This morning the Serious Case Review (SCR) into the death of 7 year old Warren Jobling was published by Doncaster’s Safeguarding Board. Warren although profoundly disabled, was the bright, bubbly much loved son of devoted parents, Andrea and Ian. Doncaster’s ‘Care to Share’ scheme enabled the family to benefit from respite care, one weekend a month. This was provided by a Council trained and supervised carer at her home. Warren died during a weekend respite stay on 12th April 2008.

Warren is one of the 7 children whose deaths are being investigated by Doncaster Council’s Serious Case Reviews, following the “chaotic and dangerous” situation identified within Social Services.

Warren’s parents remain devastated at the loss of their son. Andrea and Ian still visit his grave 3 times a day, Andrea said “I can’t spend as long there now in the cold weather, but I still light a candle on his grave every evening” . He had a rare condition, Baraitser Winter Syndrome and is only the second person in the country with this condition and the eleventh person worldwide. The Syndrome, like Down’s syndrome, covers a variety of symptoms that must all be present for the diagnosis but may vary significantly in severity between individuals.

Andrea’s solicitor, Sarah Young of Ridley and Hall Solicitors in Huddersfield comments
” Warren’s life expectancy was uncertain, but it is not accepted by the family that ‘the medical view is unequivocally that Warren died of natural causes’ as claimed in the SCR. ”

Andrea is convinced that his death was caused by the negligence of Warren’s carer and there are separate legal proceedings, which will include obtaining medical evidence, which cannot be commented upon at present.

Warren’s death certificate states the cause of death as:
• Acute ventilatory failure
• Baraitser Winter syndrome
• Severe global developmental delay
• Epilepsy.

No post-mortem was carried out after his death.

In relation to the SCR Andrea and Ian are disappointed at the significant delay from the commissioning of the report in October 2008 to its publication today. They appreciate that the report is not an enquiry into how Warren died or who is culpable, but obviously its publication cannot fail to bring their grief and anger back to the surface again.

The family agrees with the criticism that there was “inadequate monitoring of the service being delivered”. Andrea was devastated to find out that the carer’s social worker could not speak to her after Warren’s death ; “I had no idea that he was the carer’s social worker until he said that he had to support her and couldn’t talk to me anymore. I thought he was a manager. He approved the informal arrangements that we had and I had no reason to think that this was a problem. I felt really cut adrift after Warren’s death.”

One of the most significant proposed changes is that the same standards should apply for children in respite care as those in mainstream foster care. Had this measure been in place when Warren was alive he would have had his own keyworker – who may have taken a more rigorous approach to checking up on his carer than the carer’s own social worker. The carer was recommended for deregistration in September 2008 for failure to comply with agreed procedures.
More widely, the report seems to identify a widespread historic confusion of roles within Doncaster Council that needs to be addressed. Andrea was distressed to receive a letter from the independent author, commissioned to prepare the SCR, on Doncaster Council headed notepaper. The impartiality of independent authors needs to be seen to be a reality. The reorganisation of children’s services in Doncaster is rightly now a priority for the Council.

Andrea’s assessment of the report :“I was shocked at the number of recommendations for changes in the report – but at the same time, I have to be glad that lessons have been learned which may help to protect other children in the future. I must stress that I personally have no criticism of Warren’s school, despite the number of recommendations in the report. I believe that had the other recommendations been in place when Warren was alive, he might still have been with us now. ”

Andrea and Ian still have many unanswered questions and their grief is too raw for them to want to comment further at this time. They hope that the ongoing legal proceedings may in time enable them to reach a sense of peace – for now, they remain in limbo.

ENDS

For further information please contact Sarah Young on 01484 538421 Mob 07860 165850.
Sarah Young is Managing Partner of Ridley and Hall. She specialises in personal injury. Sarah has an LLM in Personal Injury Law and is a specialist in claims involving head injury. She has a record of bringing the most complex cases to a successful conclusion.