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Children's Secretary Ed Balls was so “stunned” by the state of children's care in Haringey council that he was right to sack summarily its boss Sharon Shoesmith, the High Court heard today.
His lawyers told the court Mr Balls acted “for proper, sufficient and obvious reasons” after reading a “damaging and critical” report in the wake of the conviction of the killers of Baby P.
They dismissed her claims that he had acted “in haste” and attacked Ms Shoesmith, 56, for claiming her plight was similar to the James Bulger case.
Mr Balls was responding on the third day of Ms Shoesmith's demand for a judicial review of her sacking on the grounds that the minister, Ofsted and council acted illegally and unfairly.
She was forced out of her £133,000-a-year job as the director of children's services after a damning inspectors' report on her department in the wake of the death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly. Seven other children were found to be left vulnerable by the council. Mr Balls's QC, James Eadie, told Mr Justice Foskett the minister had to act quickly once the Ofsted inspectors had reported after the Old Bailey trial, in which Peter's mother, Tracey Connelly, her boyfriend Steven Barker and his brother Jason Owen, were jailed for their part in the toddler's death.
Mr Eadie said: “He reached his decision for proper, sufficient and obvious reasons based in particular on the obvious concerns arising as a result of Peter Connelly's case and on the damning conclusions of the report. A decision was taken against the backdrop of justifiable public concern as to safeguarding arrangements in Haringey and nationally and issues of public confidence.”
Ms Shoesmith has argued she was not given a chance to respond to the report before she was sacked. But Mr Eadie said Ms Shoesmith had accepted many of its findings.
He said comparing Mr Balls's decision to the overhasty sentencing of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, the killers of James Bulger, was “plainly inapt”. The case continues.
Reader views (6)
Dannyp, Egham
The answer to your questions is: when you you work in the murky parallel universe that is the public sector and associated quangoes. I exclude from this the valuable front-line workers who struggle to provide us with the services that we need, in spite of the self-serving "managers" who "lead" them.
In this mysterious world is a language of target-driven jargon that is incomprehensible to most of us. Failure is rewarded with huge severance payments, and woe betide anyone such as a dinner lady who blows the whistle on practices that the real world would find totally unacceptable.
I could go on at some length, but it is Friday afternoon. I hope this has answered your question.
- John C, Leatherhead, UK
For once he is quite right and she should keep quiet and fade away.
- Vince, London, West London
That woman frightens the life out of me. I wouldn't employ her to stack the shelves at 'you know where'
- Mj, East Anglia
What has the NSPCC got to say about children who were made known to Haringey Child Protection Unit being exposed as NOT having the concerns raised for them addressed in any swift effective way?
Did the NSPCC recieve any calls from the from people in Haringey who raised child abuse concerns for individual children or indeed to express concern that Haringey Social Services didn't seem to be taking any effective action when child abuse concerns had been raised to them?
Had the NSPCC refered any child abuse concerns raised to them, for individual children, to Haringey Child Protection Unit and if so did they check that the children were indeed being enabled to access swift effective, 'help in practice' ?
It is a bit rich that the NSPCC is running adverts telling the public that the protection of being abused children is 'just a click away' when in reality IDENTIFIED being abused at risk children are being seen to be so badly failed, time and time again.
The public would seem to be being fooled into a false saense of security by thinking that by reporting the 'seen abuse of children, to the relevant 'bodies', that they can be confident that the situation for the children will be realised and dealt with in a swift effective way.
- Darnthesafetynet, London W11 1NR
It is extremely worrying to think that Shoesmith was once a teacher and that countless numbers of parents once left their children in her care. It is vital that a more rigorous selection procedure is used in future to ensure that people of her calibre are never allowed to work with children. Her continued lack of remorse indicates a pathologically flawed character.
- R.F.York, Yorks, UK
So when is gross incompetence and negligence no longer grounds for instant dismissal?
- Dannyp, Egham
