Convicted sex attacker stripped of social care register

A MAN convicted of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl has been removed from the Social Care Register by an independent committee of the General Social Care Council (GSCC).

Kevin Mence, 43, from Kings Lynn, was employed as a social worker by Cambridgeshire County Council when the allegations came to light. He was convicted in Norwich Crown Court of twice sexually assaulting the girl, who was not his client. He was also convicted of making indecent images of a child and possessing over 700 indecent images of children, some of which he distributed.

Mence was consequently jailed on November 13 2008 for 16 months, placed on the Sex Offenders Register for ten years and issued with a Disqualification Order preventing him from working with children. He waived his right to attend the GSCC hearing.

The Committee found Mence guilty of serious misconduct and said his offending behaviour represented a serious departure from the relevant standards in the Code of Practice for Social Care Workers that all social workers sign up to when they register with the GSCC. They said that in order to protect vulnerable people and uphold public confidence in social care services the only appropriate sanction was immediate removal from the register.

Rosie Varley, Chair of the GSCC, said: “All social workers have a responsibility to act appropriately and with integrity, abiding by the law and the GSCC code of practice. Thankfully the majority of the 80,000 registered social workers find no difficulty in complying with this. In order to maintain the safety of vulnerable people we take all matters of law breaking by social workers extremely seriously, and will not hesitate to apply the appropriate sanctions.”

Mence was removed from the register with immediate effect. Social workers have a right of appeal to the independent First-tier Tribunal (Care Standards).