Baby P council victimised my family

 

A mother wrongly investigated for child abuse by the council at the centre of the Baby P scandal today accused its bosses of “being a law unto themselves” and urged ministers to intervene.

The woman and her partner feared their six-year-old daughter would be removed in the investigation by Haringey council, which was launched after it received an anonymous letter riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes.

The two-year nightmare for the couple, who work in the social services field, ended yesterday when a High Court judge quashed the “unlawful” decision to start the investigation.

Judge Anthony Thornton criticised head of services Sylvia Chew for ordering the inquiry and the council for approaching the child’s GP and school without the parents’ consent. The mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, today called for the Education Secretary to take over Haringey’s children’s safeguarding services.

“Somebody’s got to come in because they cannot do it,” she said. “It seems to me the failings in Haringey go right up to the top. They have fought us all the way, everybody knew within the council, but did nobody within that organisation stop and think, ‘This is a waste of public money. We are victimising this poor family and we are failing children’.

“They are a law unto themselves and think they can do whatever they want. We’d got a phone call out of the blue saying they wanted to do an initial assessment and see my child. I asked them how they had got my phone number. I reminded them of the guidance around data protection, and we felt the consequences of us questioning them was the council turning its investigation into a full-blown child abuse investigation.”

The couple brought a legal challenge to the council’s decision to investigate them based on the unsigned letter received in March 2011. Yesterday they were awarded £2,000 in compensation and the council was told to pay legal costs.

The mother said: “Most people don’t know the system like we do and would really struggle.”

It also emerged that the council had tried to stop the media naming it in the case. Haringey admitted its handling of the case “fell below standards” and apologised to the family.

The council was heavily criticised over the death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly, who became known as Baby P.

The toddler was on the at-risk register and had been seen 60 times by authorities before he was found dead with more than 50 injuries in 2007.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in