Family

The case of a troubled teenage girl, said to be at grave risk of exploitation, is bound to cause concern to police and social workers after it exposed a worrying gap in the powers of family judges to protect the vulnerable from those who would prey upon them. The girl, aged 18, was addicted to heroin and suffered from a serious eating disorder that put her life at risk. She was made a ward of court when still a child and her local council had been granted non-molestation injunctions against her father and a male friend, forbidding them from contacting her or approaching within half a mile of her home. Her father had a history of drug abuse and was said to have first introduced her to heroin. He was known to the local authority as someone with a history of ... Read more