Social worker struck off after falsifying record

A social worker who misled his employer about a 2010 conduct hearing and obtained work using a false reference has been struck off the social care register.

A conduct hearing held last week decided that Jagroop Liddar should be removed from the register for engaging “in a deliberate and persistent course of dishonest and inappropriate behaviour” that had potentially put a looked-after child at risk.

The hearing concerned Liddar’s actions concerning a 19 March 2010 conduct hearing at which he was admonished for not informing the London Borough of Hounslow, his employer from 2003 to 2008, of several police cautions and convictions.

At the 2010 hearing he said he had not worked in social work since being dismissed by Hounslow and now worked as an estate agent, a claim the conduct committee counted in his favour. But in fact Liddar had used a false reference to register with the Synergy Group Employment Agency in September 2008 and, through the agency, had gained work at the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham.

Liddar did not inform Hammersmith & Fulham about his then forthcoming hearing, but when asked about it he claimed it concerned a 1997 offence for an out-of-date tax disc. He also said he did not need to attend the hearing and would be visiting a looked-after child in Warrington on that date, even though he attended the hearing. On the first working day after the March 2010 hearing, he submitted a timesheet for a seven-hour shift worked on the day of the hearing.

Last week’s hearing found that Liddar had acted dishonestly and in doing so potentially placed the looked-after child at risk since his claimed visit could have resulted in the child missing a necessary, statutory visit. The conduct hearing, which Liddar did not attend, found that “while his actions and omissions were mainly calculated to conceal the facts he did not wish to come to light, in one instance they had the effect of exposing a vulnerable service user to potential harm”.

It concluded that Liddar’s behaviour was “fundamentally incompatible with continued practice as a social worker” and that he should be removed from the register immediately.

Liddar has 28 days to appeal against the decision.

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