Serious case review says murdered teenage mother was 'invisible' to services

Laura Wilson was murdered in Rotherham in October 2010 by Ashtiaq Asghar, who was jailed for 17 years in December last year.

She had been in contact with a number of agencies including social care, health and youth services since the age of 11, had a learning difficulty and was known to be a victim of sexual exploitation.

The review found evidence of some good practice among the agencies, but raised “considerable concern” that her needs were not properly met, although no individual or agency led to her death.

“Of significance is that the care did not focus on her and her needs,” the review said. “She was almost invisible to some services.

"The impact of learning difficulties on her ability to make choices about her life and care was not considered by most services.”

The review said that recent improvements to services across Rotherham should reduce the risk of a similar case happening again.

Changes include the creation of a contact and referral team to improve initial assessments and access to social care services.

Specialist support teams have been introduced for children with learning disabilities, children with complex health problems and looked-after children.

The council has also established so-called “learning communities”, which provide clear routes of support for every child and young person and help co-ordinate prevention and early intervention work in each community.

Progress on the authority’s children and young people plan is also monitored quarterly by the children’s trust board.

Alan Hazell, chair of Rotherham Local Safeguarding Children Board, said: "This is a wide ranging study which shows a very complex situation surrounding Child S and her child which made it difficult for agencies to engage with her.

"There is no suggestion that anyone could have saved [her] from what ultimately happened, but clearly her care could have been improved.

“There were chances for those agencies to be more proactive in how they dealt with the case and all agencies involved accept that and apologise that the standards of service were not as high as they should have been.”

A government improvement notice was removed from Rotherham last year and the authority’s children’s services were judged to be “performing adequately” in the latest annual assessments.