Social worker accused of failing grooming victims keeps her job
ASOCIAL worker accused of failing to protect victims of the Rochdale grooming gang has been allowed to keep her job after the case against her was ruled to be ‘not well founded.’
Deborah MacQueen was alleged to have failed to safeguard up to 11 vulnerable children who were groomed by the paedophile ring.
In a long-running disciplinary hearing, the former Rochdale council social worker faced allegations that from January 2005 to September 2010 she failed to protect the children who were in ‘grave danger.’
Nine men in Rochdale and Heywood were convicted and jailed for a total of 70 years in May 2012 for grooming children as young as 13 after they plied them with alcohol and drugs before ‘passing them round for sex’ at two takeaway restaurants.
Ringleader Shabir ‘Daddy’ Ahmed, now 64, was given a 19-year sentence which was later upped to 22 years for repeatedly raping a girl.
The horrific scandal was the subject of a three-part BBC drama called ‘Three Girls’, which aired in May.
A serious case review by the Rochdale Safeguarding Children Board described police and social services as demonstrating a ‘shocking’ inability to protect the vulnerable.
Subsequently an investigation was carried out by the local authority to determine if social workers had followed proper procedures to protect the girls.
MacQueen was employed as a manager within the council’s social work team and admitted that she had ‘signed off cases’ despite information they were at risk of harm.
Representing herself throughout the hearing, she said that she only did so because she was unaware of the ‘full facts’ of cases and that she should have been more robust in making sure those below here were doing their due diligence.
Sheila Sutherland, who led the investigation on behalf of Rochdale council, described her decisions as ‘indefensible’ in relation to one child with a learning disability.
She said the victim’s older brother was associated with a man convicted of paedophilia and she could not see a reason as to why the case should have been closed.
Ms Sutherland said: “I can find no basis or justification for the decision to close this case - I consider her practice wholly inadequate and very dangerous.”
At an earlier hearing Ms MacQueen denied failing to properly safeguard seven children, and that her errors in relation to four children amount to misconduct.
She also denied her fitness to practice was impaired by reason of misconduct.
Industry regulator the Health Care and Professions Council found her guilty of one charge of not ensuring that an assessment was undertaken or recorded in relation to the risk posed by ‘child 11’s’ uncle and son, who they were living with at the time.
Katherine Boyd, chair of the HCPC panel, said: “The panel has taken some to make its findings - we have had to sift through a lot of documentation.
“It has therefore been an unusual forensic exercise and we are intending to keep the of the facts of the particulars private.
“In summary we have found the registrant failed to ensure an assessment was taken out for child 11.”
Ms Boyd added: “The panel considered the registrant’s level of managerial responsibility, her years of experience and her practice as disclosed in these proceedings. The fact found proven does not represent a fair sample of her work to support a finding of lack of competence.
“In relation to the issue of whether the threshold has been reached to support misconduct, the panel took into account that this was an isolated failure on the part of the registrant. The registrant, in hindsight, has acknowledged that she should have checked the status of assessments undertaken by her supervise and ensure that details of these were recorded.
“However, the panel recognised that this would have been expecting a standard of perfection and concluded that to expect all of a supervisee’s actions to be captured in the supervision notes would not, in the specific circumstances, be achievable.
“The panel has therefore concluded that this isolated incident, in its judgement, does not amount to misconduct.
“Therefore, the panel concluded that the case was not well founded at the grounds stage.”