Senior social workers disciplined over injured baby case

Barry Smith and Marilyn Tweedale were sanctioned after appearing before a General Social Care Council conduct committee to explain failures in the case of Adam Hewitt, 25, who was jailed for five years last month.

The pair had already been sacked from their management roles at East Riding Council, which faced strong criticism along with Humberside Police for failing to protect a 10-month-old child in Hewitt’s care, identified only as Baby G.

The baby spent a month in hospital from January 2009 and underwent emergency surgery and blood transfusions after being admitted with a serious head injury and healing fractures to ribs and a leg.

Hewitt had fractured a 13-month-old baby’s skull in another attack in April 2007 but police closed their investigation into that incident after only 10 days, freeing him to harm again.

Mr Smith, a performance manager who unsuccessfully applied for the hearing to be held in private, was suspended for two months.

Mrs Tweedale, a children’s service team manager and registered foster carer, was admonished – a caution that will remain on her record for three years.

Both were found to have made “serious safeguarding errors” that “called into question” their suitability to remain on the social workers’ register.

Mr Smith was cleared of a separate allegation that he allowed a man arrested on suspicion of murder, identified only as Mr X, to retain parental responsibility for his children.

The committee found the events of the Baby G case reflected Mr Smith’s “only failure... in over 29 years of dedicated service as a social worker and a manager”.

He had “shown sincere remorse” and colleagues had confirmed he “was held in high regard and was a committed social worker”.

Mr Smith had been in a “high pressure post”, managing four teams responsible for more than 400 cases, and he would normally take work home with him each day.

Mrs Tweedale’s breach was “both uncharacteristic and an isolated incident in a hitherto unblemished career”, the committee found.

The council created seven new social worker posts following the Baby G case. Its director of children, family and adult services, Alison Michalska, said: “We hope this now brings the end to a difficult period to all who have been involved.”