Here's something to cheer up social workers, perhaps battle-weary after years of pummelling from the media. A Haringey social worker has accepted libel damages from three newspapers which wrongly implicated her in the death of Baby P.
Amid the brouhaha in the wake of George Osborne's emergency Budget and the sense of national tragedy then hyperbole that tracked the varying fortunes of England's football team, it would have been easy to miss the latest developments in the Baby P case.
This is what the controversy was about.
Sober as a judge. It's not an expression that springs to mind today, although we are not privy to the information that the three appeal court judges had in front of them yesterday as they decided the fate of baby P lodger Jason Owen.
And now comes the inevitable compensation claim. It is reported that the biological father of Baby Peter is to seek reparations from Haringey Council for the toddler's death.
Ah, the power of the
fourth estate: so mighty were the combined forces of the Mirror group and the
Times, along with the BBC, that a High Court judge simply had to reveal the
identities of the mother and stepfather of Baby Peter.
Sometimes when a judge passes what seems to be an unduly lenient sentence it is natural to sit back and ponder: "Did I miss something?"
| Outside Left questions the thinking behind today’s social policy, with a sometimes wry, occasionally cynical, always straight-talking look at the political elite that shapes it, written by sub editor, Mike McNabb. |
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