Social Services Cleared In Child Cruelty Case

Lincolnshire social services made no mistakes in the case of a woman who left her toddler son home alone – a review has found.

Kelly Tollerton (23) was convicted of child cruelty after her two-year-old was found at his home shivering and surrounded by nappies and broken crockery.

She had gone out for the weekend, leaving him penned in a filthy kitchen while water overflowed from the sink.

Neighbours alerted police to the situation after they heard the toddler screaming from a flat in Ingleby Crescent, Ermine East, Lincoln, in November 2006.

Following a trial at Lincoln Crown Court in June last year, Tollerton was sentenced to 18 months in prison and banned from working with children for life. She could be released as soon as next month.

Along with two counts of child cruelty and one of perverting justice, the jury convicted her of systematically neglecting him in the months leading up to the shocking discovery.

It was revealed that the little boy had been taken off the social services at risk register months earlier.

In the aftermath Lincolnshire’s Safeguarding Children Board said the case did not meet the criteria for a serious case review.

Instead it conducted an internal review of all the agencies attached to the board.

Chairman of the safeguarding board Peter Duxbury said: “In the individual agency reviews the conclusions are that there were no serious failings in the case.”