WE hear a lot of common soundbites in the newspaper game. Granted, most come from the mouths of footballers and other sports people. The ones more commonly known as clichés.

In the news business, one that gets bounded around like confetti is 'lessons must be learned'. In the serious case review of Rebe Berry, outlined in this newspaper today, that doesn't go anywhere near far enough. But then why am I surprised?

Rebe's case was a complex one, like so many others involving children's mental health. You know the ones. The ones where other children have been failed by the agencies put in place to help them. The ones where 'lessons must be learned'.

And yet we always seem to come back to another case like Rebe's, despite all the serious case reviews, reports and inquiries into deaths of children that have gone before. And then another. And another.

Lessons are not being learned. Not at all.

For the PR machines, those in the public sector in particular, phrases like this are otherwise translated as "give the newspaper cretins something to keep them happy and the problem will go away".

It means nothing, for we will be writing stories of tragedy caused by the incompetence of health bodies, social services and the like until the day newsprint runs out. They never learn.

In between the grieving, Rebe's parents have probably reflected on the 15 years they had with their adopted daughter. They will have asked themselves many questions. Could we have done better? What if we had dealt with that moment differently? They will see with their own eyes the focus today's serious case review has placed on them as parents.

Parenting is a learning process, but with a distinct difference. Most parents do learn from their mistakes. And we get better at the job through doing so.

I've made dozens of mistakes as a father and have often painstakingly questioned myself over things I felt I could have handled better when it comes to my own kids, neither of whom have had to cope with the kind of distress and trauma that engulfed Rebe's short life.

Any mistakes Rebe's parents may feel they made during their daughter's life cannot now be put right through this learning process. Their daughter is gone. They are left with those unanswered questions for the rest of their lives.

Dorset County Council, which is responsible for social services and Rebe's school, QE, and Dorset HealthCare, which is responsible for the CAMHS mental health services team, also face unanswered questions. Questions they could answer, but refused to when contacted by this newspaper.

So while we are all promised 'lessons must be learned' and 'will be learned', what we can really expect, somewhere in the UK in the future, is another incomprehensible failing of a young person by a body, or bodies, put in place to help them.

And another insulting soundbite to start the whole utterly shameful process all over again.