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Written warnings but no sackings over boy’s death
Martin Bentham, Home Affairs Editor11 Nov 2008
TWO Haringey social workers and a lawyer have been given written warnings over their role in the death of Baby P but no council employee will be sacked, it emerged today.
The decision follows a Serious Case Review by Haringey Council, which found that just over a week before the toddler died legal advice was given that the “threshold for initiating care proceedings had not been met”.
That meant that a police appeal for the child not to be handed back to the mother was over-ruled by Haringey social services and other agencies involved in the boy's care.
Despite the error and other failings by Haringey staff, today's review also found that there had been “numerous examples of good practice” by those involved in protecting the child.
Instead, it pinned much of the blame on Dr Sabah Alzayyat, a paediatrician at Tottenham's St Ann's hospital, who failed to spot injuries on the boy two days before he died. Her contract has not been renewed.
Critics reacted angrily to the council's failure to act more robustly.
Mor Dioum, the director of the Victoria Climbié Foundation, claimed that its verdict was “biased and inaccurate” and insisted that all the agencies involved in Baby P's care bore responsibility for his death.
Announcing today's decision, Sharon Shoesmith, the chairwoman of the Haringey Local Safeguarding Children Board, confirmed that two social workers and a lawyer had received warnings, but said that there would be no resignations or sackings over the affair. She defended social services and insisted the council had learned lessons from the Victoria Climbié tragedy in 2000, for which it was heavily criticised.
Offering her condolences to the victim's family, she added: “This was a young life cut tragically short and our thoughts are with his father and family. We worked hard to support the family — social workers, health visitors, doctors and nurses all saw him and his mother regularly.
“We made arrangements to protect him, monitoring his progress, and organised for the mother to go on a parenting course. We arranged for a family friend to help with his care, a childminder to look after him four days a week and report any suspicious injuries. The mother seemed to be co-operating with us: taking the child to doctors when he was ill, seeking help.”
The serious case review, the findings of which have been only partially published, makes a number of recommendations for the future, including ensuring that arrangements are in place for the medical monitoring of the medical history of a child on the at risk register.
Reader views (5)
If Nevres Kemal is the same Nevi I worked with in Islington Social Services in the '80s, my heart goes out to her. This was the first job for both of us.
Events arising from the closure of the Highbury Grove home put us in the same position. An ongoing situation there led to a disastrous event that saw the home closed and the kids disbanded within a 24-hour period that had me running back and fro mediating between the kids in the home and the leaders of Islington Social Services (under Margeret Hodge's watch)in the Neighborhood Office across the road. LBI forbade us from discussing the events, from talking to the kids and held a closed inquiry.
Other than the entire line management, only Nevi and I emerged unscathed. Offered a new position in another home, that Superintendent told me none of the Borough's superintendents had been offered an explanation about what happened.
(Ironically, I was exonerated on the grounds I wasn't on shift and I was inexperienced DESPITE the fact I was left to mediate a riot situation single-handedly.)
The experience left me completely distrustful of the calibre of people who constitute the line management of those organisations (not the field workers, you understand).
- James D, Cardiff, UK, 15/11/2008 12:51
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I am revolted and disgusted that a baby should be treated this way, even though this case was known to Police and Social Services. Those involved in Social Services should be sacked. What is wrong with your legal system that these animals would only be given fourteen years for the murder of a child. I am a British and Australian citizen.
- Mrs P. Whitford, Kilcunda, Victoria, Australia, 12/11/2008 00:34
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the murder of this child to the hands of those demons has shocked us and hopefully to all that hear of it,
What angers me is the sheer incompitance of the so called profesionals that mishandeled this case, seems to me if these poeple had a fraction of common sense and less of shuffling papers this child and others would be
still alive,what do they suffer a disaplinary, where is the accountabiltity in this country..
- Mr Ian Dawson, stockport england, 11/11/2008 19:15
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"The mother seemed to be co-operating with us: taking the child to doctors when he was ill, seeking help.”
Yes, she took him to the Doctors after each beating he had suffered. Some co-operation!
- Smb, London, UK, 11/11/2008 19:12
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Surely there is a clear case for the social workers and police that were involved to be dealt with under a broad heading of gross negligence and they should end up in prison. They are paid and trained to act to protect the individual in these type of situations and there can be NO acceptable excuse for their failures. Obviously managers and higher rank police officers failed in their duty and need to be dealt with accordingly.
- Frank, BONCATH WALES, 11/11/2008 18:17
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