Local authorities apologise to victims of abuse

The BBC reports on how two Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards in Sheffield and Lincolnshire have apologised to two women made pregnant 18 times by their abusive father. 

Timeline of Events

The first suspicions were raised back in the early 1970’s when seemingly non-accidental injuries raised suspicion, but it was not until 1981 that both daughters are thought to have been first sexually abused. Childline were contacted in 1988 by the daughters, but as they could not receive assurances that they could keep their children, they terminated the call.  During the 1990’s the family frequently moved throughout Sheffield and Lincolnshire – it is thought to evade suspicion and detection.

Another opportunity to stop the abuse was missed in 1997 when the son, who now suffers from mental health problems, moved from home and alleged incest. Whilst an police investigation followed, no actions were taken. Moving to South Yorkshire in 2004 social services finally began to take a keener interest and by June 2008 the father was finally arrested.  Pleading guilty to 25 counts of rape, he was sentenced to a minimum term of nineteen and a half years, though this was reduced on appeal by 5 years. Before that had occured, however, the family had contact, over the years, with  over 100 members of staff from 28 different agencies. The media are already reffering to this case as the British Fritzl.

The Review

Today, March 10th 2010,  Sheffield’s Safeguarding Children Board delivered a damming review of the multi-agency involvement in the case described by Alan Goldsack QC as the worst he had seen in 40 years.

The fact that the family moved 67 times undoubtedly made it more difficult for each agency to build up a full picture of what was occuring the family, but  where this case diverges most startkly from that of Joseph Fritzl is not in the tactics employed to evade detection. The most stark difference is that the daughters in this case did have access to authorities designed to protect them. As Dr Sonia Sharp pointed to, it was the systematic failings of these agencies that meant that “time after time…groups of people failed to take action”.

The GP who dealt with the daughters was suspended over five years ago, but the report calls for a lead tasks with safeguarding children at every GP practice.

This is not the first time that such a board has found troubling failings within Sheffield Council and, as Professor Cantrill sadly noted, the authorities “never seem to learn”  from these reviews.

The full report can be found here.

The law on child protection

Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards were set up under the Children Act 2004. This Act arose out of the Government’s Green Paper, “Every Child Matters” alongside its formal response to the Victoria Climbie Inquiry Report. The intention of the Act was:-

To concentrate on outcomes that children and young people say are important rather than organisational change

To create clear accountability for children’s services

To enable better joint working

To secure a better focus for safeguarding children

The former Area Child Protection Committees were replaced by Local Safeguarding Children Boards

According to the BBC report, the LSCB’s have apologised to the women, following the conviction of their father, a Sheffield man on 25 counts of rape. They found a catalogue of missed opportunities and failures to protect the children over three decades.

Potential Compensation

Would these two women have claims for compensation?  There are several routes here. Firstly each would probably have a claim to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. There is a two year time limit from the date of the “crime of violence” for making an application but the CICA often waives the time limit where the conviction is relatively recent. The CICA operates a bar against persons who are abused by a member of their own family who is living in the same household, but this only applies to crimes of violence that occur before the 1st October 1979. There may be ways around this rule, but it is difficult to see from the report when the abuse actually occurred. Apparently there were several periods in the history of this family, which were examined by the LSCB, the first one dating from 1975 to 1988.

In addition, the two women may have a civil claim against the local authorities, who allegedly should have protected them. See the case of Pierce v Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council 2008 for an example of a “failure to protect” situation that resulted in an award for the the Claimant. The apology issued by the Local Safeguarding Children Boards is bound to be helpful in the establishment of fault on the part of the local authority.  

There is also the possibility of making a complaint to the local authorities in question. All local authorities operate a complaint scheme, which can result in a final decision by the Local Government Ombudsman. Large payments to complainants have been recommended in such cases. However the complaints system is not intended to work alongside a litigation case, and it is unclear whether a person who receives say £10,000 from a complaint of failure to protect, would have to pay that amount back if he/she launched a successful litigation case against the same local authority.

In relation to the CICA claim, the CICA scheme does specifically say that they are entitled to take into account any compensation awarded in the civil process, and in the writer’s experience the CICA await the result of the civil claim before making any award.

Clearly this is a very serious case.