The children’s commissioner has been called on to intervene in the case of a vulnerable teenager alleged to have been the victim of a catalogue of failures at the hands of social workers, medical authorities and police.
Laura*, 16, who nearly four years ago is thought to have been the youngest child ever to be placed in a secure hospital in England, has allegedly been sexually abused since she was 12 – always while supposedly under the protection of children’s social care in Sheffield. She is now confined to the seclusion unit of a psychiatric hospital under suicide watch.
Her mother Susan*, who has spoken to the Observer, says she fears every day that someone will knock on her door and say Laura has been found dead. Laura was taken into care because Susan was struggling with her daughter’s behaviour. Susan, herself a victim of child sexual exploitation, desperately wanted her child to be protected from the same fate.
Campaigners say they have contacted Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner for England, as a “last resort” after battling to help the teenager and her family for the past three years. Kathryn Kelwick, an outreach worker who dealt with victims of the Rotherham child abuse scandal, claims Laura was “horrendously exploited” during two periods of residency at a children’s home in Sheffield. Evidence gathered by Kelwick and Laura’s family suggests that while living at the children’s home Laura was able to come and go as she pleased, despite often showing signs of having been abused when she returned. Those exploiting the teenager were allegedly able to call for her in taxis sent to the home.In the first of these periods, Kelwick claims, “it took months for authorities to sit up and take notice”, and by the time they did, the then 14-year-old “had been sexually exploited by over 40 adults”. According to the family, social services “turned a blind eye” to the abuse, and they claim that South Yorkshire police failed to take any meaningful action to pursue those exploiting the girl.
Comments