Social services fail another Baby P

December 12, 2008

PRESS RELEASE

Doncaster Council today failed in its attempt to overturn a previous court ruling which criticised them for failing to retain a child in care. The Court of Appeal today accepted that by not doing so, Doncaster exposed the child to abuse and neglect by his parents in a chilling footnote to the Baby P case.

Jake Pierce was himself a “Baby P” when he was born in Doncaster on the 1st March 1976. Social services had been concerned that he was being neglected and abused as a baby and he was removed from the family home into foster care for 15 months. However social services then returned him to his parents’ care where he suffered 12 years of further abuse. Mr Pierce won £25,000 plus legal costs from Doncaster in the High Court on the 13th December 2007. However in February 2008 Doncaster managed to get permission from the Court of Appeal to challenge that ruling. Today, the Court of Appeal rejected the Council’s appeal although said that the issue of limitation (the time within which Mr Pierce should legitimately have brought the court proceedings) should be sent back for a decision to the Judge who heard the original case.

During his time with his family, Mr Pierce alleged that he was regularly hit with a poker, a stiletto shoe and a belt. He was thrown downstairs and had knives held to his face and his life was threatened. On one occasion his alcoholic father doused the house in petrol and threatened to set light to it and on other occasions Mr Pierce was tied and locked in a freezer. He was left outside in the garden naked during cold weather, was never allowed to play with other children, and never received Christmas presents, even though his other brothers and sisters did. At the age of 3, an Aunt took him to hospital with extensive burns to his buttocks and feet, and she expressed concern at how her nephew was being treated at home. Despite this, he was returned to his parents’ care where further abuse took place.

The Court of Appeal accepted the original judge’s finding that Mr Pierce suffered “indifference, neglect and periodic violence in the home environment at the hands of his parents” amounting to “physical cruelty and emotional deprivation” which played a part in his development of an emotionally unstable personality disorder. As a result he was “a very damaged young man”.

The appeal court also upheld the judge’s findings that Doncaster social services had been negligent, the standard of the care that they owed to Mr Pierce having fallen below that of a reasonable local authority of the time. In particular, the Court of Appeal accepted that the judge had been entitled to find that Doncaster should not have placed Mr Pierce back into the abusive home environment in 1977.

This was the first case of its kind where a Claimant had been awarded damages by a court for a local authority’s failure to take a child into care. Mr Pierce was represented by Jonathan Wheeler, a partner at Bolt Burdon Kemp Solicitors in London. He said:

“The Court of Appeal has upheld the High Court’s decision that my client was abused and that that abuse – in part – could have been prevented if Doncaster had acted properly. This case shows that the tragic death of Baby P and the failings of social services in Haringey which have been highlighted recently are not isolated incidents. I and other lawyers in the field can point to countless examples of similar failings by social services departments up and down the country. Whilst my client thankfully survived his childhood, he has long term health problems caused from his time of living on the streets as a teenager, which he must deal with for the rest of his life”.

Wheeler added: “I am hoping that Doncaster will not challenge this decision further, and that they will finally pay my client the compensation that was awarded a year ago, in order to help him rebuild his shattered life.”

David Keegan, the Legal Services Commission's Director of High Cost Cases said, "We're delighted to have funded such a significant case, which will have great implications not only for Mr Pierce but for many others who have suffered as a result of their local authority's negligent failure to exercise their child protection duties.”

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For further information please contact:

Jonathan Wheeler,
Partner, Bolt Burdon Kemp
Providence House, Providence Place, Islington, London N1 0NT

T: 0207 288 4837
M: 0789 439 7728
E: jonathanwheeler@boltburdonkemp.co.uk
W: www.boltburdonkemp.co.uk
www.thechildabuselawyers.co.uk