Series of errors let British ‘Fritzl’ abuse daughters

A British man was allowed to treat his two daughters as virtual sex slaves over a period of 35 years because child protection professionals, including social workers and police, were too scared to stop him. According to a devastating review of the case published yesterday, a culture of "having a quiet word" existed between the professionals, but no one felt empowered to take direct action.

The two sisters were raped more than 1,000 times by their father, becoming pregnant 18 times and having nine children as a result, two of whom died on the day they were born.

The father, known for legal reasons only as Adult R, has been described as "a British Fritzl" because there are parallels with the case of Josef Fritzl (above right), the Austrian who imprisoned his daughter underground for 24 years and fathered her seven children.

But there was one huge difference between the two cases: Fritzl was not suspected of abuse, whereas Adult R was the subject of repeated allegations of incest.
 
The Serious Case Review presented yesterday catalogued a total of 16 case conferences at which suspicions about Adult R were raised by professionals - but nothing was done. It also revealed that he moved house 67 times in order to avoid detection.

Various experts, including ambulance workers, hospital staff and a headteacher, all expressed concern about non-accidental injuries and the children's poor hygiene. But care workers felt they did not have adequate evidence of incest and some feared - wrongly - that they might be sued for breaching confidentiality.

The Serious Case Review was ordered in an attempt to answer a request made by the judge who gave Adult R 25 life sentences after he pleaded guilty to 25 counts of rape at Sheffield Crown Court in November 2008. Judge Alan Goldack demanded to know what professionals "had been doing for the last 20 years".

The case put before the court was one of the worst litanies of incest and rape ever heard in Britain. Adult R began sexually abusing his daughters when they were as young as eight and "took pleasure" in assaulting them. The violent attacks stopped only while the girls were pregnant.

Professor Pat Cantrill, author of the Serious Case Review, told a press conference yesterday said the abuse could have been halted at any time. "It only really needed one person with tenacity to keep pushing this and pushing this and we might have had a much earlier recognition and action being taken," she said.

"There were people in the community that came forward and attempted to get the agencies to react in relation to this family and they were not listened to the way that they should."

Cantrill said a culture of "having a quiet word" had developed, and that some professionals got "quite stuck" around the subject of incest. "You are aware, as I am aware," she told the press conference, "that there are a number of these serious case reviews that happen and we always don't seem to learn from them."

Both the Sheffield and Lincolnshire safeguarding children boards apologised yesterday for their failings. Chris Cook, independent chair of Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Board, said: "We are genuinely sorry. We should have protected you. People's lives were devastated both by a controlling, power-obsessed and deviant father and our failure to act."

Sue Fiennes, independent chair of Sheffield Safeguarding Children Board, said they had failed the family and "nothing should shield us from that fact". ·