It is not uncommon for abuse victims to claim that their lives have been wrecked by a local authority's failure to properly protect them during their childhood. A landmark Court of Appeal ruling has gone some way to easing their path to justice.
The case concerned two victims who, as children, were subject to severe abuse and neglect by members of their families. The facts of both cases were disturbing and shocking. The victims launched personal injury claims against two local authorities, asserting that they had breached their duties of care in failing to remove them from their family homes earlier than they did.
Both claims were, however, struck out by judges at a preliminary stage on the basis that the councils had not assumed legal responsibility for the victims and thus could not owe them a duty of care. Challenging those outcomes, the victims argued that the judges took too restrictive a view of the circumstances in which a local authority can be said to have assumed responsibility for a child at risk.
Upholding the appeals, the Court noted that the victims were involved with social services for a number of years whilst they remained at home with their families and continued to suffer abuse. During those periods, both councils had taken various steps short of removing them into care. In each case, it was at least arguable that, by taking those steps, the council had assumed responsibility for them.
The Court acknowledged that, where a local authority has been involved with a child over a prolonged period, exercising its duties and powers to safeguard and promote that child's welfare, the question of whether there has been an assumption of responsibility may be a complex one.
The assumption of responsibility was not confined to cases where a local authority has formally acquired parental responsibility for a child under a care order. In an evolving area of the law, the question of whether responsibility had been assumed could only be answered, in each of the cases, following careful investigation of the facts at a full trial. Reinstating both claims, the Court found that the judges were plainly wrong to strike them out.