Baby P boss Sharon Shoesmith: I won’t stand near edge of Tube platform because I fear for my life

Fears: Former Children's Services boss Sharon Shoesmith
Sebastian Mann10 September 2016

The social services boss at the centre of the Baby P scandal says she worries people will try to kill her when she travels on the London Underground.

Sharon Shoesmith faced public backlash in 2007 after 17-month-old Peter Connelly died in his cot while she was in charge of Haringey Council’s children’s services department.

She was plunged into the spotlight and received death threats when she chose not to resign amid a row.

Now the 63-year-old claims she still fears for her life when she uses the Tube, telling the Ham & High newspaper: “Because I’ve been back in the media, even when I came here today, I was in the Tube station and right back against the wall.

Tragic: Baby P

“And then when I changed tube, I was still aware that people might recognise me again.

“I don’t go on to the platform when the Tube’s not there. I stay right back in the corridor until it comes in. I don’t go anywhere near the edge.”

Passengers on the London Underground 
Shutterstock / littleny

Her comments come as the former council worker promotes her new book on the lessons she believes need to be learnt from the handling of the Baby P case.

In 2008, his mother Tracey Connelly was convicted of causing on allowing the death of a child or vulnerable person, while boyfriend Steven Barker and his brother Jason Owen were found guilty of the same charge.

The scandal led to recriminations and claims Haringey Council missed warning signs in a series of visits by social workers.

Ms Shoesmith told the Ham & High: “There’s absolutely no way in which I’d take personal responsibility for the murder of a child, no way I’d ever do that.

“And I don’t think social workers should ever do that either, take personal responsibility, they aren’t personally culpable."

Ms Shoesmith was sacked from her post at Haringey Council in 2008 by then children’s secretary Ed Balls. Last year she received a payout of £670,000 from the local authority for wrongful dismissal.

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