A REMORSELESS former Harrow Council social worker has been banned from the profession for failing "children at risk of significant harm".
Robert Bailey, who was a member of the authority's referral and assessment team between June 2003 and March 2006, was found by his professional standards body to have neglected to instigate child protection proceedings after a referral in February 2005 about a young girl allegedly being sexually molested by her older brother.
It agreed he wrongly closed the case and referred it to Hounslow Council's social services department and then did not help colleagues there investigate the abuse allegations.
In a second case, in July 2005, he was found to have again failed to start child protection proceedings and to have not ensured the child and mother were urgently seen by experts.
Mr Bailey was ultimately sacked by the council but disclosed this fact neither to employment agency Sanctuary Personnel in November 2008 - when he lied and said on his CV he had been employed by Brent Council for the time he had actually been at Harrow Council - nor to the General Social Care Council (GSCC) when applying to join the social care register.
GSCC's conduct committee held a three day misconduct hearing in London that ended on Thursday (May 26) with Mr Bailey being struck off the social care register.
Its decision said: "The registrant's actions had, in respect of two separate referrals, placed young children at continuing risk of significant harm.
"The registrant had shown no insight or remorse in relation to parts of the formal allegation regarding competence and this, in turn, reduced the possibility of rectifying the areas of concern and increased the risk of continuing poor performance and consequent harm to service users.
"[He] continued to assert that he was the victim of a 'witchhunt' and failed to acknowledge any responsibility for his actions.
"The registrant had behaved dishonestly by failing on two separate occasions to disclose his dismissal from Harrow Council for gross misconduct."
It concluded: "Whilst there was some mitigation, this could not justify such flawed decision making or such blatant dishonesty.
"The registrant's actions were serious and deliberate and the committee had come to the conclusion that removal was the only way to protect the public and uphold confidence in social care services."
