Children in care of Lambeth Council "subjected to decades of cruelty and abuse"

Lambeth Council failed to protect over 700 children in its care from sexual abuse

Lambeth Council allowed hundreds of children in its care to be subjected to levels of cruelty and sexual abuse on a scale that is "hard to comprehend", an independent inquiry has found.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) received allegations of sexual abuse from 705 former residents and found that while in Lambeth's care as children, they were "pawns within a toxic power game" within Lambeth Council and between the council and government. The true scale of the abuse will never be known, it said, but is certain to be significantly higher than is formally recorded.

Shirley Oaks care home received allegations of sexual abuse against 177 members of staff or individuals connected with the home. Another of Lambeth's care homes, Angell Road, systematically exposed children, including those under the age of five, to sexual abuse. Along with South Vale care home, the report found these were brutal places where violence and sexual assault were allowed to flourish.

Despite this, over 40 years Lambeth Council disciplined just one employee for their part in the catalogue of sexual abuse.

When one child known as LA-A2 was found dead in a bathroom at Shirley Oaks, Lambeth Council did not inform the coroner that he had said he was sexually abused by Donald Hosegood, his 'house father'. IICSA has recommended the Metropolitan police consider a criminal investigation into Lambeth Council's actions in this case.

Professor Alexis Jay, Chair of the Inquiry said: "Over several decades children in residential and foster care suffered levels of cruelty and sexual abuse that are hard to comprehend."

"These children became pawns in a toxic power game within Lambeth Council and between the Council and central government."

"For many years bullying, intimidation, racism, nepotism and sexism thrived within the Council, and all against a backdrop of corruption and financial mismanagement."

"There was a vicious and regressive culture, for which a succession of leading elected members were mainly responsible, aided and abetted in some instances by self-serving senior officials."

"This all contributed to allowing children in their care to suffer the most horrendous sexual abuse, with just one senior council employee disciplined for their part in it."

"We hope this report and our recommendations will ensure abuse on this scale never happens again."

Lambeth Council has accepted that children in its care were sexually abused and that it failed them, with its representative at the Inquiry acknowledging that the Concil "created and oversaw conditions … where appalling and absolutely shocking and horrendous abuse was perpetrated".

While IICSA acknowledged the Council's apology, it noted that there was no attempt to make any meaningful apology until relatively recently, despite the numerous investigations and inspections over 20 years that made clear the duty of care it failed to deliver to so many child victims of sexual abuse.

IICSA makes four recommendations in its report

These can be summarised as:

1. A response and action plan from Lambeth Council on the issues raised in this report
2. Mandatory training for elected councillors on safeguarding and corporate parenting
3. Review of recruitment and vetting checks of current foster carers and children's home staff
4. The Metropolitan Police Service to consider whether a criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding LA-A2's death is necessary