Don’t Blame Social Workers For Death Of Brandon, Salmond Warns

Alex Salmond risked pre-empting the inquiries into the Brandon Muir case yesterday when he told MSPs that social workers were not to blame for the child’s death.

The First Minister said that it would be “extremely damaging” to hold the profession culpable for the killing of the 23-month-old who was killed by his mother’s heroin-user partner.

Speaking at First Minister’s Questions, he said: “One thing I would say is that the culpability, the guilt lies with person who perpetrated the crime. It doesn’t lie with the social work department or the police.”

On Tuesday, Robert Cunningham, 23, the partner of Brandon’s mother, was convicted of culpable homicide for hitting the child so hard that his duodenum ruptured and he died of slow poisoning. He had originally been charged with murder but the jury at the High Court in Glasgow convicted on the lesser charge.

Social workers were aware of the chaotic family, including Brandon’s mother, Heather Boyd, 23, who prostituted herself to feed her heroin addiction. Despite warnings from Ms Boyd’s mother, Veronica, they refused to remove the toddler.

Ms Boyd had originally been accused of the culpable homicide of her son but the charge was dropped after the Crown failed to prove that she had known about the injury Cunningham had inflicted.

Dundee City Council, the local authority area in which the family lived, has commissioned an independent inquiry into child protection issues and a serious case review is underway. The council refused to comment yesterday because of the ongoing inquiry.

Sandra Brown, founder of the Moira Anderson Foundation charity which helps child sex abuse victims, said that Mr Salmond should be aware that the public wanted answers to whether social workers had failed in their duty towards Brandon. “I think I would be right in saying that since this government came into power there has not been a child protection case to deal with,” she added.

“The First Minister will not want to castigate and create a blame culture in Scotland, but the public has every right to question what is going on with these agencies. There are areas of Scotland where there is good practice, but there are other areas where critical information is not being dealt with quickly enough.”

Unison, the public sector union, welcomed Mr Salmond’s comments. A spokesman said: “There have been far too many attempts to scapegoat social workers for some of these cases.

“Social work in Scotland – and in particular in children and families work – has consistently been under-resourced for years. The pressure on social workers from the dual standards of some politicians and the media who damn them for taking kids away from their parents and damn them if they don’t has proved to be intolerable in some cases.”

The spokesman added that Unison was aware of cases of social workers leaving the profession because of the stress they felt at having to get this balance correct at all times.

Kathleen Marshall, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, agreed with Mr Salmond that “the primary blame” for Brandon’s death lay with Cunningham.

But she said that to avoid future tragedies, child and family services must be properly resourced. “We will not be able to identify any other contributory factors until the case has been reviewed, but it is too easy to heap blame on social workers who are often working in situations that are severely under-resourced,” she added.

Annabel Goldie, the Tory leader, raised the “appalling case of little Brandon Muir” at FMQs, telling Mr Salmond that it was “a tragic exposure of Scotland’s broken society”.

Mr Salmond said it was essential that Parliament, society, social workers and local government made sure they were doing everything possible to meet the challenges.

He told MSPs there was an enormous amount of work being done to try to secure the safety of every child in Scotland, but admitted: “However exact our efforts are, there is a real risk to a range and many thousands of children in Scotland.”