Ruling on child abuse brings parent despair

A MOTHER whose four-year-old daughter was taken away from her for 13 months after a mistaken accusation of sexual abuse has lost a prolonged legal battle for compensation, an explanation and an apology from social workers.

In a landmark judgment in the House of Lords, the woman has been barred from taking action against Newham social services in east London. Five law lords ruled that social workers and doctors cannot be sued for negligence in child care work, regardless of how bizarre or wrong their behaviour may have been.

The decision has blocked dozens of other claims concerning children who were seized by social workers because of sex abuse claims which later proved groundless. Innocent families accused of satanic or ritual abuse in the Orkneys, Ayrshire and Rochdale had been waiting for the result before proceeding with their own cases.

Paul Burns is a solicitor representing families in Ayrshire, where young children were seized in 1990 after social workers decided they had been abused by satanists who drank blood and urine in graveyards. He said he was dismayed by the result.

``It is astonishing that the Queen and social workers are above the law and the rest of us are bound by it,'' Burns said. Some children did not see their families for five years until a court ordered their return last February, saying the social workers had started ``a tragedy of immense proportions''.

The ordeal of the Newham mother and daughter started eight years ago with a routine GP's examination after the girl wet herself. The doctor became suspicious and referred her to a clinic. There she was interviewed by Dr Eileen Vizard, a leading child psychiatrist, and a social worker, who asked her to play with sexually explicit dolls. They alleged that the girl confirmed sexual abuse by her mother's boyfriend, who was living with them at the time.

Although the child immediately denied to her mother that she had said any such thing, she was not believed until a year later when the mother's solicitor obtained a video recording of the interview, which proved she had not made the allegations. After six weeks of preparing the girl to be reunited with her mother, social workers finally allowed her to return home.

In the intervening year, mother and daughter had been allowed as little as one hour together each week. The child's mother was not permitted to accompany her to hospital for an operation. The girl's grandparents and other relatives could not see her at all. By the time the allegation of abuse was withdrawn, one of the grandmothers had died of a stroke.

The girl and her mother, a manager in the leisure industry, are now building a new life. The mother, 30, said both had been scarred by the experience. She hopes to challenge the Lords decision in the European Court of Human Rights.

``We are not taking this action for money, but because people who are accused can never prove their innocence,'' she said. ``They get their children back, but social services don't admit to making a mistake and people who know you lost your child look at you as though you are scum. All I want is an apology and for them to be forced to learn by their mistakes.''

In their 53-page judgment, the law lords argued that professionals undertaking statutory ``welfare'' work for children could not be held legally liable for their mistakes and did not owe a duty of care to clients. They argued that holding social workers liable would make them more cautious when children were at risk.

The Legal Aid Board, which is backing many claims by other families against social services, is now studying the judgment. It is expected to withdraw aid if it decides that the judgment renders such cases unwinnable.

In the Orkneys, where nine children were seized by social workers in 1991,one mother said: ``Social workers do not have a professional body to discipline them, and we cannot fully expose what went on because the courts will not allow us to stand up and be named in the media. We want to bring legal action to expose the mistakes.''