Murdered mother, 17, linked to sex exploitation gang

A serious case review into the authorities’ involvement with Laura Wilson, who was stabbed by her Asian lover Ashtiaq Asghar and dumped in a canal in Rotherham in October 2010, found that she experienced “the emotional and physical stress of abuse” within her own family from the age of just two.

She was placed on the child protection register in 2004, six years before her death, but she was “a difficult child for agencies to work with”.

Although Laura was involved with 15 different services during the 17 years of her short life, the serious case review found that her “needs were never fully met”.

“Limited or no consideration” was given to her learning difficulties, which had led to her being educated at a special school.

The report also said there were “a number of occasions” when Laura, referred to in the report as Child S, was “discharged from services or her case closed, when there was no follow-up”.

The report, published yesterday, found that social services lost sight of Laura “as a mother and as a young vulnerable person in her own right” when her baby daughter was born in June 2010, and her cased was closed altogether two months later.

The executive summary, written by Professor Pat Cantrill, makes 37 separate recommendations and concludes that Laura “was a vulnerable young woman whose needs were not fully assessed by any agency”.

The professor concluded that “a combination of factors, including organisational issues, systems, workforce capacity and capability, cultural factors and some individuals’ poor practice had a negative impact on the quality of care for Child S”.

Prof Cantrill said yesterday: “Laura was invisible. Nobody really, apart from her college, saw Laura for being Laura and what her special needs were. They failed to listen to her.

“Laura was very adept at covering up the problems that she had in relation to reading and writing.

“It was hard for her to grasp some issues and remember more than a small amount of what she was being told.”

Laura was killed after revealing her affairs with two Asian men – Asghar and his friend Ishaq Hussain, who was also the father of her daughter – to their families.

Asghar lured her to the canal near the Meadowhall shopping centre and stabbed her in what the police described as a “sadistic attack”.

He pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to a minimum 17 years in prison. Had he been over 18 when he committed the murder – instead of a year younger – the minimum term would

have been 25 years. Hussain was cleared of murder.

Laura had first been placed on the child protection register in 2004, at the age of 11, but was removed again just a year later, and classified as a “Child in Need.”

The “impression from the records”, Prof Cantrill says, is that Laura “never co-operated with children’s social care services and was never effectively assessed.”

But by 2007, the serious case review report states, there were fears that Laura was “potentially putting herself at risk of sexual exploitation from older males.”

In 2009, she had come to the attention of police through “Operation Czar” – an investigation into the sexual exploitation of children in Rotherham.

She was friends with girls who were being groomed and sexually exploited, and was at the house of a man she described to social workers as a “pervert” when three Asian men entered and randomly fired an air pistol.

Laura was, however, scared into not giving evidence and refused to co-operate with police.

Alan Hazell, chairman of Rotherham’s Safeguarding Children Board, said yesterday: “At no stage do we have any evidence that Laura was involved in sexual exploitation. Certainly there were concerns that she was on the periphery of it.”

In September 2009, social services were again informed that Laura could be at risk of sexual exploitation. At this point, Rotherham Council’s children’s services department had been given notice to improve by Ofsted.

There was one of several missed opportunities when a social worker went to visit her but was told that nobody with Laura’s surname lived at the property.

While Laura was pregnant, she was asked about grooming and exploitation by a social worker, but they said she “did not seem to understand that the girls involved were victims”.

Laura’s case was closed by social services in August 2010 as there had been “no further concerns reported”. She was murdered just two months later.