Emma Kelly admitted supplying heroin and crack cocaine to her son

Judge Anthony Niblett gave East Sussex County Council 14 days to prepare a report, to be published on Thursday.

On Wednesday evening, council leader Peter Jones said the document refuted the accusations.

Emma Kelly, 31, formerly of Eastbourne, was jailed last month for nine years for supplying Class A drugs to her son.

In interviews with BBC South East Today on Wednesday, before the publication of the report, two councillors said the authority was angry about the accusations.

They said the report would refute many of the things the judge said, and they claimed the document would have the backing of Sussex Police who would say social services did all they could.

Mr Jones said the report would "absolutely" refute the allegations and added: "What the judge said came as a surprise."

Emma Kelly's home was scattered with burnt pieces of tin foil

In court, Judge Niblett questioned why social services made no intervention to protect the boy's welfare despite receiving repeated signals that he was being exposed to drug abuse.

He said: "Despite an increasing number of warning signs, no direct action or intervention was taken in relation to X [the boy] until police intervened at the end of January 2005."

"This was despite a social services case conference about the boy being held in 2004," he said.

After the sentencing, Matt Dunkley of East Sussex County Council, said: "We didn't have sufficient evidence until the point that we did take him into care to enable us to do so."

The trial heard Kelly had plied her son with opiates from the age of nine, until he was 11. She had driven him around as she toured Sussex and London in search of drugs.

The court was told Kelly and her son were arrested in January 2005 on suspicion of shoplifting and taken to Eastbourne police station.

At that stage, the boy, who was showing symptoms of drugs withdrawal, told police he rarely went to school.

He spent a week in hospital withdrawing from his opiate addiction.

The child, now 12, has since been taken into foster care and is said to be thriving and back at school.