Herefordshire candidates back children’s services enquiry call

Calls for a public enquiry into failings and possible legal issues at Herefordshire’s children’s services have been backed by election candidates from all three main parties in the county.

Herefordshire father and campaigner Eddy Parkinson, who jointly runs the Stolen Childhood Herefordshire Facebook group, said a judge-led enquiry was the only way left to address bureaucratic wrongs done to families “going back years”.

Many issues around the taking of children into care are kept out of the public domain due to strict rules covering family court proceedings, he said.

Yet even with the evidence of systematic failures which is publicly available, authorities have not been willing to pursue the issue.

Having spoken to over 60 families in the county, “we have come up against a brick wall”, he said, with Legal Aid having “collapsed in the last few years”, making costly private legal action impossible.

Mr Parkinson added that, but for ill-health brought on in part by the stress of his family predicament, he would stand for election himself to draw attention to the issue.

Here are the responses to his call from the county’s election candidates:

Conservative candidate for Hereford and South Herefordshire Jesse Norman said: “The handling of children’s social care has been woeful, and the results catastrophic for hundreds of young people and their families across Herefordshire.

“All options should be on the table to make the service work much better and more fairly for those affected.”

Conservative candidate for North Herefordshire Sir Bill Wiggin said: “There will never be enough money to adequately compensate parents and children for the pain, agony and misery caused by the Green Party in coalition with the Independents who ran our council at that time.”

Labour candidates Jon Browning (North Herefordshire) and Joe Emmett (Hereford and South Herefordshire) said they “support the call for a swift independent enquiry into the crisis in Herefordshire’s children’s social care, led by an experienced family court judge”.

They added: “It is taking far too long to resolve the huge and distressing problems families, children and young people have experienced for years and are still facing.”

Liberal Democrat candidates Dan Powell (Hereford and South Herefordshire) and Cat Hornsey (North Herefordshire) said the party’s group on the council and its leader Terry James “have already been supporting the families in their calls for answers and a resolution for the children and families who are still in limbo”.

They added that they “both fully support the families in calling for an independent enquiry if this will lead to resolution for the families and children involved”.

The Reform UK and Green candidates did not respond.

Meanwhile an election hustings on the county’s children’s services “crisis”, featuring several of the candidates, has been arranged for Tuesday June 18 at 8pm at Hereford’s Kindle Centre (next to Asda).