A St Helens man has been removed from the register of social workers by a committee of the General Social Care Council (GSCC) after being found to have formed an inappropriate personal and sexual relationship with a vulnerable child in care.
In 1987 Alan Carr (50), who at the time was working for St Helens Metropolitan Borough Council, formed an inappropriate personal relationship with a service user whilst she was living in a children’s home. At this stage the relationship included physical contact, hugging and kissing and he gave her inappropriate gifts such as £60 in cash and a ring. The Committee also heard that he had a sexual relationship with the woman from 1988 and after she ceased to be in care. The relationship ended in 1997.
At the hearing, during which the service user gave evidence against Carr, the Committee also heard that he pressurised her to retract a statement she had made about him to St Helen’s Social Services about his relationship with her.
In their concluding statement on Friday 25 April, the Committee said the woman was a very vulnerable child in care when Carr began his inappropriate and subsequently sexual relationship with her and this was a clear breach of his position of trust and duty of care as her social worker.
In making their decision to remove him from the register, the Committee said Carr’s behaviour had been ‘fundamentally incompatible’ with being a Registered Social Worker. In light of his continuing denial of the allegations and lack of insight, the Committee felt there was no other way to protect the public other than removal.
Sir Rodney Brooke, Chair of the GSCC, said: “It’s vital that the public can have confidence and trust in the social work profession and removing unsuitable people from the workforce is one way of achieving this. It’s also important to reassure people who use services and the public as a whole that the majority of social workers work to a very high standard and put the interests of service users at the heart of everything they do. Fortunately, those who commit misconduct form only a tiny part of the 80,000 social workers who practice in England.”
Registrants have a right of appeal to the independent Care Standards Tribunal.
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