Woman wins £20,000 payout after suing social services for not taking her away from the abusive mother

The daughter of a prostitute has won a landmark £20,000 payout after suing social services for failing to take her into full-time care when she was a child in order to protect her from her abusive mother.


Collette Elliott, 35, launched legal action against Birmingham social services last year, in what is thought to be the first case of its kind in Britain.


Mrs Elliott, from Erdington, Birmingham, had managed to get hold of her social services records which showed officers had been aware of serious concerns about her mother Maureen Batchelor.

Batchelor, who died of a brain tumour last August, had been cautioned for soliciting, criminal damage and for failing to feed her daughter properly.


Social services were first alerted to her mother’s behaviour when Mrs Elliott was just two months old, and were concerned enough to put her into care on two occasions before she was four.

They were apparently aware of Batchelor's criminal boyfriends, her brushes with the law and her occasional homelessness.

Mrs Elliott, who is now happily married, told the Sunday Times: 'I was a vulnerable child and they left me in the care of an unfit and neglectful parent.

'I wasn't going to let them get away with it.

'I hope my story will help other people wronged by the system to come forward and get justice. I survived my ordeal, but some children aren't as lucky.


More...
Emily Lloyd: How I was emotionally scarred for life by a brutal sex abuser - when I was five

'Look at cases such as Baby P; he was clearly vulnerable and in an unsafe environment, yet social services didn't intervene.'

In November 1977, a health visitor reported Batchelor was feeding her daughter a diet of pasturised milk, potatoes and gravy, and that the child was often taken to hospital with infections.


When she was 14, Mrs Elliott told Birmingham Social Services her mother had bitten and hit her and begged to be put back into foster care but nothing was done.



Abuse: Collette Elliott aged about three, pictured with her mother Maureen Batchelor, a prostitute who had been cautioned for soliciting, criminal damage and for failing to feed her daughter properly


At one point a social worker who had found adoptive parents for her and had recommended that she should not be returned to her mother was overruled.


Mrs Elliott was so traumatised by her childhood that at the age of 18 she tried to kill herself. She made a subsequent 12 suicide attempts over the next decade as she battled with clinical depression.


She finally requested access to her records two years ago after starting to see a psychiatrist


Speaking to the Mail last year she said: 'It was only last year, after a session with her psychiatrist, that she decided to find out what exactly had happened to her by reading the social services files relating to her childhood.


‘I felt sick as I read them. Suddenly everything slotted into place, and I felt utterly betrayed. I hated my mother.’

Birmingham City Council has failed to admit any wrongdoing. A spokesman told the Times: 'Social work decisions are often very difficult when you're faced with judgements involving removing children from their parents.

'In this case the council did not accept that its decisions were wrong. However, the case has been settled on the basis of legal advice.'Mrs Elliott is now pursuing her demands for an apology.