By Gavin Mackintosh-
Waltham Forest Council are facing serious questions over their failure to house the family of murdered 14-year-old Jaden Moodie two months before his death.
It follows a released report yesterday, Tuesday, that Waltham Forest Council Council failed to housed him.
The Eye Of Media.Com have contacted Waltham Forest Council demanding answers to important questions.e understand his mother asked three times to be moved but Waltham Forest Council was slow to move her.
We want to know why they were so slow to move his mother, and what social services did to address the problems in his life, what education welfare did to help his situation, and why the school was not informed he had been seen was in a crack den. informed when he was found at a crack den.
Jaden’s mother, Jada Bailey made three housing applications to the council during 2018, the first on May 31. No action was taken on this application at all until July 4.
An email on August 6 closing her application, revealed that Jaden’s mother, Jada told the housing officer her son was in “no way out of danger”.
The report adds: “I am wary of reaching judgements influenced by the bias that can come from hindsight but I believe Housing Officer A should have spoken to [her] after receiving this reference to the danger to [Jaden].”
Just over three weeks later, Jada emailed the officer again asking to reopen her application, to which she received no response.
The report says: “I have not been able to interview Housing Officer A as he has left the council’s service but the housing officer’s inaction here appears to reflect a very limited interpretation of what the officer’s responsibilities towards [Jada] and her family might be.
“Senior managers in the housing service have confirmed to me their view that Housing Officer A’s approach at this time was ‘reasonable and proportionate’.
“In my opinion Housing Officer A’s approach was not satisfactory because the officer had not taken any new action since July 2018.
Sofa
Jaden was living on his grandmother’s sofa at the time he was stabbed to death in January 2019, nine months after the family moved to the borough from Nottingham. He had moved out of his mother’s house.
A report from Waltham Forest Safeguarding Children Board concluded that the fact Jaden was not living with his mother “increased his vulnerability to exploitation”, although the council’s housing service does not accept this. The author of the report expressed concern for the council’s “slow” response to his mother’s three requests for housing and failure to act for months.
The report, from former Chief Executive of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales John Drew, reads: “There is no doubt in my mind that some of this work could have been given greater priority.
“I am thinking here in particular of the response to the family’s housing needs, where as I have calculated, settlement could have been reached two months earlier.
“Information exchange was not always good, a fact exacerbated by his living in Nottinghamshire and then Waltham Forest.
“But none of these issues on their own appear to be decisive and by November 2019 there was clear engagement by a number of branches of the council and its partners to support [Jaden’s] family and to protect [Jaden].”
The report highlights “at least one reachable moment” which “could have been seized” after Jaden was found in a Bournemouth crack den with another teenager from Waltham Forest on October 25, 2018.
Jaden is believed to have been involved in drug dealing, but it is not known whether he actually used drugs.
The report describes him as a “vulnerable young person” who “wanted to find a way out of the mess he was getting into”.
The report states: “This was a pivotal moment in providing support to [Jaden]. For the first time the authorities in Waltham Forest had been presented with completely unequivocal evidence that [he] was being criminally exploited.”
“[Jaden’s] mother feels her application for housing was handled ‘terribly’. She was not offered any temporary housing until January 2019.”
Jada reapplied in person on October 29 and was given a new housing officer, whose work the report praises for its “commendable tenacity”.
The report states: “All the information uncovered by Housing Officer B would have been available to Housing Officer A from mid September 2018 at the latest (and the most pertinent information was available in August) onwards.
“In these circumstances I have to conclude that Housing Officer A could and should have done better.
When organisations fail in their responsibility to cater for vulnerable children, and it leads to serious harm, satisfactory answers bout various details of the case become necessary.