Freedom of Information Co-ordinator,

Civic Offices, New Road, Grays Thurrock, Essex RM17 6SL.

Date:14 August 2012

S.Prichard
Whatdotheyknow.com

DearRequestor

Re: Freedom of Information request number 3053

I am writing to advise you on the outcome of your request for information.

I am writing this FOI with reference to an article recently found

regarding Timothy Edmeades, Labour party organiser and case worker,

found guilty of sexually abusing young children and Thurrock

council accepting / conspiring / supporting / defending his

paedophile tendencies. The links are below

and

1. What involvement did social services have prior to this case?

Did social services have concerns or NO concerns?

2. What checks did councils do to ensure Mr Edmeades was safe

around children prior to his conviction or the child disclosures?

(i.e. enhanced CRB checks)

3. Was any ABE interviews conducted?

4. Have any other checks been done to ensure he has not abused any

other children?

5. Have the children of Mr Edmeades relatives been investigated to

ensure they have not been abused?

6. Have any interim care orders or care orders been granted against

any of the abused children’s parents? {This is on the basis that

social workers throughout the UK have routinely removed children

from innocent parents for reporting suspected abuse or not

adequately safeguarding the children and placed them with the

parents / family members that have abused the child; which in turn

places the innocent parent in a lose lose situation, and the

children at significant risk; therefore another Baby P waiting to

happen}

7. How many interim care orders or care orders have been granted

for parents reporting suspected abuse or a suspected paedophile in

the last 3 years to date?

8. How many people or social workers work for your council have NO

concerns of children disclosing sexual abuse, or adults

masturbating in front of children, or the like?

9. How many people or social workers work for your council have

concerns of children disclosing sexual abuse, or adults

masturbating in front of children, or the like?

10. What actions would your LA take against any employee or social

worker that had NO concerns of a child disclosing sexual abuse,

called the child a liar, someone also reporting the abuser or

victimising or character assassination against a parent or family

member reporting suspected abuse?

11. The parent of one of the abused children was known to have

cried. Please can you tell me how many parents have been denied

access to their children for crying? {This is on the basis that

social workers throughout the UK, after forced adoption or forced

removal of the child, stating crying is mentally unstable and a

sign of suicide and risk of emotional abuse to a child}

12. Bearing in mind two cases, one in Staffordshire of a social

worker, unnamed, that was reported for sexually abusing children,

and one in Bath of a Social Worker, Lynda Barnes, who misled the

authorities that she had a conviction of conspiring to murder her

husband; how many paedophiles does your LA employ and what risk

assessments are taken to ensure that the LA is not being misled by

prospective employees and they are not vexatious towards service

users or child abusers themselves?

13. Bearing in mind that Thurrock’s Councillor and Lord Mayor,

Gerald Rice defended the actions of Mr Edmeades actions acceptable

and cases within the borough Essex of social workers having the

opinion that child abuse is acceptable; how many staff working for

your LA have the same opinion that child abuse is acceptable and

would use child protection against the person reporting the

suspected abuse. I refer to the case of Nigel Leat, link and quote

below

“Senior managers at Hillside First School in Weston-super-Mare,

Somerset, had repeatedly been told of Leat's inappropriate

behaviour by fellow teachers but failed to act.”

14. How many Paedophiles or child abusers has your LA protected or

defended? How many case where parents, family, neighbours, police

or professionals have reported suspected abuse but social workers

have failed to or refused to act?

Unfortunately we are unable to provide the information you have requested for the reasons listed below:-

  1. We have reason to believe that this request may have been made as part of a campaign due to the similarity in tone and content with other recent FOI requests. We will consider aggregating costs in the future if certain criteria are met.
  1. We would like to point out that a request under the Freedom of information Act is a request for 'recorded information' held by the authority. Your request appears to contain a series of statements about what you believe to be working practice in relation to child protection, and you are asking the council to discuss or refute these statements.
  1. Some of the information you are requesting is not held. You are also asking for our opinion on action taken by other Local Authorities and information about the opinions of social workers. We do not need to collect this for service provision. Detailed case notes and professional opinion is recorded on a case by case basis in relation to a child/family in receipt of services. We do not need to collect information recording the general personal opinion of social workers regarding child protection matters. We are not required to create new data for the purpose of responding to FOI requests.

Some of your points appear to assume processes or practicesand ask the authority to defend them, rather than requesting recorded information held by the authority. Some points of your request do not appear to berequests for information at all, but simply statements based on your belief that an authority (or this authority) operates in a particular way. Whilst we are happy to answer as many of your questions as we can to meet our duty to assist you, we will often need to refer you to information that’s already publicly available (contained in our policies/procedures which describe processes that would usually be used to address situations) unless you specifically ask for recorded information. I have attached a link to the SET procedures which may help your understanding of work practices and procedures followed in Thurrock.

  1. We are unable to confirm or deny whether we hold any information in relation to the individuals you have mentioned in your request. We believe that to confirm or deny the existence of information is exempt under Section 40 (5) of the Act.

Notwithstanding the above, generally speaking specific information about officers working for the Council (or any other third party) is personal data specific to those persons. It is therefore subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act (1998). Information can be withheld if its disclosure would be likely to breach one or more of the Principles of the Data Protection Act. There is usually no prior expectation on the part of individualsthat their personal information would be published into the wider public domain under FOI. A disclosure made under FOI constitutes a publication to the world at large. We believe that the publishing of personal data would be likely to breach the first Principle of the Data Protection Act by unfairly contravening affectedpersons’ rights to privacy and confidentiality.

If you are unhappy with the council’s decision you can make a complaint via our complaints procedures and this will be looked into. A copy of the complaints procedure is available on request. If you are not happy with the out come of your complaint you may appeal to the Information Commissioner.

Yours faithfully

Linda Dutton

L Dutton

Freedom of Information Coordinator

Telephone (01375) 652242

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