News

• Education director to head social work in Edinburgh
• Former director calls for more accountability from professionals
• Council expresses regret for baby's death
• Scots court convicts father of killing son
• Social work department defends role after father kills baby

The death of an 11-week old baby at the hands of his father could have been avoided, but all the agencies involved were flawed “at almost every level,” according to an inquiry report, writes Sally Gillen.

Caleb Ness was admitted to hospital in October 2001 and pronounced dead shortly afterwards having suffered a brain haemorrhage, thought to have been caused by shaking. An autopsy revealed 14 rib fractures, and his father Alexander Ness was jailed for 11 years in March after pleading guilty to culpable homicide.

But the report commissioned by the Edinburgh and Lothians child protection committee said Caleb, who suffered from a condition called neonatal abstinence syndrome, which made him more demanding than a normal baby, should never have been left in his parents’ care unsupervised.

A child protection case conference held after Caleb was born, at which he was put on the child protection register, was chaired by a person who had never done the job before, and had no training into how to carry out the role. The person who took minutes had never done the job before.

Other professionals “appeared to have had very little knowledge of the roles expected of them, and no-one was clear about the exact decisions that should been taken”. No detailed plan was agreed, according to the report.

Edinburgh council social workers dealing with case are criticised for failing to take into account Caleb’s mother’s drug dependency, and dismissed as “historical” the fact her two other children had been taken into care without evidence her lifestyle had changed.

They accepted at “face value” what Ness and Caleb’s mother Shirley Malcolm told them. They also failed to carry out an assessment of Ness, despite the fact he had criminal convictions, including a serious assault on an adult, and had sustained a brain injury that nearly killed him six months before Caleb’s birth.

The council now plans to undertake a review of its child protection procedures, which will look at all 342 children on its child protection register.

There are also plans to review the conduct of the staff involved in the case, following calls for director Les McEwan’s resignation. One member of staff has been suspended and three others removed from child protection duties.

Senior social work officers from the council were due to visit the Scottish executive this week to explain to ministers what actions had been taken since the report was published.