Haringey's former head of child services argues her dismissal by minister Ed Balls was unlawful and due to media pressure
Haringey's former head of child services will learn today if she has won her court of appeal battle over her sacking in the wake of the Baby P tragedy.
Sharon Shoesmith is challenging a high court ruling clearing the regulator Ofsted, former children's secretary Ed Balls and the borough that employed her of acting unlawfully in her dismissal. Her lawyers argue there was "procedural unfairness" in removing her from the £133,000-a-year post at Haringey in north London.
Shoesmith claims that the manner in which she was dismissed was a breach of natural justice and the result of media pressure. She is asking to have a damning report by Ofsted quashed, compensation for two years of lost salary, reinstatement of her pension rights, and a negotiated settlement from Haringey.
She was sacked in December 2008 after the childcare regulator's report, ordered by Balls after the Baby P case, exposed failings in her department. The 17-month-old boy, since named as Peter Connelly, was on Haringey's child protection register when he died violently at the hands of his mother, Tracey Connelly, her lover Steven Barker, and Barker's brother Jason Owen, in August 2007.
James Maurici, appearing for Shoesmith, told the appeal court in March that "buck passing" between Ofsted, Balls, and Haringey had led to her being denied natural justice and a fair hearing.
He said Shoesmith had been a highly thought-of public servant with a very successful career of 35 years, but now faced ruin. She had held a number of senior education posts with local authorities and risen through the ranks to her post with Haringey in 2005. A year later she was singled out in an Ofsted report for providing "strong and dynamic leadership".
But then, in 2008, a "media storm" broke over Baby P's death and she became the victim of a witchhunt and political pressure which led to a flagrant breach of the rules of natural justice, Maurici said. He added: "On 1 December 2008, while trapped in her flat by the media, she had the extreme misfortune to see on TV Ed Balls at a live press conference announce he was directing that Haringey remove her from her post 'with immediate effect'." Balls told the press she was "not fit for office", and acted before Shoesmith had seen, or been given a chance to respond to, the report.
Maurici said, although high court judge Mr Justice Foskett had found her sacking lawful in a judicial review ruling in March 2010, he had said he did not think that "any fair-minded person could think that this was a satisfactory state of affairs."
Shoesmith is asking Lord Neuberger, Master of the Rolls, sitting with Lord Justice Maurice Kay and Lord Justice Stanley Burnton, to rule that her sacking without compensation was so legally flawed as to be null and void, and that she still remains entitled to her full salary and pension from Haringey up to the present day.
The appeal judges were told of the "catastrophic" personal impact on Shoesmith following Baby P's death. Maurici said she had been unable to find any work since December 2008, experienced suicidal thoughts, and was still regularly hounded and vilified by the tabloid press.
James Eadie QC, appearing for the government, defended Balls's actions to the appeal court, saying urgent action had to be taken following Ofsted's "ghastly findings" uncovering "dangerous" failings in Shoesmith's department that threatened local and national confidence in effective child protection.