Social worker 'too busy' to act on warnings over tragic toddler

Judyth Kenworthy admitted she had made a mistake in not acting on concerns about Sanam Navsarka, whose death followed weeks of appalling abuse in which she suffered more than 100 injuries.

Giving evidence, she told a conduct hearing: "The only thing I can say is I was extremely busy.

"I was trying to get to somewhere else, to go to an important meeting and it was just one of those situations where it took over and that just didn't register as being vitally important and that was the mistake I made."

She added that she had never worked with children before.

Sanam, of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, died on May 8 2008.

Her mother's partner, Subhan Anwar, was jailed for a minimum of 23 years for her murder, while her mother, Zahbeena Navsarka, was jailed for nine years for her manslaughter.

Mrs Kenworthy, a former family placement officer at Kirklees Council, has admitted she failed to pass on warnings on May 1 2008 from Jacqueline Peel, who ran a home for vulnerable people, that Sanam had a bruise on her head.

She told the General Social Care Council conduct hearing in London: "I made a mistake. A lot of it was around the person giving me the information, the time scale, the fact she had had that information for the whole week (and) done nothing with it."

She told the hearing yesterday she had also believed the information was "tittle-tattle".

Mrs Peel was alerted to the toddler's injury when the girl's aunt brought her to stay at the home and told investigators the injury was discussed with Mrs Kenworthy at the end of a meeting about a different resident.

Mrs Kenworthy agrees that as a result of her actions no measures were taken to safeguard Sanam and admits withholding information when she gave a statement to police.

But she denies Mrs Peel warned her that Sanam had been locked in a cupboard.

The trial of Navsarka and Anwar at Bradford Crown Court in 2009 heard two-year-old Sanam, who had fractures to all four limbs, died after fatty deposits from her broken thigh bones entered her bloodstream.

Sanam's tiny hand prints and bloodstains were found inside cupboards, where she had been put as a punishment.

A metal pole was used to shatter Sanam's leg and she was bruised and battered repeatedly in the four weeks before her death.