News

The social work manager accused of removing pages from Victoria Climbie's file after her death wholeheartedly rejected the allegations today (Friday) during her evidence to the inquiry, writes Lauren Revans.

Angella Mairs, who was duty investigation and assessment team manager, told the inquiry that she had never denied closing the case so there would have been an "no reason and no purpose" to act in such a way.

"I would never do something like that in all my years of doing social work and managing social work," she said. "I do not accept it whatsoever".

Mairs also denied that she had directed Victoria Climbie's allocated social worker Lisa Arthurworrey to prepare a provisional closing summary "without proper reference to the case file and before an adequate assessment of Victoria's needs could be carried out".

She went on to reject further allegations that she failed to offer any proper supervision in relation to Victoria's case during the time she was Arthurworrey's supervisor; that she knew of the second strategy meeting, but failed to ensure Arthurworrey acted on the tasks that arose from it; and that she allowed senior practitioner Rose Kozinos to supervise Arthurworrey without appropriate supervision training.

Although Mairs accepted that she had been in breach of case-recording guidelines by failing to read Victoria's file, she insisted this was due to insufficient resources, and that her senior managers where aware that these guidelines where not followed in practice.

She also admitted that she and her team where "not that familiar" with the Haringey area child protection committee's procedures handbook, despite its intended purpose as a "working tool for professionals involved with children". "It did not have that much relevance to the day-to-day operation," she confessed.