Skip to main contentAccess keys help

[an error occurred while processing this directive]
BBC News
watch One-Minute World News
Last Updated: Friday, 5 March, 2004, 12:52 GMT
Baby death staff action ruled out
Caleb Ness
Caleb Ness was shaken to death by his father
Five Edinburgh social workers will not face disciplinary action over the death of baby Caleb Ness.

Caleb, who was 11 weeks old, was killed after being released from hospital into the care of his brain-damaged father and drug-addicted mother.

His father, Alexander Ness, was jailed for shaking the child to death.

One of the social workers involved in the case no longer works for Edinburgh City Council, but two of the others are to receive further training.

A damning report into Caleb's death, completed last year, found fault "at almost every level in every agency" involved.

It concluded that Caleb's death was avoidable and that "neither parent should have had unsupervised care" of the child.

Funding promise

That report prompted the resignation of Edinburgh's social work director Les McEwan.

Alexander Ness
Caleb Ness was shaken to death by his father Alexander
Following the case, the council promised to improve procedures for the monitoring of all children on the child protection register, to carry out an annual audit of its child protection practices, and to appoint 11 extra administration staff.

The council also said it would invest �14m on a new social work IT system, and put extra money into the recruitment and training of staff.

The public sector union, Unison, has welcomed the decision not to discipline the social work staff because it said investigators had concluded that no individual was to blame.




SEE ALSO:
Baby death sparks probe call
19 Feb 04  |  Scotland
Expert points to baby death clues
16 Oct 03  |  Scotland
Baby killer jailed for 11 years
12 Mar 03  |  Scotland


RELATED INTERNET LINKS:
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites


PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

News Front Page | Africa | Americas | Asia-Pacific | Europe | Middle East | South Asia
UK | Business | Entertainment | Science/Nature | Technology | Health
Have Your Say | In Pictures | Week at a Glance | Country Profiles | In Depth | Programmes
AmericasAfricaEuropeMiddle EastSouth AsiaAsia Pacific