looked into Aaron's death, have implemented recommendations made after a review of his son's case.

"When my son was murdered it made legal history," he said.

"I would like to find out if anything has changed in Social Services.

"Why was no-one there named and shamed like in Baby P's case?"

A spokesman for Swansea Local Safeguarding Children Board said a serious case review was carried out following the death of Aaron Gilbert, and Mr Gilbert had been invited to a meeting with the board chairman to discuss it.

And he said the agencies involved have since acted on its recommendations.

"All the recommendations have been acted upon and measures have been put in place which include increasing staff numbers and improved oversight of casework," he said.

"The serious case review into Aaron's death was a frank, honest and independent assessment of the involvement of all the agencies involved in the case and the lessons they need to learn.

"It made a number of recommendations for each of the agencies to strengthen safeguards to identify vulnerable children and individuals who pose a risk to them, and this has resulted in measures such as improved procedures on the part of all the agencies.

"But it did also point out that the majority of the circumstances which led to Aaron's death could not have been known or predicted, and that many of the safeguards put in place to identify vulnerable children did work effectively."

Neath Port Talbot Council's head of children and young people's services, Julie Rzezniczek, said: "The Assembly Government has written to all Welsh local authorities requesting them to evaluate the effectiveness of local arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, and to report on this to the Assembly by Monday, February 2.

"We will be complying with this request."

Jake Morgan, head of children's services at Carmarthenshire Council, said: "The council is keen to ensure that all children are protected.

"As a learning organisation, we always look closely at any tragedies such as that of the Baby P case to see if there are any lessons we can learn to further improve our practice.

"Child protection work in Carmarthenshire is generally recognised as of good quality with the Commission for Social Services in Wales recently finding that alongside 'strong leadership and management' of the social work service for children, there was also 'good child protection work with clear outcomes and related service inputs'."

He added: "Carmarthenshire Council is among the best in Wales at recruiting and training social work staff.

"Despite this, our Local Children's Safeguarding board will look specifically at the Baby P case to ensure our services and processes continue to be as robust as they can be in protecting children."