THE COUNCIL has apologised to a man for failing to tell him an investigation against him had closed.

'Mr X' was subject to allegations of abuse from the daughter of a friend he was living with and Wokingham Borough Council opened an investigation into the claims, but no wrongdoing was found against Mr X.

The council did not tell the man the investigation had concluded and this led to Mr X missing work due to the “significant stress and anxiety” it caused.

The allegations came at the start of 2017 after Mr X’s friend’s daughter told her teacher of the supposed abuse.

Mr X denied the allegations but was forced to leave the the friend's house he was living in.

Council workers claimed they would provide Mr X with an update on the allegations but Mr X said he did not hear from them again.

The case was closed in February 2017 but Mr X was not informed of this decision, which led to him emailing the council several times to try and find out “where he stood”.

The council told Mr X they could not give him information relating to the daughter because it was confidential information and he did not have parental responsibility.

After this Mr X pursued a legal complaint against the council because he claimed he was left “in limbo” over the progress of the case.

The council pointed him towards the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO) and Mr X made a further complaint, this time to the Department of Education, setting out a detailed report of his concerns.

The complaints included a lack of contact with the council, concerns about inaccuracies and an issue about social workers not showing their identification when they visited Mr X’s house.

The LGO investigated the complaint in January 2018 and found fault with Wokingham Borough Council’s response, claiming the authority should have considered his complaint as a corporate matter, not under the children’s complaints procedure.

The council accepted that – despite finding communication between the council and the family had been 'positive' – it should have shared information with Mr X that the case had been closed and as a result it apologised to the man.

Mr X received another apology at a meeting with the council and was told the reason he had not received information about the case closing was because he was not the daughter’s parent.

The LGO determined that an apology was a suitable response to the stress caused by the events rather than financial compensation, as “it is likely that some of this stress was caused by the allegations, the council’s investigation and moving out” of his friend’s house.

The LGO’s decision was made in August, having recently been published on its website.