Social workers failed to spot girl’s years of abuse by foster parents

A COUNCIL failed to spot years of mental and physical abuse by the foster parents of a young girl who was scalded and treated worse than the family’s pet pig, a judge has said.

The girl was left scarred and deeply traumatised by ill treatment before she was finally removed from the couple.

The abuse included being made to kneel by her foster mother in scalding water after soiling herself, and being bitten by the couple’s Rottweiler dogs.

Social services were warned by neighbours that the girl, now 12, was being mistreated, but took no action after an assessment the judge criticised as “superficial”.

They also made a “shocking” decision to send her back home after she had told school staff she was being abused there.

Judge Sarah Singleton said the couple were responsible for “emotional abuse and neglect” at their home in Lancashire and their approach to the girl appeared “entirely devoid of nurture, compassion or understanding”.

Details of the abuse have emerged in a ruling by the judge following a private hearing at a Blackpool family court. The judge said she had been asked to make decisions about who had caused harm, to help social workers plan for the future of the girl, who is now in the care of Lancashire county council.

Judge Singleton said the girl had been treated with “cold contempt”, while the couple’s three dogs and pet pig were “well cared for”.

During evidence, the foster mother “demonstrated more warmth when talking about the animals” than about the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

The foster mother had repeated the “highly-offensive ‘N’ word” with “alarming facility” when giving evidence, the judge said. And the foster father had described the girl as “strange and disturbed” – adding: “Maybe it was because she was African.”

The child was born in Luton, Beds, to a black Zimbabwean asylum seeker mother. The woman had placed her daughter with the couple, who were British and white, under an “informal fostering arrangement” while she was in a relationship with the foster mother’s son.

A residence order had been made at a county court in York 10 years ago, said the judge.

The court heard she was treated cruelly because she had problems soiling herself and was shut out in the garden as punishment.

The girl was eventually taken into care nearly three years later, after she alerted school staff and a doctor found her body was covered in scalds and scars.

Both foster parents “indignantly” denied the allegations, but the judge said she felt both had “failed to be truthful” and had “told deliberate lies from time to time”.

Judge Singleton analysed the case earlier this year, but her ruling has only recently been published on a legal website. Lancashire county council and police said they were not able to comment on whether charges would be brought against the foster couple.