Baby P: Haringey practitioners fight dismissal

Baby Peter

Three Haringey children’s services practitioners sacked over the Baby Peter case have appealed against their dismissals, the council has confirmed.

A council spokesperson said a date had not been fixed to hear the appeals of Maria Ward, Peter’s social worker, Gillie Christou, Ward’s manager at the time of the case, and Cecilia Hitchen, who was deputy director of children and families.

Ward, Christou and the council’s former head of safeguarding, Clive Preece, were sacked for gross misconduct following an internal investigation, the authority confirmed last month.

It also said that Hitchen had been dismissed “for a loss of trust and confidence” following the damning joint area review into safeguarding in the borough, ordered by the government last November in the wake of the Baby P trial.

Ward and Christou remain barred from practising as social workers by the General Social Care Council, with both under interim suspension orders, pending the conclusion of an investigation.

The orders expire at the beginning of June, at which point the GSCC will decide whether to renew them or whether their case should be referred to a conduct committee for a full hearing.

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