Local authority’s principal duty is to child

The Human Rights Act 1998 did not give rise to a duty of care to the parent of a child on the part of a local authority when exercising, through social workers, its duty to protect children from abuse. The local authority’s principal duty was to the child in need of protection, and there were powerful public policy reasons for not having a duty of care to the parents. There was no reason to treat social workers in this context any differently from policemen or doctors who were not subject to such a duty of care.