The rape of a teenage girl by a serial sex offender might have been prevented if children's social workers had been more involved in managing his release from prison.
A serious case review (SCR) by Redcar and Cleveland Safeguarding Children Board found a raft of mistakes in the way the man's release back into the community had been handled. The SCR recounts how after being released, the man, who is referred to as John, resumed a relationship with a former partner that was kept hidden from police, probation officers and social workers for around five years.
During this five-year period he subjected his partner and her family to domestic violence and raped her teenage daughter, who is referred to as Mary. John is now serving a life sentence.
Lack of co-operation
This process was managed by the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (Mappa), set up by police as well as probation and prison services to assess sexual and violent offenders' risk to the public. Despite Mary and her siblings previously spending time on the child protection register, neither John's history with the family nor their vulnerability was discussed at the 10 Mappa meetings held during the five years after his release.
The SCR recommends improved links between future Mappa meetings and children's services teams at Redcar and Cleveland, and Stockton-on-Tees, where John and the family lived after his release.
It found that lack of co-operation lay on both sides. Redcar and Cleveland children's services failed to supply sufficient information to the Mappa team about John's history with the family. The Mappa team was also criticised for failing to prioritise child protection and consider the possibility that John was a threat to the family's safety.
This lack of co-operation was evident even when John was convicted of assault against Mary's mother towards the end of the five-year period.
Children's social workers were not informed of this prosecution and when police did alert children's social services at Stockton-on-Tees about another incident of domestic violence, social workers decided to interview Mary's mother and John at the same time. During this interview she denied any abuse had taken place.
Improvements to services
Jon Brown, the NSPCC's head of strategy and development, says Mappas are often under-resourced and their criminal justice orientation means they can have limited focus on child protection. "Managers need to ensure they know about meetings and give staff time to attend. Children's social services is too often a peripheral player," says Brown.
Both Stockton-on-Tees and Redcar and Cleveland councils have agreed to act on recommendations made by the SCR to improve domestic abuse training for social workers, share information with police and probation services, and work more closely with Mappa teams. Shaun McLurg, head of Stockton's children and young people's operational services, said that the department is working with the probation service to improve ways of sharing information.
Brown says: "One of the biggest set of gaps is between children's services, probation services and local prisons. Sex offenders are very skilled in exploiting such gaps."
KEY LESSONS
- All children's social workers need to be aware that councils and Mappa teams have a legal duty to co-operate with each other
- Mappa teams need to focus on child protection and include a child focus section in their minutes
- Probation services need to give social workers access to their case files and work with them to assess the risk an offender may pose to children
- Children's social workers should receive specific training in managing offenders and domestic violence.
- Where possible, this should be with counterparts in police and probation services to encourage closer links
