Baby P scandal council blasted in report on teenage girl’s suicide

By The Press Association19th October 2015News EnglandChildrens Services, Haringey, Local Authorities, London, News England, Suicide

A council at the centre of the Baby P scandal has again been blasted in a report into child protection following the suicide of a teenage girl.

Haringey Council was criticised by a serious case review into the death of 16-year-old Mary Stroman (pictured, left) who took her own life on a railway line in Wiltshire in January 2014 – two days after the inquest had begun into the death of her friend Tallulah Wilson (pictured, right).

Report author Kevin Harrington said there were “serious failings” in Mary’s care from the agencies involved and added there was also “substantial evidence that the local authority’s professional input was of a poor standard”.

The teenager’s parents, Scott and Sue Stroman, said: “The serious case review speaks for itself, detailing a catalogue of errors, delays, bad practices, poor judgments and missed opportunities in dealing with Mary’s complex case.

“We welcome the findings of the serious case review commissioned by the Haringey Local Safeguarding Children Board.

“The report clearly highlights these issues and we welcome its directness and honesty.

“As the review notes, on many occasions Mary said she had been sexually abused, but police failed to respond adequately or investigate the matter.

“Mary suffered more than four years of mental anguish, self-harm and illness, culminating in her tragic death.

“The review identifies ‘serious failings’ in services that should have helped Mary. Similar to the long delay in preparing today’s review, Haringey took far too long to arrange care for our daughter.

“That, the review believes, is the greatest cause of concern.”

Mary was the youngest of five children of Mr Stroman, a renowned jazz musician, composer and conductor, who is one of the most prominent figures in London’s jazz scene, and his wife, a nurse.

An inquest last year heard the teenager had been sexually abused by an older man or men near to where she lived in Haringey, north London.

At the time of Mary’s death, she was a pupil at the Tumblewood Community School in Westbury, Wiltshire – which is a residential school for adolescent girls with emotional and behavioural difficulties.

The decline in her health had begun after she told friends she had been sexually abused and was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after several incidents of self-harming.

The serious case review, which referred to Mary as ‘Child O’ throughout, identified “very serious weaknesses” across the services, stemming from an overall “failure to use safeguarding arrangements and risk assessments effectively”.

“It is striking that, in the face of such obvious cause for concern, there was never a formal child protection investigation into Child O’s situation,” the report said.

The serious case review involved three local authorities in London and one outside London, four local safeguarding children’s board areas, two police forces and 13 NHS organisations as well as the three independent care providers that looked after Mary.

“This review has identified serious failings in the services which should have helped Child O and her family,” the report said.

“The greatest cause for concern is the substantial delay in arranging for her to be cared for away from her family home.

“There is also substantial evidence that the local authority’s professional input was of a poor standard.

“Assessments were slow and did not properly involve the family or other agencies. Management and supervision arrangements were weak and ill-directed.

“The most serious gap in the findings of this review reflects the issue that was the most challenging for the agencies.

“We still have no clearly evidenced understanding of how Child O came to be so troubled and why she so resolutely maintained a position of never fully sharing her worries with any professional.”

Sir Paul Ennals, independent chairman of the Haringey Safeguarding Children Board, said the review had identified episodes where agencies could have responded differently.

“It does not identify a causal link between these episodes and her death in January 2014, which it concludes could not have been anticipated,” he said.

“But some significant issues have been raised for the agencies who had sought to help her.”

Sir Paul said that the agencies involved had “carefully examined” their practice since 2010 and have acted upon areas where they have “identified the need for improvements”.

“Collectively, we sincerely regret that there were a number of areas where we should have done better,” he said.

“We have accepted all the recommendations of the independent review, and have already acted upon many of them.”

Mr and Mrs Stroman said previous serious case reviews in Haringey had uncovered “similar failings” to those identified with their daughter.

“Despite all the failures, we blame no-one personally,” they said.

“Sir Paul Ennals expresses sincere regret for the shortcomings of agencies in Haringey and we are grateful for that.

“However, similar failings have been identified in previous serious case reviews in the borough.

“Our wish is that this time the lessons learned from our experience will make a real difference, supporting families in genuine need and potentially saving lives.

“If someone like Mary needed help today, given that we now understand so much more about the risks such children face, we earnestly hope the response and the outcome would be different.”