More on the Whitefield School child abuse scandal: two inquiries raise plenty of questions, but provide far fewer answers

The Whitefield School scandal is without doubt the most shocking of any in Waltham Forest’s post-war history, involving as it does historic allegations that staff had subjected tens of children with learning difficulties and severe mental disorders to violent abuse (see links below).

Thanks to three detailed reports by Noel Titheradge for the BBC, the first on 14 October 2021, the second two on 30 April and then 26 November 2024, much has become known about the sequence and character of the story.

But, regrettably, there also are still gaps, instances where the truth is unclear, and this post looks at two examples. 

The first concerns the inquiry by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) which started just after Mr. Titheradge’s first report; focused on several allegations of ‘child cruelty’ at Whitefield from 2014 to 2017; was named Operation Hopgrove; and, at its peak, involved one detective inspector, one detective sergeant, and 11 constables.

This was obviously a significant initiative, but, surprisingly, there is relatively little information available about how it developed, as the following indicates.

It appears that in 2023, after nearly two years of work, the Operation Hopgrove team sent the material it had collected to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), but when the latter conducted reviews in August and November of the same year, and for reasons that have never been fully explained, no prosecutions of Whitefield staff ensued.

Subsequently, it was reported, MPS inquiries were continuing, but this time concentrating on ‘non-Whitefield staff’, understood to mean ‘other professionals who may have had knowledge of concerns’.

Then, on 27 November 2024, the LBWF Leader, Councillor Grace Williams, in a major statement about Whitefield, noted that ‘criminal investigation into staff at Whitefield’ had ‘now…concluded’.

This looked definitive, but actually only added to the confusion, because, first, as indicated, the CPS decision not to prosecute Whitefield staff reportedly had been taken long before; and second, on the very same day that Cllr. Williams statement was published, the Guardian quoted a police source as saying ‘“We continue to look at information connected to alleged abuse at a school in Walthamstow between 2014 and 2017”’, with the Times adding that the CPS had made the same point. 

Of course, it is unrealistic to expect that every development in police investigations like Operation Hopgrove be made public, but on the other hand, given the importance and sensitivity of this case, it surely would have been better if, throughout, the authorities had been a little more open, thus avoiding the impression that, for whatever reason, they feared transparency. 

Perhaps reinforcing the point, even whether the MPS continues to be involved today is unknown.

The second example concerns a different inquiry into Whitefield, this time one initiated by LBWF.

The trigger, again, was Mr. Titheradge’s October 2021 report.

For with this receiving much publicity, LBWF suddenly announced that it intended to collaborate with the MPS on an investigation of ‘“organised and complex abuse”’ at Whitefield, responding to the government’s statuary guidance, Working Together to Safeguard Children.

The leadership here was to be provided by a ‘Strategic Management Group’ (SMG), with the head of children’s social care in the chair, and representation from the senior ranks of the police, health, education and other agencies ‘as required’.

The aim was to identify ‘the lessons learned’, and produce ‘an Overview Report…with recommendations and an action plan for the local safeguarding partnership, highlighting any practices, procedures or policies which may need further attention and require either inter-agency or individual agency action plans’.

This seemed to be a serious and measured intervention, which demonstrated to interested parties that LBWF was on the ball.

But in the months and then years that followed, there were no SMG updates, let alone proffered recommendations.

Indeed, when the LBWF Leader, Cllr. Grace Williams made her major statement about Whitefield in November 2024 (cited above) she highlighted the decision just made by ‘safeguarding partners’ to ‘commission an independent expert to carry out a Local Children Safeguarding Practice Review to ensure the lessons of this distressing case are learned’, but made no reference at all to the prior investigation led by the SMG. 

Questioned about this in January 2025, LBWF states:

‘Because a decision has been taken by the Local Safeguarding Partnership that an independent review (now known as a Local Safeguarding Child Protection Review) be carried out, until such time as that independent review has been concluded and published, it is not possible for an Overview Report to be prepared by the Strategic Management Group’.  

Additionally, LBWF confirms that the SMG has not produced any written report.

To sum up, then, in LBWF’s telling, the SMG has been examining the Whitefield scandal for three and a half years; has not reported; and is currently paused, awaiting the outcome of the new independent review.

Quite what has been going on here is difficult to determine.

Perhaps the SMG’s lack of progress occurred because of legal issues, for example, MPS and CPS anxieties about prejudicing possible prosecutions?

But since prejudicial comment is always an issue in inquiries of this kind why did LBWF set up the SMG when it did? 

Why didn’t it wait until such time as criminal proceedings had finished?

By the same token, why did LBWF feel it fitting to launch an independent review in November 2024, given that, if the Guardian and Times are to be believed, the MPS at that time was still looking at ‘information connected to alleged abuse’ at Whitefield?

Had legal issues dissipated, because if not, wasn’t this just inviting further delay?

But perhaps another ingredient in LBWF’s thinking was reputation management, specifically the need to be seen to be doing something?

In this context, was it mere coincidence that Cllr. Williams statement of 27 November 2024 appeared just one day after Mr. Titheradge’s third and most disturbing BBC report, entitled ‘CCTV shows pupils abused and locked in padded room’, had garnered widespread public and media attention?

To conclude, the abuse at Whitefield remains deeply shocking, and victims and their parents and carers, as well as local residents, of course deserve a full explanation. 

It is lamentable, therefore, that despite the two inquiries that have been discussed, so much continues to be uncertain.

PS 

It is worth noting that LBWF Leader Cllr. Grace Williams was previously Cabinet member for Children, Young People and Families from April 2016 to September 2021, while LBWF CEO Linzi Roberts-Egan was previously LBWF Deputy Chief Executive for Families (or some such) from September 2015 to July 2019, because as a consequence it is reasonable to assume that both must be very familiar with every facet of the Whitefield School scandal.

And that makes the imprecision described in the preceding paragraphs even more unexpected.

PPS

On 10 April 2025, the BBC website published a further report by Mr. Titheradge which mainly dealt with a school in Leeds, but also included some new information about Whitefield:

‘Now the BBC has learned that the local authority where the school is based, Waltham Forest, was warned that calming rooms were being over-used at Whitefield the year before they were shut down following an Ofsted inspection – but it failed to act.

A charity, the British Institute of Learning Disabilities, visited the school and warned of the harms of seclusion. Waltham Forest did not comment when approached by the BBC’.