Bittersweet Justice: London

“Kingston Council has been criticised for its handling of a complaint of child sexual abuse.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has asked the council to pay out £6,000 to the victim in recognition of her “severe and prolonged distress and significant risk of harm.”

The case involves a Miss Z, who was in the care of the council since the age of five.

She said that while in foster care aged under 10, a foster carer became aware of sexual abuse by another, older child in the house .

Miss Z says social workers were aware of this and that the foster carer did not believe her, and accepted the other child’s account instead.

The council did not investigate what had happened at the time or tell Miss Z’s adoptive parents about the reported abuse before they adopted Miss Z about a year later.

When Miss Z was in her mid-teens, and living with her adoptive family, she was a patient in an adolescent mental health unit.

She made a report to medical staff about being abused when in foster care.

They reported this to her home council (Council X).

Council X in turn reported this to Kingston Council, but neither council investigated the report at the time.

Miss Z’s mental health worsened and she was detained in hospital under section 3 of the Mental Health Act.

In 2019, Miss Z felt able to reveal more details of what had happened to her parents and they complained to the council on her behalf.

An Ombudsman’s investigation last year upheld her complaints that the council failed to take appropriate action at the time the abuse was first reported, and did not inform her adoptive parents about what had happened when they adopted her.

They also failed to take appropriate action when Miss Z made a further report of abuse as a teenager and lost records relevant to Miss Z’s foster care.

The council accepted the investigation’s findings and apologised to Miss Z and her parents.

It also offered Miss Z £1,000 in recognition of her distress and the risk of harm to her.

However, Miss Z was not satisfied with the response and asked the council to consider her complaint at a higher stage of the statutory complaints process.

The council refused this because the complaint was fully upheld at a previous stage, but provided a further acknowledgement and apology for the impact on Miss Z.

It also increased its financial remedy offer to £2,000.

Miss Z remained dissatisfied and complained to the Ombudsman for a more meaningful apology and increased financial remedy.

The Ombudsman reviewed its responses and recommended that Kingston council make Miss Z a symbolic payment of £6,000 “in recognition of her severe and prolonged distress and significant risk of harm”,

It said: “Miss Z has been extremely vulnerable from when the first report was made, at first because of her very young age and past experiences, and later because of her severe mental illness. Her vulnerability makes her more severely affected by distress and risk of harm than most people.”

The report added that Miss Z felt a “deep sense of injustice over the council’s failure to investigate” which was “both severe and prolonged, lasting nearly 12 years.”

It concluded that this was “exacerbated when the council failed to act on and investigate the further report she made to medical staff” and that it was “more likely than not” that the council’s failure to provide information to Miss Z’s parents led to the loss of opportunity for an earlier investigation, about a year after the original report.”

“An investigation closer to the time of the original report had more of a chance of finding relevant evidence and/or providing a sense of closure to Miss Z,” it said.

It continued: “The available information, including her parents’ description of her suicide notes, indicates it is more likely than not that the distress resulting from the faults identified by the Stage 2 report contributed some harm to Miss Z’s mental and emotional state and family relationships over many years. However, I cannot say that the council’s faults were the only or main cause.”

A spokesperson for Kingston Council said: “Kingston Council sincerely apologises for the failings in dealing with the historical allegations of sexual abuse in this case, which occurred between 2007 and 2009.

“We have made significant improvements to our children’s social care service since then and have worked to ensure that these failings have not persisted into our current practice.”

Child reported sexual abuse but was ignored by her foster carer

[My London 2/1/21 by Sian Bayley]