Social workers discussed care proceedings less than month before girl’s death

Social workers discussed taking a toddler into care when it emerged the stepfather had reportedly threatened to torch the family flat, less than a month before the child is said to have been stamped to death.

A senior Derbyshire County Council social worker had a meeting with his manager where care proceedings for 21-month-old Ayeeshia Jane Smith – known as AJ, were talked about.

However, despite concerns about domestic abuse, it was decided the little girl would stay with her mother 23-year-old Kathryn Smith while they investigated further.

Senior social worker Stephen Crean (pictured), who was responsible for Ayeeshia’s case, said: “If concerns were escalating, which they appeared to be, then we will be initiating the process of care proceedings.”

Ayeeshia’s mother Smith, and stepfather, 22-year-old Matthew Rigby are on trial jointly accused of the happy, smiley little girl’s murder at a flat in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, on May 1 2014.

Only the day before the girl’s death, a multi-agency risk assessment meeting involving police and social services took place in Tamworth, Staffordshire, to discuss Ayeeshia’s welfare.

It was decided to arrange for a domestic abuse support worker to visit Smith, according to Mr Crean.

He then sent a text to Smith on the afternoon of April 30 2014, saying: “Hi Kat, I would like to visit you and AJ tomorrow at 10am, is that ok?”

Just over an hour after he sent that text, Ayeeshia had collapsed at her flat with fatal injuries.

On April 9, Mr Crean said he and his then manager Alison O’Connor, met and discussed their options, including court proceedings to place Ayeeshia into local authority care.

Mr Crean, who the jury heard took early retirement last year, said: “A plan was formulated that Ms Smith would be spoken to and legal advice would be sought.”

Twenty-two days later, the child was dead after suffering a fatal heart laceration, described as the type of injury doctors would more commonly see in car crash victims.

In the month leading to the toddler’s collapse at the flat in Britannia Drive, Burton, Mr Crean carried out five planned and unannounced visits to see “vulnerable” Smith and Ayeeshia.

Another social worker had visited on April 17, reporting to Mr Crean that Smith had refused an on-the-spot drugs test.

Mr Crean said he knocked on her door on April 25, to be told by what he described as a “spaced-out” Smith that Ayeeshia was being looked after at a friend’s house.

Earlier that month, Smith had refused to sign an agreement not to see Rigby, despite her having called police in the early hours of April 4 to report how he had threatened to burn the flat down.

Mr Crean told a Birmingham Crown Court jury: “The agreement was asking her to not let Mr Rigby in the flat because the concern was, according to the police, there was a threat to set fire to the flat, so the agreement was to not have any contact.”

The conclusion of the social services meeting on April 9, was that Smith would be told “not to have Mr Rigby around at all” and to get his version of events.

Mr Crean agreed there was a “reference to potentially presenting the case back to court” to take Ayeeshia into care.

Smith later texted him and said she would not sign the agreement.

Mr Crean added that during an unannounced visit at 11.30am on April 10, he found Smith’s front door ajar and when she eventually answered, was dressed only in pyjamas and a dressing gown.

At that visit she claimed the police had “got it wrong” about Rigby’s threat to torch the flat, but did accept she called 999.

When Mr Crean then raised the subject of the non-contact agreement she got angry and started shouting.

However, he saw that Ayeeshia, who was present throughout, appeared “completely calm” despite her mother’s highly agitated state.

The jury has already heard that Ayeeshia was known to social services and was temporarily taken into care between June and October, 2013, after concerns about a troubled relationship Smith had with another boyfriend, Joshua Collier.

Smith, of Sandfield Road, Nottingham and Rigby, of Sloan Drive, Nottingham, also deny causing or allowing the death of a child and cruelty.

The trial continues.

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