Methadone toddler: Agencies rapped

A toddler died from a methadone overdose after social workers failed to take him into care, a damning report has revealed.

Jayden Lee Green, who was just a month short of his second birthday, was found dead in his parents' bed after overdosing on the heroin substitute in August last year.

The toddler lived with his crack cocaine and heroin-addicted parents Jamie Green and Sonia Britton in a filthy flat in the St Georges area of Bristol.

A serious case review, commissioned by Bristol Safeguarding Children Board, found there was a lack of co-operation from Jayden Lee's parents with all involved in dealing with them. This included drug agencies, midwifery, housing, health visitors, social workers and there were also regular failures to keep appointments or be at home when visits were made.

The report stated: "What was lacking was the authoritative challenge to this lack of co-operation, there was a lack of enforcement of consequences. There was a lack of challenge by practitioners across the range of agencies."

The report, which referred to Jayden Lee as "Child K" throughout, continued: "The only way that Child K's death would definitely have been prevented was if he had been placed away from his parents. The opportunity to do this was lost due to the failure to follow through on the initiation of care proceedings. However, a better-planned and authoritative approach to the family may also have prevented his death."

Britton, 35, and Green, 33, were accused of killing their son by giving him the drug that they were both prescribed by doctors.

After a three-week trial at Bristol Crown Court, Green was convicted of manslaughter and causing cruelty to a child and jailed for nine years. The jury cleared Britton of manslaughter but convicted her of child cruelty and causing or allowing the death of a child. She was jailed for four years.

The serious case review said there were a number of "missed opportunities" for health and welfare professionals to "fully understand the circumstances" of Jayden Lee's home environment. During a press conference at the Council House in Bristol, some of the agencies involved with Jayden Lee expressed their regret at his death and said that lessons had been learnt.

Professor Ray Jones, chairman of Bristol Safeguarding Children Board, said: "The board accepts all of the recommendations in the report and we are giving particular attention to how we ensure all workers and agencies in contact with drug-misusing parents keep the safety and welfare of children as a major focus and seek to challenge parents about the potential implications of their drug misuse on their parenting."

©Press Association

Tax office workers strike over cuts

Over 50,000 Revenue and Customs workers are going on strike in protest at "massive cuts" they claim undermined efforts to clamp down on tax avoidance schemes.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) will take action across the UK, warning that the walkout will close offices and leave telephone calls unanswered.

The union said 30,000 jobs have been axed since 2005 and a further 10,000 are set to go, "undermining" efforts to investigate schemes such as the one used by comedian Jimmy Carr, which sparked a political row last week.

The PCS said an estimated £120 billion was lost every year because of tax evasion and avoidance, claiming that HMRC did not have enough resources to tackle the problem.

The strike is also in opposition to "creeping privatisation" in the department, which is currently trialling the use of private firms to handle tax credit inquiries.

The strike will be followed by other forms of action such as a ban on overtime.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "It is sickening to see millionaires in the cabinet wringing their hands about the immorality of tax avoidance when it is their lack of political will to act that means we lose tens of billions of pounds every year.

"The case for investment in our public services as an alternative to austerity could not be more obvious than it is in HMRC. Yet the government wants to cut 10,000 more jobs from the department, letting the wealthy tax dodgers off the hook and punishing the rest of us for a recession we did not cause."

An HM Revenue & Customs spokesman said: "HMRC is disappointed with the decision to strike and will do everything it can to maintain services to the public. We are seeking dialogue with the PCS to address their concerns and will work to minimise any disruption to our customers.

"In our 2010 spending review the Government made £917m available to us to tackle avoidance, evasion and fraud. This is being used to increase our tax take from compliance work by £7bn a year in 2014/15 which we are on target to do. Last year alone we increased the yield from our compliance work to £13.9bn."