Inspection report 'betrayed Climbie'

Victoria Climbie might still be alive if an official report had not described Haringey social services as "good", the public inquiry into the child's death was told today.

Neil Garnham QC, counsel to the inquiry, told its final day of evidence that had the joint Social Services Inspectorate and Audit Commission report accurately portrayed the crisis in Haringey council, then the eight-year-old might have been saved.

At the time the report was released in November 1999, Victoria, from the Ivory Coast, was lying battered, starved and trussed up in a bath in her great-aunt Marie-Therese Kouao's flat in Tottenham. She died the following February with 128 injuries. Kouao, 45, and her boyfriend Carl Manning, 29, are serving life for Victoria's murder.

As the reconvened first stage of the inquiry over-ran into a third day, Mr Garnham told chairman Lord Laming the council might have improved the performance of its social workers if the SSI report had not described their clients as "generally well-served".

He noted the swift turnaround achieved by Ealing council's children's services after an inspection.

The report which wrongly praised Haringey was based on research undertaken in February 1999. Although the report was not published until November 1999, Haringey would have received feedback in June that year.

Denise Platt, Haringey's chief inspector of social services, withheld an SSI report from the inquiry which called into question the competence of her staff. She failed to attend the reconvened hearing on Tuesday, sending a note apologising for her failure to submit it on time.

The hearing continues.