Compensation bid fails in High Court

A “TRAGIC” young woman who claimed Oldham Council blighted her life by delaying its decision to take her into care as a child has failed in a High Court compensation bid.

The 25 year old accused care workers of dragging their heels after they became aware her father had given her a black eye when she was five.

She also claimed social services negligently failed to arrange therapy for her after she was removed from her troubled family a year later.

The result of the delay, her lawyers claimed, was permanent emotional damage that pursued her into adult life, setting up a dysfunctional ‘vicious cycle’ that saw her own baby taken into care.

Judge Amanda Yip QC, sitting at Liverpool County Court, dismissed the woman’s claim for substantial damages, despite expressing “considerable sympathy” for her.

Care workers were alerted to the family’s problems when the child was only 17 months old, but later believed problems had settled down.

But the claimant’s mother phoned social services in October 1993 “at the end of her tether”. She phoned again soon afterwards saying the father had hit the little girl.

The father received a caution and the family was put under supervision, but the council’s legal team said there was insufficient evidence to warrant the children’s removal.

The claimant was finally taken into care when she was six, and remained in care until she was 18.

At 20 she had a daughter of her own, who was swiftly taken into care.

This devastating blow appeared to be the catalyst for the court action, Judge Yip observed.

She said: “I sense that the claimant feels a real sense of injustice that she was left with her parents for so long despite evidence that she was suffering harm, whereas her own daughter was taken from her at an early stage.”

During the case last month, the woman pointed to evidence from a social work expert who said there had been a “whole constellation of alarm-bell factors” which meant the council should have intervened earlier.

But the council claimed care workers had made a proportionate response.

Dismissing the claim, Judge Yip said: “Those best placed to judge the risks were those on the ground, working with the family.”