School’s failings ‘hampered child abuse inquiry’

DAMNING REPORT INTO CASE OF DISABLED YOUNGSTER

FAILINGS at a now defunct school hampered an investigation into the sexual abuse of a disabled child, a damning report has revealed.

The child, who has learning difficulties, says they were sexually abused by their step-grandfather from the age of four.

But a Serious Case Review found a ‘lack of records’ and the ‘inability to identify staff’ at the now closed secondary school, combined with a ‘lack of forensic evidence,’ meant the Crown Prosecution Service’s attempts to get enough evidence for a conviction were ‘hampered.’ A decision has since been made to not to prosecute the step-grandfather, which has caused ‘distress to both the child and their family.’

Neither the child, referred to in the report as Child Q1, or the school have been identified in the review, carried out by Manchester Safeguarding Partnership. It details how the victim’s mother and primary school headteacher decided to send the child to a ‘free school,’ which are outside of local authority control, outside Manchester because they felt its small size would best suit the child’s needs.

But, the report says, the free school ‘did not respond to requests to attend meetings or to pick up Child Q1’s school file from their primary school.’ Between May and July 2016 Child Q1’s primary school attempted unsuccessfully to engage with the secondary school regarding their educational needs.

In the end it was left to the mother to provide the records to the new school. Despite that, the review found there was ‘no evidence to show that [the records] were ever used to provide either education or social support and was not part of Child Q1’s files at the time of school closure.’ The report added: “This lack of information would have contributed to staff at the school not identifying concerns relating to Child Q1 for some considerable time.”.

In 2016, Ofsted graded the school ‘inadequate,’ after an inspection found poor leadership, a lack of special education needs co-ordinator and out of date safeguarding and child protection policies. In July 2017, the school referred concerns about Child Q1’s behaviour towards men to Manchester children’s social services.

The referral, instigated by a teacher who had experience of working with children who had been sexually abused, raised a number of worries including that Child Q1 ‘will happily approach the male teacher... wanting to hug’ and was ‘overly interested in sexual development and sexualised behaviours.’ It said these concerns had been noted over a nine to 10-month period. Later that month, during an unannounced visit by a social worker at home, Child Q1 disclosed they had been abused by their stepgrandfather from the age of four, with the most recent assault taking place just a week earlier. Child Q1’s mother then reported the abuse to the police.

The review also says the school’s lack of record sharing ‘was not unique’ to Child Q1 and since its closure only ‘minimal information’ has been provided to the pupils’ new schools.