Haringey Council named in serious Child Protection case

Haringey Council has today been named as the Local Authority at the heart of a case highlighting serious failings in the disabled children’s social work team.

In a family court judgement from March of this year, The Honourable Mr Justice Hayden declared that the council had made "fundamental errors in which they fell considerably short of their obligations to safeguard and protect the children subject to these proceedings" and "the Local Authority failed, in the initial stages, fully to appreciate the significance of the risk" of the involvement of a Schedule 1 sex offender recently released on license from prison [1].
 
In originally determining that the Local Authority should remain anonymous, the judge went on to conclude “I do not think that I have ever had to criticise a Local Authority to the extent that I have found it necessary to do in this case" [2].
 
The decision of anonymity was contested and the decision to publicly name Haringey Council as the Local Authority was made today [3].
 
Opposition Spokesperson for Children & Families, Cllr Tammy Palmer (Lib Dem), comments:
 
"It's appalling that such severe failings from a local authority should happen anywhere, but this is especially alarming in a borough with such a catastrophic history of failing to protect our most vulnerable children.
 
"Haringey’s residents need urgent answers from the senior leaders of this Council about what went wrong and whether this is a one-off or indicative of a systemic failure.
 
"In order to rebuild trust and confidence in the light of these damning findings, any investigation or inquiry must be prompt and it must be public."

[1] https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2020/38.html
[2] https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2020/1162.html
[3] https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2020/1282.html

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