Lambeth council criticised over claim girl shared bed with sex offender

The local government and social care ombudsman found the girl was "consistently let down"

A London borough council has been criticised for failing to investigate claims a nine-year-old girl shared a bed with a known sex offender.

The child's father told Lambeth council staff his daughter said she was in the same bed as the offender while he had sex with her mother.

The local government and social care ombudsman found the girl was "consistently let down".

Lambeth council apologised and said it accepted the findings.

The ombudsman reviewed the council's handling of the case after the girl's father escalated his complaint, the Local Democracy Reporting Service says.

The incident was originally reported to the council by the child's father and another individual in 2018.

The father then lodged a complaint with the council in 2020 and continued to escalate his grievance until the ombudsman reviewed the case in August.

'Failed in duties'

The ombudsman noted that a previous investigation was highly critical of the council's response and that it had made almost 30 recommendations for improvement.

The earlier investigation had highlighted the mother's issues with alcoholism and found she had attended hospital with her daughter while drunk, and had forgotten to pick her daughter up from school on one occasion.

That panel found the council had allowed the girl to keep living with her mother even after it had received a report that her new partner - a sex offender - would be moving in.

It said social workers had never asked the child about the claims she had shared a bed with her mother's partner, but because the incident would be considered as a form of child sexual exploitation the council had therefore "failed in their duties in relation to this matter".

Social workers had used more of a "parent-led than child-led" approach, the panel ruled, and had failed to understand the child's "lived experiences and the impact of her mother's lifestyle".

It also noted that social workers had not been checking on the girl every 10 days despite it being a legal requirement for a child on a child protection plan.

'Prolonged, significant distress'

When reviewing the case, the ombudsman identified that not all of the previous investigation's recommendations had been acted upon.

It ordered the council to brief staff on the importance of following London-wide child protection guidelines on working with sex offenders, and to send an apology to the girl's father in which it accepted the ombudsman's findings.

The ombudsman also told the council to pay the father £1,150 compensation for the "prolonged, significant and unnecessary distress" caused by its failure to protect his daughter, and the time and trouble it had taken him to expose problems. 

A Lambeth Council spokesperson said: "The council has accepted the findings and has agreed action that the ombudsman's investigator said will remedy the injustice.

"We have apologised to those who were let down and have submitted evidence that the council has carried out the actions needed in line with the ombudsman's report.

"We are now focussed on preventing similar failings in the future."

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