Legal battle to uncover failings over children in Herefordshire

A BBC Panorama investigation into Herefordshire Council’s troubled children’s services department will give those harmed by its shortcomings the chance to have their say for the first time, its presenter has said.

Investigative journalist Louise Tickle has been following developments at the department since three highly critical High Court judgments on it were handed down by Mr Justice Keehan in 2018.

The council said then that “stronger supervision and decision making arrangements have since been put in place across children’s services”.

But in March 2021, Mr Justice Keehan published another strongly worded rebuke to the council after the death of a child in care, identifying “significant and systemic failings” in how it looked after children.

A subsequent Ofsted inspection in July found the council “has made little progress” in the three years between the judgments.

In 2019, Herefordshire Council acted on “incorrect legal advice” when it gave permission for a child in care’s life support to be switched off.

A new director of the department, Darryl Freeman, was confirmed n December – having previously headed Devon County Council children’s services, where in 2020 Ofsted identified “serious failures… which senior leaders did not know about”.

Herefordshire Council has since backed a £11.5 million spending on children’s services in the current financial year, paying for more than 80 new staff.

It has been a long battle to bring the story to the screen, Louise Tickle said.

“Normally you would be in contempt of court for reporting on family court cases,” she said. Instead, she went to court to have reporting restrictions lifted to cover the story, with Herefordshire Council hiring a QC to resist this – in the event, unsuccessfully.

“But I still didn’t know who the people involved were,” she explained, with the council eventually compelled to forward her letters to the families concerned.

“Otherwise, there is one young woman in the film who would not have known about it, and wouldn’t have got the chance to tell her story,” Ms Tickle said.

As a result, “it was six months before I could even propose making the programme”, she said.

“We have found out things that weren’t in the judgments, about the harm people had been caused.”

Panorama airs on BBC One on Monday, May 16, at 8pm.