Leiland-James Corkill: Killer lied to social workers, report findson July 28, 2022 at 3:00 pm

A woman who murdered the baby she was trying to adopt lied to professionals about her alcohol use and mental health problems, a report has found.

Laura Castle, 38, shook 13-month-old Leiland-James Corkill at her home in Barrow, Cumbria, in January 2021.

A safeguarding children board review found there were systemic failings in the adoption process and information was not always shared between agencies.

Cumbria County Council said it had already made changes to how it worked.

In response to the findings, the authority said Castle “deliberately and repeatedly misled and lied to social workers about vitally important aspects of her life”.

Castle and her husband Scott took in Leiland-James in August 2020 when he was eight months old after he had been taken into care at birth.

The couple had been assessed and approved by the county council’s adoption service.

However, at the time Castle was having counselling with the organisation First Step about issues including her “low mood, anxiety and anger management”.

The adoption team did not make checks with the service as they were under the impression from her, and from her GP, that the therapy was historic.

First Step was unaware that Castle and her husband had applied to adopt and were being assessed – though they did inform the GP it was working with her – as it is not current practice for an adoption service to contact a counselling agency for information.

The information held by First Step revealed that she drank six bottles of wine a week, considerably above the recommended alcohol limit and three times the amount she told adoption assessors she consumed.

Shortly after Leiland-James’s placement, Castle was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis but social workers were not made aware of her new medical condition.

A concern was raised about her alcohol intake as part of a consultation for a separate health issue.

This information was shared with her GP, but not with any other agency.

The report found the Castles had significant loans and credit card debts but did not have the income to service them.

However, the financial assessment form for the adoption did not ask about the total they owed – it only required the couple to disclose what they were spending on loans and credit cards each month.

That “enabled the family to disguise what they owed and they were only paying the minimum amount each month”, the review said.

The form has since changed and there is also a plan to review financial assessments at the time of a match to ensure information is up to date.

John Readman, executive director for people at Cumbria County Council, said it fully accepted the findings of the report, was deeply sorry for Leiland-James death and offered condolences to his birth family.

“The Castles went through a full eight-month assessment and approval process involving criminal records checks, multiple references and extensive training,” he said.

“No concerns were raised by anyone, in any agency, about their suitability to become adopters.

“Laura Castle deliberately and repeatedly misled and lied to social workers about vitally important aspects of her life, including her mental and physical health, her alcohol use and debts.

“We also know now that relevant information about Laura Castle was not shared between agencies, and that more could have been done to clarify some of the information we were provided with.

“The assessment and approval process follows agreed national standards which are lengthy and intensive.

“The report clearly highlights the vulnerabilities in the process when prospective adopters repeatedly lie about their lives and circumstances.

“We have already made changes to how we work locally and will continue to implement the recommendations in this report.”

Prof Sarah O’Brien, chief nursing officer for NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board, said: “Lack of robust information sharing continues to feature in child death reviews nationally and for Leiland-James, information sharing was not good enough throughout the critical stages of the adoptive process.

“Steps have already been taken locally to address this and a recommendation to change national guidance has also been made.”

Lesley Walker, independent scrutineer with Cumbria Safeguarding Children Partnership, told BBC Radio Cumbria: “I think that they [social workers] need to be challenging information, triangulating and checking out information from a number of sources about adult vulnerabilities.

“There were a number of pieces of information that were not shared as widely as they should’ve been.

“We’ve taken steps with a new questionnaire to go into detail about vulnerability and financial situations and seek out information in a robust way.”

Castle maintained the death was a tragic accident up until the start of her trial at Preston Crown Court.

She then pleaded guilty to manslaughter and to the jury she had shaken Leiland-James because he would not stop crying, and his head hit the armrest of the sofa before he fell to the floor.

Medical experts determined that the force required to cause his injuries would have been a combination of shaking and an impact with a solid surface.

Prosecutors said Castle killed the boy when she lost her temper and suggested she smashed the back of his head on a piece of furniture.

She was jailed in May for a minimum of 18 years.

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