Social workers too late protecting children harmed by mother, says judge

By The Press Association24th November 2015News EnglandChild Protection, Childrens Services, Local Authorities, News England, North West

Social workers should have acted sooner to protect two children whose mother had mental health difficulties, a family court judge has said.

Judge Lesley Newton said the children – now aged four and two – had been significantly harmed.

And she said that harm had not been “mitigated” by “appropriate” intervention from staff at Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council.

The judge has made criticisms in a ruling, in which she concluded that the youngsters should be placed for adoption, following a private family court hearing in Manchester.

She said the children could not be identified – and did not give their sexes.

Judge Newton said a number of concerns had been raised about the way the youngsters were cared for – including their mother’s misuse of alcohol and “illicit substances”, “unexplained injuries” and “various problems” associated with their mother’s “poor mental health”.

The judge said matters had come to a head in September last year when the children were taken from their mother, now 25, by social services staff and placed into interim foster care.

But she said the council should have acted sooner to protect the youngsters – who had different fathers who had played “very limited roles” in their lives.

“The chronology of events prior to September 2014 makes depressing reading,” said Judge Newton.

“Both children were significantly harmed and that harm was not mitigated by appropriate local authority intervention.

“The local authority could and should have intervened to remove these children from their mother’s care very much earlier.

“That said, I understand the challenges which hard pressed local authority social workers face and it is very easy to be wise with the benefit of hindsight.”

Judge Newton suggested the council had also been slow to launch proceedings in a family court so that a judge could make decisions about the children’s long-term futures.

“It is astonishing to record that care proceedings were still not issued until 16th February 2015,” she added.

“That period of over five months’ delay, exacerbated by the local authority’s failures prior to September 2014, has in my judgment been profoundly damaging to the children.

“Orders, including care and placement orders, could and would have been made much sooner had the local authority issued these proceedings at an earlier stage.”

She went on: “I fully understand why everyone with an ounce of humanity would be sympathetic to the mother’s predicament.

“However, there has been far too much attention paid to the mother’s state of health, and insufficient attention to the impact of delay upon the welfare interests of such young children.”

The judge said her ruling should be “brought to the attention” of the “relevant director of children services”.

Judge Newton said she hoped that in later life the two children would appreciate that their mother “loved them very much indeed” and was “desperate to resume their care”.

“She is still only 25,” said the judge.

“It is not her fault that her own appalling upbringing and consequent psychological problems have left her ill-equipped to cope with the challenges of parenting.”