IN HIS interview in Wednesday’s Oxford Mail about the Bullfunch Serious Case Review, Oxfordshire County Council’s head of children’s services Jim Leivers suggests that senior “commanders” could not possibly have known what was going on at a lower level, either in Oxfordshire Children’s Services or, in Chief Constable Sara Thornton’s case, in the Thames Valley Police.
Neither of which, as Alan Bedford’s Bullfinch Review makes clear in my view, was in fact the case.
Mr Leivers claims that recognition of what had been happening in and around Oxford to 370 or so girls over at least 16 years did not become apparent to Oxfordshire children’s services until a year or so before the Bullfinch trial, even though a number of professionals, parents, and victims had for years been trying repeatedly to alert Oxfordshire authorities at the highest level.
Denial is not a very persuasive defence, even if it comes from Mr Leivers some years after those in charge at the time at the council have retired.
BRUCE ROSS-SMITH
Bowness Avenue
Headington Oxford
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