One the local papers reports a Judge condemned Lewisham Council bungles regarding a errors in a child sex abuse case.
Last week under the title 'Serious Case Reviews' a report into the abuse of Baby K went before the Mayor. Altough it was the only item on the agenda there is no summary of the Mayor's decision provided on the Council's website.
Reading the officers report you'd think this was an annual review of the service provided, by selecting a case at random and looking at it in detail.
But this is the first paragraph from the Independent Review....
The review concerns a large family. It took into account criticism of the local authority made by Mr Stephen Bellamy QC sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court of Justice Family Division in February 2008.
The judge made care orders in respect of the children, based on findings of physical neglect of all the children, sexual abuse of some of the children, the exposure to indecent pornographic material of all of the children as well as emotional abuse arising from exposure to domestic violence.
The judgement was critical of the failure of social care and education services to intervene at an earlier point to prevent
abuse and protect the children from further abuse.
It is interesting how the council has presented this both internally and externally.