“Frankly catastrophic” – High Court judge slams Haringey Council

You may have guessed that I’m not exactly a great fan of the way Haringey Labour runs the council, but this is pretty jaw-dropping even by Haringey’s standards:

A High Court judge has hit out at the council responsible for the Baby P scandal for preventing seven abused siblings from seeing each other after their parents were sent to prison.

Mr Justice Holman said he felt a “sense of the utmost despair” after it emerged social workers at Haringey council organised a “goodbye meeting” last year. In doing so they ignored a legal order made in 2012 to allow the brothers and sisters to stay in contact.

The judge added: “It simply shouldn’t have happened that way. It was a frankly catastrophic situation.”…

Elaine Redding, Haringey’s assistant director of children services, said “aspects” of the team’s compliance with court orders had fallen “unacceptably short of good practice”.

Haringey council was heavily criticised for its handling of the cases of Baby P — 17-month-old Peter Connelly — who died in 2007 and eight-year-old Victoria Climbié, who died in 2000.