New Borders DCI Warns Against Complacency As Baby P Errors Highlighted

TWENTY-three years after starting her career pounding the beat as a young uniformed bobby in Hawick, Detective Chief Inspector Linda Little has become head of CID in the Borders.

As such, DCI Little is the highest-ranking female detective ever appointed in the division.

The accolade acknowledges her role in several high-profile investigations, most recently into the death of 23-year-old Sean Hay who was stabbed as he walked home with his girlfriend and two children in Granton, Edinburgh, in July. Four men have since been charged with his murder.

But it is her long involvement in probing violent and sexual crimes against women and children which makes her appointment especially significant at a time when local agencies are striving to ensure the lessons of the horrific, fatal abuse of Baby P are learned and acted upon in the Borders.

Today, a report on the implications of the case for child protection in the region will be presented to Scottish Borders Council by social work director Andrew Lowe.

He will call for an extra £200,000 to be set aside as a contingency, to support a service co-ordinated by a child protection committee and comprising police, social workers, education and health staff.

And he will reveal that, following publicity of the Baby P case, Stella Everingham, SBC’s head of services for children and families, had written to all social workers asking for their “continued vigilance” and assuring them the local committee would study any reports relating to the tragedy and learn the lessons.

There are currently 51 children from 37 families on the child protection register in the Borders, each with a designated social worker and an inter-agency protection plan, along with a core group of professionals who meet between case conferences to ensure information is shared and progress monitored.

Mr Lowe will tell councillors: “Child protection is an inherently high-risk activity, with many grave consequences of service failure for individuals in the Borders and the council. Where failures elsewhere in the UK have been identified it is essential to learn from the efforts.”

In her new role, DCI Little will be responsible for the police child and adult protection teams in the region.

“While levels of serious crimes are relatively low in the Borders and there is undoubtedly a strong community spirit here, we can never be complacent and the public has a key role to play in reporting any suspicions, particularly when it comes to children and vulnerable adults,” she told TheSouthern.

DCI Little talks from personal experience. After four years in uniform, she was a member of the Borders CID team involved in the apprehension and subsequent conviction of notorious child killer Robert Black in 1990. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for abducting a six-year-old girl in Stow and later found guilty of three child murders in the 1980s.

In 2000, DCI Little was the reporting officer in the infamous Miss X case in which a 30-year-old SBC social work client with learning difficulties was raped and tortured at a house in Newtown.