Doncaster Council to face inspection after torture case

Doncaster Council's social services department was already beleaguered following a series of deaths of children known to the authority.

Then the department apologised last week after the full horror emerged of how two brothers from Doncaster inflicted a 90-minute torture ordeal on their two victims in Edlington, near the town.

A serious case review into the brothers' dealings with a range of agencies concluded the incident was preventable.

Today the Audit Commission announced it will carry out a corporate governance inspection of the council "as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made".

Meanwhile, the political row sparked by the torture stepped up a gear today as Children's Secretary Ed Balls said that publishing a full review into the case would be "deeply irresponsible and put children at risk in our country".

At Commons question time, he told his Tory counterpart Michael Gove that releasing the Serious Case Review in full would reveal "detailed harrowing personal information" and was "not supported by pretty much anyone".

The exchange came hours after the Prime Minister rejected calls for the review to be published, while Tory leader David Cameron demanded that it should be.

Two brothers - aged 10 and 11 at the time of their attack - were locked up last week for at least five years for torturing and sexually humiliating the nine-year-old and 11-year-old boys in Edlington.

The young victims were strangled, hit with bricks, made to eat nettles, stripped and forced to sexually abuse each other.

Social services and other organisations missed numerous opportunities to intervene with the perpetrators during their violent and chaotic upbringing, provoking widespread anger.

Mr Gove said: "In this executive summary, the history of what went wrong occupies only two and a half pages while the full Serious Case Review is 150 pages.

"Will you now accept, as a variety of children's charities and leading experts on child protection have pointed out, that we must go further?"

Mr Balls said: "The reason why I will not publish the full report is ... it contains within it details of the abuse suffered both by other children in the family in this case and the victims themselves - detail which would either reveal their identities to other children in Doncaster or for those who know that, would then show that very clearly.

"I have a judgment that that information, that detailed harrowing personal information, to be put in the public domain would be wholly wrong, damaging to the children's interests."

The experts agreed with the Government's view rather than that of the Tories, Mr Balls said.

"I know your motives but they are not putting the interests of children first; it would not be possible even in a redacted version to stop detailed information about these children's safety, the abuse they suffered, being in the public domain.

"For that to happen would be quite wrong."

He added: "I think you should reflect on the judgments you're making and think about whether you're actually being responsible; what you are proposing is not supported by pretty much anyone because what you are proposing would be deeply irresponsible and put children at risk in our country."

Labour former minister Caroline Flint (Don Valley) agreed that the full review should not be published but called for executive summaries to "tell the story, not just the recommendations".

At a press conference this morning, Mr Cameron said: "It is wrong, absolutely wrong, that something like this can happen and all that gets published is a summary that does not mention the name of any of the people who missed sign after sign of what has gone wrong.

"If we become the Government, this will change and reports into cases like these will be published."

At his monthly Downing Street briefing, Gordon Brown said full reports were given to the relevant authorities and the summary should be "comprehensive and deal with all the issues".