Cafcass officer made speculative comments in report written for court

What happened

In spring 2013, a Cafcass officer filed a report with the court that wrongly suggested the possibility that Mr N was preying on children, possibly for sexual purposes. This report also gave the officer's view that Mr N had lied to her.

We interviewed the officer to establish on what basis she had included that statement in the report.

When Cafcass looked at the complaint again, it said that the officer had expressed her regret at suggesting Mr N had lied to her. Cafcass apologised at that time for any distress this had caused him.

What we found

There was no evidence to back up the officer's statement that Mr N had preyed on children. We considered it was purely speculative and we took the view that the officer no longer had a balanced view of the case. Cafcass confirmed that its officer should also not have implied that Mr N had lied to her.

Cafcass did not investigate Mr N's complaint fairly. We considered it was wrong for Cafcass to rely on its belief that what the officer had said in her report was her professional judgment, and it failed to identify that the statement about Mr N preying on children and lying to the officer was not based on any evidence.

When it first considered the complaint, Cafcass did not look robustly at Mr N's complaint that the officer had called him a liar. We considered Cafcass acted defensively when looking at Mr N's complaints and was not impartial.

Putting it right

Cafcass wrote to the court before the final hearing, asking it to disregard the speculative statement in its officer's report. Cafcass's chief executive apologised to Mr N for the inconvenience, distress and damage caused by the speculative information and for Cafcass's poor complaint handling. Cafcass reimbursed Mr N's legal fees of just under £3,000 and paid him £1,500 to compensate him for the distress, inconvenience and damage caused by its errors. It reminded all managers to make it clear to staff that, when quality assuring reports, they must make sure that they include evidence-based information, not speculative statements.