Shamed social worker shared sensitive data on troubled children
A SHAMED social worker has quit after he was caught illegally sharing confidential and highly-sensitive information on troubled children while he was banned from frontline duties.
Leo Kirk, 59, had been suspended from practice for a total of 18 months by a healthcare regulator after he persuaded a grieving woman to lend him money for a mortgage repayment when he was allocated to look after her.
But he carried on working as a regional manager for a private care company which helps young people without disclosing his suspension and was put in charge of developing policy ideas.
Kirk, from Audenshaw, Tameside, was reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) after he sent private documents to a rival firm which contained confidential details about 14 youngsters in care and whether they were at risk of child sexual exploitation.
He subsequently claimed he passed on the information to show the other company how ‘difficult and complex some of these young people are.’
At Stockport magistrates court, Kirk was fined £483 and ordered to pay a further £412 in costs after he admitted two charges of obtaining and recklessly disclosing personal data under the Data Protection Act 1998.
His 18-month suspension was lifted in October last year, but he is no longer involved in social work.
Kirk, who qualified as a social worker in 1998, had originally been reprimanded by the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service in April 2018 after he borrowed £450 from a woman he was assigned to care for via an agency between 2014 and 2016. At the time the unnamed woman, from Warrington, who had post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression after a bereavement, was awarded £4,800 in backdated benefits after being helped by Kirk.
In November 2016, he told her computer hackers had stolen £3,000 from his bank account and he needed money to pay his next mortgage instalment.
She lent him the cash and he paid back £100 but then transferred to another post two weeks later – sending a text message to the woman saying: “I won’t forget – here is my personal number.’’
The money was subsequently refunded in full by Warrington Council after the woman told another social worker about the illicit transaction.
The ICO investigation began in May 2018 after the director of Preston-based Holywell Children’s services learnt information about children in its care had been sent to a competitor in Stockport. Representing himself, Kirk said: “The competitor was a new business that was opening up and the reason I sent referrals over was to acknowledge that and to show the new business how difficult and complex some of these young people are.
‘’If you don’t get it right, you will do more damage than good – that was my thinking.
‘’I deeply regret what I have done, I am a qualified professional. But my intention was nothing more sinister then showing somebody the complexity of young people and I do apologise for that.
“I am working now but not as a social worker.’’
Sentencing, chairman of the magistrates Lynn Moores told Kirk: “We have listened very carefully and taken into account your early guilty plea and your fairly obvious remorse – you have obviously lost your job.’’
Leo Kirk