Croydon Council has been getting some serious heat lately for relying on what some folks are calling “flawed, factually inaccurate” evidence in a child safeguarding case that’s been described as a total disaster. The council’s expert even got the names of the young children mixed up while giving evidence in a case where the authority was trying to get a care order to take the siblings away from their family. A family court judge wasn’t too pleased with the council’s reliance on what they called “close-minded” and inconsistent paediatric evidence against the parents, who were accused of causing non-accidental injuries to two of their little ones. The court actually found that the mom was super dedicated to her kids and totally accepted their side of the story, finding zero evidence of any abuse or neglect. The judge straight up slammed the council for depending on such shoddy evidence, saying it was a major worry for child safeguarding. They pointed out that this kind of stuff could have led to kids being taken away from perfectly safe homes.
The whole situation revolved around three siblings living with their parents in Croydon, known as A, H, and Y, who were all under three years old at the time. So, back in March 2023, H had to go to the hospital because of some breathing problems, and the doctors discovered a bunch of injuries, like 11 rib fractures and a shin fracture. Y had a broken collarbone and some marks on her body, while A didn’t have any injuries. Croydon Council was all like, “Nah, these injuries were definitely not accidents,” and they were looking to get care orders for all three kids to take them away from their folks. But the parents were saying it was all just a big accident. The mom fainted and fell on H, trying to resuscitate her when things got worse. Y’s injury happened when her bassinet tipped over, and the mom grabbed her arm to stop her from falling. The main focus of the case was the council’s expert, Dr. Nicola Cleghorn, whose report concluded that the injuries were definitely “inflicted” and non-accidental. But when she got grilled during cross-examination, she had to admit that her work was kind of a mess in some parts. She even apologized for not being more careful. She mixed up the names of the injured kids in her report and didn’t bother to figure out how that affected her conclusions. The court called this mix-up a pretty big deal since H was the more medically fragile one.
During the cross-examination, Dr. Cleghorn got totally called out for her sloppy work, and the judge didn’t even feel the need for anyone else to question her further. On the flip side, the mom’s testimony was praised for being super clear and consistent, even though she had to deal with language barriers and had a borderline IQ. She was given interpreters, but they spoke the wrong language sometimes. At one point, the cops even had to get the dad to translate for her, which the judge thought was totally not cool. Some official documents got mistranslated, adding even more confusion to the whole mess. This whole communication breakdown raised some serious concerns about fairness. The mom didn’t really get a proper grilling about her side of the story, and she wasn’t really challenged on whether she failed to protect her kids. The dad’s testimony was short and kind of emotionless. He didn’t play a big part in what happened leading up to the hospital visit and didn’t give much insight into the situation.
The judge ended up saying that the care the kids were getting was actually really great overall. There was no sign of any long-term harm, abuse, or loss of control. The judge was not impressed with Dr. Cleghorn’s role in judging the parents’ credibility, especially in a case where there were clearly some translation issues and the mom was constantly being misunderstood. Despite all these problems, Croydon Council stuck to their guns and kept using Dr. Cleghorn’s report in their final arguments. But the judge shut down all of the council’s claims and denied the care order. Judge Major had some strong words, saying, “Dr. Cleghorn’s approach in this case is a cause for serious concern. There are real consequences for kids when the medical evidence is all messed up and lacking in proper investigation.” Well, that’s one heck of a mess to clean up, that’s for sure.
