LONDON LETTER:Those working with vulnerable children were not shocked by the death of Baby P
HAD BABY P lived, he would undoubtedly have become one of the many teenagers whom local authorities fail at precisely the point when they are most vulnerable.
That’s the sobering assessment of an independent charity – the Children’s Legal Centre (CLC) – which says it is time for “an honest inventory” if ministers, care workers and the public alike really want to learn from the tragic life of the little boy who died after enduring 17 months of unimaginable cruelty in his mother’s Haringey flat in London.
Solicitor Niamh Harraher – whose Granny Daunt lives in Swords – confirms the disturbing truth that those working with vulnerable children were “saddened” by the death of Baby P but not shocked.
“His cruel fate was not an isolated incident. The horrific abuse of vulnerable children and the failure of professionals to safeguard them is all too common a scenario.”
Surveying the failures of the child protection system across the UK, Ms Harraher says: “The patterns are disturbing. Teenagers generally come to us when they are 14 or 15. They are at an age when they can and will vote with their feet.
“They are no longer prepared to endure the physical, emotional and sexual abuse they have suffered in their short, sad lives.”
Yet, she continues, this is the point when local authorities seem to want the least to do with them.
“Although the Children’s Act 1989 states that a child is one who is under 18 and that local authorities have a responsibility to ensure their welfare, there seems to be a widespread practice of only responding to children aged 14 and under.”
Troubled teenagers can naturally prove hard work.
“Sometimes they are pregnant, more often than not because they want someone to unconditionally love,” Ms Harraher says.
“They sometimes drink or take drugs to cope with what has happened to them. They sometimes steal and commit petty crimes because they have no money.
“They lie, on occasion, as most people do. As a result they are not believed when they say it is not safe for them to be at home.
“Perhaps they have been to the police but frequently the abuse they have suffered is historical – the scars faded, the physical evidence gone.
“They then are the makers of unsubstantiated allegations never to be taken seriously.
“Or perhaps out of a misguided sense of loyalty to their abusive parents or just straightforward shame they do not tell at all.”
When desperate and with nowhere to go, however, riding the night buses, sofa surfing or sleeping rough, they do tell their lawyers. Ms Harraher says the CLC is very successful in challenging the refusal of local authorities to accommodate these homeless children.
Yet there’s the rub. “We are often forced to demand the urgent intervention of the High Court to do so. Even in the face of High Court orders, we still face intransigence and resistance on the part of local authorities.”
Ms Harraher describes the case of one 15-year-old girl who was pregnant and homeless.
“The social workers did not believe her account of how she had been abused and told her to go home. At 4pm they discharged her from their offices.
“She went out into the cold with the two bags of belongings she had with her. She tried various friends until we were successful in obtaining an order of the High Court requiring the local authority to accommodate her at about 7pm.
“By 10 o’clock no one had called this girl. She was by now in a fast-food restaurant where thankfully the owner let her sit a while.”
On the night in question the local council’s answer phone service was reporting “severe weather conditions”. But Ms Harraher found only closed doors when she rang around trying to find somewhere the girl could go, even for a few hours, to have a cup of tea and stay warm.
No hostels would admit her because she was going to be housed by the local authority – her lawyer had got an order after all. However, when Ms Harraher threatened contempt proceedings to effect it, she found nobody was working in the legal department at 10pm.
As the manager of the emergency duty team explained, with several emergencies that night and just one social worker on call, this case was not a priority.
“So she sat, pregnant, 15 and alone. She had no money,” Ms Harraher recalls. “She sat in the fast-food restaurant with me calling to ensure she was safe and inside raging against the failings of the system.
“As her lawyer I had done everything right but nothing was happening. She sat there until 12.30am, five hours after a High Court order which was meant to be immediately effective.
“She sat there waiting, while justice slipped through all our fingertips. The girl was eventually placed that night, although the local authority maintains she should go home and the matter is still to be determined by the court.”