Three Bristol social workers face inquiry

Three social workers are to face an internal inquiry over the
way they handled the care of a man with mental health problems.

The social workers, together with a consultant psychiatrist, are
said to have failed in their duty to 64-year-old Selburn Watson,
according to a report from Bristol Council’s department of social
services and health.

The report says that one of the social workers misled a
magistrate by giving false information and that all three were
guilty of malpractice.

The report found that Watson was unfairly treated and had had
his human rights disregarded over a period of several months in
2001, as social services tried to get him admitted to a secure
hospital.

Bristol’s director of social services and health Bill
McKitterick has admitted that mistakes were made in the way the
case was handled.