No duty to parent

L (a child) and other v Reading Borough Council and other (2) CA TLR 27 December

The appeal was part of complex litigation, alleging misfeasance in public office, conspiracy to injure and negligence, against both the defendant local authority and the police. The claims arose out of investigations by social workers and the police into allegations of sexual abuse said to have been inflicted by the father on the daughter, but were dismissed by the judge who found the father had not sexually abused his daughter in any way. The Borough Council appealed against the refusal of the judge to strike-out the father’s claim for damages for alleged breaches of a direct duty of care owed by the council to the father.