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Local authority ‘sued’ by five year old for neglect

Legal action has been launched against a local authority on behalf of a five year-old boy and his siblings after social workers left them alone with drug addict parents.

Instead of being taken into foster accommodation, the unnamed boy, his older brother and two sisters all remained in the couple’s care, living in dirty conditions, despite multiple police visits to the family’s home.

According to reports, the parents frequently took cocaine and were violent towards each other in front of their children. They left the youngsters alone for long periods and refused to seek medical attention when one developed breathing difficulties. The boy’s older brother did not attend school for a whole year at one point.

But despite the family’s many problems, social workers at Swansea Council (formerly the City and County of Swansea Council) failed to act, media reports claim. The boy was eventually taken into care in 2013, but this was at least three years too late, government lawyers from the office of the Official Solicitor have claimed. They have launched legal action on behalf of the boy and his siblings, seeking £200,000 in damages for the social workers’ alleged failure to protect them from the “physical and emotional abuse and neglect [to] which they were subject in their family home”.

Legal papers filed by the lawyers reveal that the children’s parents had themselves been abused during their own childhoods and been cited on the local child protection register. They had a history of drug abuse and domestic violence stretching back years.

The blog team at Stowe is a group of writers based across our family law offices who share their advice on the wellbeing and emotional aspects of divorce or separation from personal experience. As well as pieces from our family law solicitors, guest contributors also regularly contribute to share their knowledge.

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