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Council leader 'must quit so Haringey can move on'
Katharine Barney, Evening Standard19.11.08
THE leader of Haringey council came under renewed pressure to resign today after issuing a belated apology over the death of Baby P.
Council members insisted George Meehan, who was also leader of Haringey when Victoria Climbié died, should go for the "good of the council".
They also called for the departure of councillor Liz Santry, cabinet member for Children and Young People, and said that only then could faith be restored in the authority.
The leader of the opposition in the council, Liberal Democrat Robert Gorrie, has tabled a motion of no confidence in the pair which will be discussed on Monday.
Mr Gorrie said: "There has been no personal accountability. Heads must roll and councillors Meehan and Santry have to go. We are going to keep the pressure up and we will not rest until they go." His comments follow Mr Meehan's first public apology over the abuse suffered by Baby P and the missed opportunities by the council to stop his death.
Reading from an A4 sheet of paper at a meeting of Haringey council cabinet last night, he said: "I want as leader of the council to make this formal apology on behalf of Haringey council.
"We are very sorry for the events that led up to the death of Baby P; sorry for the suffering he endured; sorry for the failure of all the child protection agencies involved to protect him, to save his life. Haringey council's apology is heartfelt and unreserved.
"It is made to all those who knew and cared for the wellbeing of Baby P; it is made to all those residents of Haringey who feel let down by the actions of the child protection agencies in our area and concerned for the future of every other child at risk; and it is made to the wider public who will have listened with horror at the dreadful damage done during the tragically short life of Baby P."
Angry members of the public watched from the gallery and demonstrated outside the town hall, waving banners and placards.
Councillor Neil Williams, who was leader of the opposition when Victoria Climbié was murdered, said the council could not carry on without the leader's departure.
He said: "The resignations are the only way to start restoring confidence in Haringey social services. Only then can we move on."
Reader views (7)
As a resident in the London Borough of Haringey I have concluded that the best way forward is for the inefficient council to be entirely closed down and the neighbouring expanded.
- Nick, London
It not the just the Council Leader who should be stepping down all persons involved in the failure to protect this poor little boy should be relieved of their positions immediately regardless of who they are Council officers,Social services and police, anybody else in any other job that failed to do their job properly would be sacked and this case should be no different!!
- Bob, Dagenham, UK
To be fair, neither of the local 2 parties on the council- Labour or Lib Dems- are effective. Their policies are pretty much identical and love to follow whatever crackpot fad is going around, whilst presiding over an area with litter-strewn streets, criminality, drug dens and one of the highest rates of drivers driving without car insurance in the country. They are more fixated on covering the whole of the borough with speed humps, particularly on roads which never see accidents, and cosying up to select, favoured religious partners rather than respecting the rights of everyone in the borough. I can't see Meehan resigning of his own accord- his back-slapping chums within the Labour Party will back him to the hilt. The best thing that could happen to Haringey is to see the borough dissolved, with perhaps Enfield and Barnet getting the lion's share of streets to be shared out to neighbouring authorities.
- Richard, Haringey, London, UK
The law should be changed whereby if an examining doctor has grounds to suspect child abuse, they should be given power to overrule social workers who seem more concerned with a mother's human rights than a poor abused child.
- Shirley, UK
Many many families that cannot have children could have given this little boy a loving and stable and safe sheltered life. With opportunities for the future. How on earth could they think it is better to leave him with a mother who obviously doesn't care enough to even bath him. They had to have someone who was supposed to live in to bath him!!!! Which she didn't. poor little child. If only he could have told someone.
- Mandy, barnstaple, devon
This is a shoddy era in which nobody takes responsibility for anything. Nobody ever resigns, whatever they have done, especially when lucrative public sector salaries and even more lucrative inflation proof pensions are at stake. And of course nobody is fired. In this case the proper person to resign is not the Chairman of the Council (well, perhaps it is as well) but Sharon Shoesmith, head of children's services, whose department clearly failed to implement reforms after the Victoria Climbie case, and after the determination of one and all that such a thing must never happen again. Well it did, only 100 yards away.
- P. Wadhams, Cambridge UK
There must also be departures is social services. All they say is 'lessons will be learned' When?
- Peter.J.Hill, Nuneaton, Warwickshire
