25/05/2012

Baby P Social Workers Vowed To Continue Appeal

Two of Baby P's social workers have vowed, after losing their appeal, they will continue to fight an employment tribunal ruling that they were fairly sacked.

Gillie Christou and Maria Ward claim they were unjustly fired by Haringey council in north London in response to a public outcry about 17-month-old Peter Connelly's horrific death.

However a Watford employment tribunal panel previously concluded that the local authority had acted reasonably in dismissing them because of serious failings in their care of the toddler.

At a brief hearing on Friday at the employment appeal tribunal in central London, at which neither woman appeared, Mr Justice Wilkie announced the pair's appeal was dismissed.

Christou and Ward are now preparing to take their case to the court of appeal. The pair's legal team claimed they had suffered "double jeopardy" because they faced two Haringey misconduct panels looking at the same allegations against them. The first concluded they should receive written warnings, but the second, held a few months later in the wake of a political and media furore over the case, resulted in them being sacked.

Speaking after the hearing, solicitor Riz Majid, representing the women, said they planned to appeal. He said: "Maria Ward and Gillie Christou are disappointed by the result. We will be studying the judgement carefully with a view to going to the court of appeal."

(H/GK)

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