31 May 2007
The Human Rights Act 1998 did not give rise to a duty of care to the parent of a child on the part of a local authority when exercising, through social workers, its duty to protect children from abuse, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
In Lawrence v Pembrokeshire County Council, the appeal court ruled that a local authority’s principal duty was to the child in need of protection, and there were powerful public policy reasons for not having a duty of care to the parents. There was no reason to treat social workers in this context any differently from policemen or doctors who were not subject to such a duty of care, the court concluded.
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