‘Wholly inaccurate’ assessment delayed care proceedings for other children

A “wholly inaccurate” assessment of Poppi Worthington led to a 10-month delay before care proceedings were issued over other children in the family, it can be reported.

Cumbria County Council held a strategy meeting chaired by an independent reviewing officer on the day of the 13-month-old girl’s death in December 2012.

A paediatrician with responsibility for safeguarding was recorded as stating that Poppi suffered from chronic constipation and that could explain the condition in which she was found.

In his 2014 fact-finding judgment on the circumstances of Poppi’s death, published in full on Tuesday, Mr Justice Peter Jackson said: “This view can only have come directly or indirectly from the parents or from a misunderstanding.

“It is wholly inaccurate, was not based on any medical evidence … however it was accepted as fact without challenge and must have influenced many of the decisions that followed.”

The result of the meeting was that the local authority decided to await the outcome of the police investigation before deciding what action to take in respect of the other children.

In January, the parents were invited to an informal interview with police and social services in which they were told that leg fractures were found on Poppi – thought to have been sustained between September and November 2012.

Neither parent could account for the injuries and the family were then allowed to return home with the agreement of police and social workers.

Five days later, the same reviewing officer chaired a further strategy meeting – said to be “poorly attended” – in which a decision was made for “no further action” in relation to safeguarding procedures. On the same day the other children in the family were medically examined for the first time, with the findings “within normal limits”.

Following the parents’ arrest in August 2013, care proceedings were finally issued in October that year after the mother refused to sign an agreement with the local authority that she would have no unsupervised contact with the children.

The fact-finding judgment by Mr Justice Jackson was delivered in the family court in March 2014 as part of proceedings in relation to other children in the family.

Cumbria County Council’s Assistant Director of Children’s Services accepted at the hearing that care proceedings should have been initiated as soon as it became clear Poppi had suffered injury prior to her death.

The judge said: “Had that happened, the court would have been able to get a grip on the matter and ensure that proper investigations were carried out much nearer to the time of P’s (Poppi’s) death. The local authority shares responsibility with the police for the fact that this did not happen.”

The council also conceded that it should have taken legal advice from the outset and “certainly before the family returned home”.

When legal advice was finally taken in the “troubling and extremely serious” case it was reactive to the parents’ arrest, said the judge, and even then there was no decision to issue proceedings for two months.

Mr Justice Jackson concluded that the other children were returned home “without any effective child protection measures being taken” but said “fortunately” there was no evidence of them suffering harm in the 10-month period.

:: An application by Cumbria County Council to restrict what the media could report on the case in 2014 “would have had the effect of concealing for the next 15 years” the identity of Poppi Worthington.

Mr Justice Jackson, who turned down the application, said it would also have gagged the press naming any of the family members, any of the agencies concerned and the geographical area in which the events occurred.

The authority indicated it was asking for the widest restrictions so the court could cut back on its request but the judge labelled it “a scatter-gun approach” which was “inappropriate”.

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