Baby P scandal boss Sharon Shoesmith says she was “right” to not apologise for tot’s death in book about the tragedy
Disgraced former children's services chief blames The Sun for calling for her to be fired
DISGRACED Sharon Shoesmith insists she was right not to apologise for Baby P’s death because it it would have made her look responsible for it.
The former children’s services chief, 63, has made her claim in a book about the tragedy.
Tragic Peter Connelly, 17 months, was battered to death by relatives after being deemed “at risk” by her department.
Ms Shoesmith writes in Learning From Baby P how the scandal destroyed her career.
She wrote: “You cannot expect that social workers can prevent every death of every child.
“You have to remember that this is happening every week, not all of them known to social care.”
She added: “I was unable to countenance being held responsible for the murder of a child.”
Shoesmith, 63, says she studied thousands of pages of court documents to research ‘Learning from Baby P: The politics of blame, fear and denial.’
The £15.19 book is available in bookstores and on websites including Amazon, leading to allegations she is cashing in on the tragedy.
But shockingly none of the seven chapters focus on how social workers can learn from her department’s mistakes and do more to save children’s lives.
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Instead most of the 272 pages are filled with complaints about how her career was destroyed by Baby P’s death and the scandal that followed.
She also blames The Sun for calling for her to be fired.
Baby P suffered more than 50 injuries at the hands of his mum, her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s brother in 2007.
They were jailed.
The tot was on the at-risk register of North London’s Haringey Council, where Ms Shoesmith was children’s services director.
Shoesmith, who earned £130,000-a-year as the Director of Children’s Services at London’s Haringey Council, was fired by Ed Balls, then Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, one year after the death.
She later won £680,000 for unfair dismissal and complained that she had to go on benefits to survive.
She previously said: “I’ve never been able to work again despite over 100 job applications and a huge network of professional colleagues.
“People are too frightened.”
Yesterday it was revealed her husband of 25 years, Geoffrey Shoesmith, 67, has been given a suspended 16-month sentence over making and possessing indecent images of children.
But his ex-wife, who he was still married to at the time of the scandal, makes no mention of him in her book.