The arrogance of not saying sorry set the seal on her fate

Branded "arrogant" and accused of "abysmal indifference", Sharon Shoesmith has earned herself over the past few weeks the unenviable title of Britain's most detested public official.

The fate of Mrs Shoesmith, who earned about £100,000 a year as head of Haringey's social services, was sealed from the moment she refused to apologise and instead tried to justify her department's failings.

Her demise was sealed at a hastily arranged press conference in the immediate aftermath of the Old Bailey trial that had exposed social workers' blunders. Rather than saying sorry - the bare minimum expected from her - Mrs Shoesmith unadvisedly showed a series of graphs to the assembled media, highlighting Haringey's "three-star" services, in reference to a previous official report. The graphs showed how many children in care achieved GCSE results, how many were adopted and how many received various health and welfare check-ups.

Mrs Shoesmith, 55, a career bureaucrat with apparently little media training, completely misjudged the mood. She dug in and defended her workforce. rather than saying sorry, she declared: "The child was killed by members of his own family and not by social services. The very sad fact is that we can't stop people who are determined to kill children."

One source who has met her told the Evening Standard the performance was in keeping with her character. "She is authoritative, arrogant and will brook no criticism," claimed the source. "She is a very, very defensive woman. She is very committed to education and very dismissive of anyone who doesn't subscribe to her view."

The mother of two grown-up daughters, Mrs Shoesmith was defended by one of them who telephoned the BBC to complain her mother was being "scapegoated" by a hysterical media. Sixty headteachers in Haringey also jumped to her defence. But it was hard to find much other sympathy.

Born in County Antrim in Northern Ireland, she rose from being a school teacher to education inspector to eventually director in charge of education at Haringey. More recently she was promoted to head of children's services, putting her in charge of social services too although she had little experience in the field.

She was married until recently to Geoffrey Shoesmith, a career civil servant. She enjoyed travelling with her daughters in the US and in South Africa, even spending a day at Ascot races in the weeks after Baby P's death in August last year.