Boy tells hearing Bradford social worker shouted and swore

A vulnerable teenage boy told a conduct hearing that he began running away from home after his Bradford social worker swore violently at him down the phone.

Giving evidence via videolink from a secure unit today, the boy, known to the hearing as Child F, said Stanley Lansdell had also threatened him.

He said: “He was swearing at me. He said he would take me into care and he was shouting down the phone.

“That’s when I started running away from home. Because I didn’t want to be be around my house.

“I wanted to be away.”

The hearing into Lansdell’s conduct, held by regulator the General Social Care Council in London, was told that the senior social worker was, at the time, the allocated worker for Child F, who was on the child protection register.

The 15-year-old, who believes he is female and dresses as a girl, told the hearing that the incident in 2007 happened after Lansdell began pestering his 18-year-old female cousin.

Child F said the 52-year-old began sending her daily texts, some of them of a sexual nature, and would call her late at night after meeting her during a home visit to him.

“She was disgusted.

“He was old enough to be her dad,” he said.

He said he had refused to allow Lansdell to talk to her when the social worker called her one night, which was when he launched the verbal attack.

Lansdell is not attending the hearing but in an e-mail to the Council he has denied abusing Child F, claiming it is a “fairytale allegation” concocted by the boy as revenge because, at the time, he had been looking into removing F and his brother into care.

But Child F, who is now in a secure unit for a wounding with intent offence, said he had no reason to lie.

The conduct committee, which is considering a catalogue of misconduct allegations against Lansdell, also heard that he had intervened in a child protection case that could have put a 17-month-old child at risk.

It heard that Lansdell had given a verbal report in a court case, purporting to be representing his employer Bradford Council when in fact the local authority had no knowledge of his attendance at the hearing.

The hearing continues.