Edinburgh Council 'hell-bent' on protecting abuser, says whistleblower

Officials at Edinburgh Council were criticised for failing to act on formal allegations about Sean Bell's conduct

A whistleblower has claimed that Edinburgh council bosses were "hell-bent" on protecting a senior social worker who was a serial abuser.

Jonathan Stanners said he raised concerns about the behaviour of Sean Bell nine years before Mr Bell took his own life last year while awaiting trial on physical and sexual abuse charges.

An inquiry found Mr Bell, 58, had been protected by an "old boys network".

Ex-council employee Mr Stanners is calling for a further investigation.

City of Edinburgh Council says all of the inquiry's recommendations are being implemented.

• Council accepts inquiry findings into serial abuser Sean Bell

• Senior social worker was serial abuser, report finds

Now a documentary film maker, Mr Stanners made a formal complaint in 2011 alleging that his then colleague Mr Bell was misusing funds and bullying staff.

He also raised concerns that the council social worker - who rose to a senior position in the children and families department - had physically assaulted another employee.

"They were hell-bent on protecting him, and protecting the City of Edinburgh Council from scandal, that they quashed it and isolated me, isolated the team and the service," Mr Stanners told BBC Scotland.

"Having been through this whole process, it's very clear that this is a message that when you whistleblow, you better be prepared for what comes at you.

"When you take on somebody with the might of the City of Edinburgh Council and they have power, they can reduce you to a wreck - and they did - they reduced me to a wreck."

Jonathan Stanners left the council in 2015, saying the response to his concerns "reduced me to a wreck"

Bell was due in court in September 2020 to face charges connected to historical physical, sexual and verbal abuse.

His death signalled the end of any criminal investigations but it led to the council commissioning an independent investigation into his behaviour and the way the council had handled complaints against him.

Susanne Tanner's report identified Mr Stanners' allegations as one of four missed opportunities to stop Sean Bell before three decades of abuse was finally exposed in 2019.

The QC said it was "completely unacceptable" that the claims had not been properly investigated.

She singled out two senior managers - Andy Jeffries, who then worked in children's social work services, and Alistair Gaw, then head of support to children and young people - describing their inaction as "a dereliction of duty".

By the time the report was published in October this year, both men had left the council.

'Right all along'

Current chief executive Andrew Kerr, who commissioned the inquiry in October 2020, said he was "very confident" that the "old boys network" was part of an old culture that no longer existed.

Mr Stanners disagrees. "There are individuals who remain in post in the council who were centrally involved in the investigation into the submissions we made," he said.

"Do they regret not taking me seriously at the time? Do they regret not taking the other victims seriously at the time? They've all had a hand in why he continued to behave in the way that he did.

"I had to beat on the door to get them to listen to me and they still ignored me. I'm now beating on the door again and saying 'Look, I've been vindicated for what I did at the time and still nothing's coming forward from you'. You're still not saying yeah yeah yeah, we accept responsibility."

Conservative councillor Cameron Rose has been closely following the case.

He believes while the council "can't necessarily right all wrongs of things that happened a long time ago", at the very least it needs to "do what investigation can reasonably be done" and "needs to say to whistleblowers who were involved that they believe them."

"I think from what the Tanner report did say about the Sean Bell case, we should be rushing to say that actually Jonathan Stanners was right all along," Mr Rose added. "He's had to live with 10 years of knowing that in the main, his claims were rubbished."

A City of Edinburgh Council spokesperson said it again offered its "deepest sympathies to the survivors who suffered at the hands of Sean Bell" and thanked "all those who came forward with information to support the independent inquiry".

"The recommendations set out in Susanne Tanner's report were unanimously accepted by councillors on 25 October and an action plan for implementing these was approved last week," the spokesperson added.

"One such action was to set up a redress scheme, ensuring that it takes appropriate account of the impact on whistleblowers, as well as survivors."