What can the thematic review of deaths of adults under Hereford social services indicate about how Hereford child social services are also failing?
This has been submitted by local parent - Eddy Parkinson
I’m sure you’re all aware of this thematic review of 6 deaths of adults known to Hereford social services between jan 2019 and aug 2020.
A comment that’s stuck with me from the review first time I read it. ‘Research has identified staff become inured to or normalise when what is being presented is normalised’.
Those who died had been people just like us but in crisis. Some of us attended a meeting at the baptist church with a senior adviser to the council. The man spoke about the service users like a mechanic might talk about someone else’s Ford Mondeo. A total loss of empathy but I expect the man would argue he has more empathy than most.
Compassion fatigue. Delusion. Are we expecting too much of SWs given the occasional horrors they see. Can they remain objective over years?
I spoke to a dad who said that the training to be a SW knocked the curiosity out of the SWs. The SWs always looked for the worst possible outcomes. They are trained to and rewarded if they ‘find’ horrors and the worse the better for careers. My experience is many SWs have or develop saviour complexes and the combination of training and this complex leads to the SWs ‘creating’ situations to save children from.
The SW is given the job and expected to find issues so they do. Currently, June 2025, Hereford child social services is down to 40 staff not 48, the service has saved £2.1M in a year and complaints are down. Less staff less problems. I see less people online appealing for help. The councils own metrics show less activity.
A SW joins up to save children in an heroic way. Justify themselves. Many SWs just invent issues.
SWs frequently discuss satanic ritualistic abuse of children in training but it’s incredibly rare worldwide and has never been properly evidenced in the UK.
In Herefordshire we saw in the judgement HCC vs YY comments from relatives of children taken into care after being interviewed by SWs without witnesses or an appropriate adult
‘ Judge plunkett expressed a concern on YY
“YY case. In court. Challenge from Judge P re contact for relatives, ‘brainwashing’ by social workers/foster carers.
The concern was SWs had been leading children.
A named SW was involved in the HCC vs YY case and a previous case of alleged ritualistic abuse. The ‘out of the mouths of babes’ story is worth a Google.
Alleged ritualistic abuse. SWs claimed hundreds of parents had been involved but at trial a number of mums ‘claimed they had been emotionally blackmailed. One mum, Anne Mason said she was forced to make up allegations by social workers and told that if she wanted to see her children again, she had to stick to her story.’
‘Nigel Mylne QC accused one, Tudor Walters, of leading a ''blinkered crusade to convict the defendants''. This was denied.’
The team manager on YY was called Tudor Walters, coincidence?
The SWs want the service user to own a story they can fit in with. The job is often part of the personality of the SW. We all have fantasy’s ,ambitions in life but with some the lines are blurred.
I’m rereading the thematic with knowledge now that this council fabricates referrals, lies about detail, etc and at no point is the councils confidential data system queried for its accuracy.
It’s plain many Herefordshire SWs past and present have personality disorders.
We see patterns of abuse of process.
If a report is created, fabricated, the report will be later be tailored to fit in with other reports, so a confirmation bias is created.
Unlawful access to the council’s confidential data system is common and well documented.
SWs on agency will create reports in advance to claim wage to which they aren’t. Contacts fabricated in the knowledge the possibly drug addled, or mentally ill, or ‘without capacity’ service user won’t complain. And if they do complain or the fraud is found? We know the councils complaints process is hopelessly unfit for purpose.
The councils reputation comes before any child’s best outcomes.
I see no lack of staff or funds to help rough sleepers.
We see the assumption in the review that guidance and best practice is followed by the council, police, adult mental health services, when we know from our own experience that this council often just isn’t bothered or at worst refuses help and therefore will ‘kill’ the problem service user to gatekeep funds and save resources.
This council consistently does the least it can possibly get away with. And this is reflected in another unmentioned issue. Early on in my experience of Hereford social services I spoke to a west Mercia response police person who said that it was next to impossible to get a social worker outside of working hours or on weekdays. The SWs work 9ish to 4ish Monday to Friday during term time. During kids school holidays and at weekends the SWs are preoccupied with their own families.
Duty social workers may be hours away by road and already on a ‘shout’.
The Bobby says it’s exactly the times the SWs are unavailable that ‘family stuff kicks off’. So police attend and write up reports that the SWs cut and paste into docs as if they themselves attended.
After incidents, we see no follow up til staff are back in the office. That’s if the usually agency SW would ever go back to the office.
There is no continuity.
So for example homeless people who suffer harm and attend A&E are discharged and there is no one there to offer help as the homeless still person walks from the hospital into the city centre. The cycle of harm is unbroken.
HSAB-Thematic-review-Premature-Deaths-Adults-Review
The Tash Ashby inquest will, if allowed, be a ‘Baby P’ moment for this awful council and the UKs plainly awful social services.
Is the system redeemable?
I think not. The 1989 Children’s act and its guidance are a turd of nonsense and compromise. What is ‘significant harm’? Is it Bruises? Is it Bad memories? Broken bones yes but a lack of stair gates or a refusal to accept SWs and the lies?
And the family courts are plainly horrific.
The answer?
Perhaps it would be best if we gave the child social services budget to the police and put all child abuse and neglect etc through the magistrates and crown courts.