A COUPLE who claim they were failed by their local council’s children’s services team have finally had their concerns officially acknowledged and recorded on the authority’s files.
The pair, who are married with three children, came under investigation by Harrow Council’s children’s services in 2009, when their eldest son reported receiving a ‘cuff around the ear’ from his father.
The revelation, which the boy, who was eight at the time, made at school, sparked a standard investigation by the Council, which the family – including the mother, father and son – willingly participated in.
That case was closed in early 2010, with the local authority satisfied that the couple’s children were not at risk and no further action was needed.
Yet the family were left distraught and promptly filed a complaint regarding parts of the investigation which they claim were “mishandled”.
While that procedure began – which took two years to complete – they continued to battle the Council for access to their case files, which they finally received via an approach made to the Local Government Ombudsman.
It was then that they found further “disturbing and concerning” mistakes, in the information recorded from their investigation interviews.
“We had two sets of complaints about this case,” the couple, who The Irish Post has agreed not to name in order to protect the identity of their children, told us this week.
“One related to the supposed allegations and the way they bungled the original assessment,” they explained, “and the other related to the disturbing contents of the case file which they failed to release in time for the initial complaint and then subsequently refused to address by saying they had already dealt with our complaint.”
In the years that have followed, the parents, who both hail from Ireland but have lived in London for a number of years, have struggled to have their secondary complaints fully addressed by the Council.
Most significantly, the local authority has refused to amend the details in their case files which they claim have been misreported.
The worst of the inaccuracies - and the one they were most upset about - was a statement recorded in the file, and attributed to the mother, claiming their son “always got a cuff around the ear when he was naughty”.
“While we had a number of issues with Harrow Children's Services by far the most serious was their changing of a statement I made so that it implied my husband beat our son whenever he was naughty,” the mother explained.
“It's there in black in white in the case file. Yet they refused to acknowledge it never mind apologize for it,” she added.
“It seemed that nothing we said made any difference. It's like we slipped into a parallel universe.”
Their ongoing battle with Harrow Council over the file has taken a huge toll on the family in recent years.
It has even led the father – an esteemed lecturer at a London university – into a bout of depression that nearly cost him his job.
“'I have found the whole thing deeply unsettling and really struggled with the injustice of it all,” he told us.
“Month after month went by and the Council had still failed to resolve the case or even talk to us. In the end I fell into a deep depression, lost interest in life, but did eventually manage to go and see my GP.”
He added: “I did have a highly successful career until that point but I nearly lost my job. It's going to be with me for the rest of my life.”
His wife, who also works in the city, added: “This whole experience has been incredibly distressing and destabilising. We lost control of our lives. We withdrew socially and found we couldn't even discuss it with family or friends as it was just too upsetting & hard to explain.”
She added: “But the impact on my husband was hardest of all to bear - myself and the kids lost him for a few months. It times like that when you realise that the stories you read about social services in this country just might be true”.
This week, after being contacted by The Irish Post, Harrow Council agreed to acknowledge the family’s concerns on their case file.
“The protection and welfare of all children is the main priority of this council,” a Harrow Council spokesperson confirmed.
“Therefore it is only right that we investigate all cases that are brought to our attention. We appreciate the concerns of Mr [X] and Mrs [X] have raised about this case, but we referred our handling of it to the Local Government Ombudsman. They thoroughly investigated our handling of the case and found Harrow Council followed the correct procedures and processes.”
They added: “This is a historic case, which despite thorough investigation by the LGO Mr and Mrs [X] still have concerns about the wording in the report. Obviously we have to keep the investigation on file, but we have added a note in the file explaining the position of the family. This will ensure that if the need arises to review it in the future those concerns are on record.”
The couple, who have waited years for any form of acknowledgement, added: “All we ever asked is that they acknowledge that they repeatedly failed to record, misrepresented and deliberately distorted the facts in the case and then that they apologise and try not to do it to any other family.”
