The Supreme Court judgment, handed down today, found social workers owe all children a duty of care - regardless of whether they are officially in care - to protect them from the risk of sexual, emotional and physical abuse or neglect.
The move overrules a previous Court of Appeal decision last year that found Poole Council was not at fault in the case of a mother and her two children - one of whom is severely disabled - being subject to abuse from their neighbours.
The family claimed the council was at fault for placing them next door to a family which, according to the Supreme Court papers, the council knew "had persistently engaged in antisocial behaviour".
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