'I was right to raise alarm about Aaron'

THE woman who raised the alarm about murdered baby Aaron Gilbert said she feels vindicated after a Swansea social worker was struck off.

Sharon Hurlow feels she is owed an apology and she told the Post that a meeting was being lined up with the council's head of children and family services.

"I have been waiting for this day ever since Aaron closed his eyes for the last time," said Ms Hurlow.

The 45-year-old made two anonymous phone calls to social services on April 27 and May 5, 2005. Concerns were expressed about Aaron's family.

After the April 27 phone call, social services sent a letter to Aaron's mother asking her to attend an interview, but the letter ended up at the wrong address. Just why that happened remains in dispute.

On May 5, the day of Ms Hurlow's second phone call, 13-month-old Aaron was murdered by his mother's violent partner, Andrew Lloyd.

Swansea Council social worker Eleni Cordingley has been told she could no longer practise in the UK after a Care Council for Wales hearing in Cardiff. It found she did not respond appropriately to the phone calls, and exercised "extremely poor judgement". She has subsequently been suspended by Swansea Council.

But after the tragedy, Mrs Cordingley returned to her job after being off on maternity leave. She was given extra training and support, but faced a disciplinary hearing in October 2007.

Ms Hurlow, the cousin of Aaron's mother Rebecca Lewis, said people had questioned her version of events ever since 2005.

Now she feels vindicated.

"I am so pleased," she said. "In the beginning everyone thought I was lying. Now I have got a bit of justice." Her bittersweet relief, however, is overshadowed by Aaron's continuing absence.

Ms Hurlow described how happy she was for her cousin when she became pregnant.

But alarm bells rang in April 2005 when she said she saw Aaron in a soiled pram in Townhill. She alleged there were bruises on his ankles, and picked up the phone to social services. The exact content of this phone call remains the subject of some dispute.

Days later Ms Hurlow tried to see Aaron and his mother at their former home in Gwylfa Road, but she didn't make it past the front door when Lloyd "appeared from nowhere" and forcibly blocked her off.

That incident prompted Ms Hurlow's second phone call to social services, but later that day Aaron was dead.

"I still visit Aaron's grave — I went at Christmas," said Ms Hurlow, of Elphin Gardens, Townhill. "And if I saw something similar happening to another child, I would do the same thing again."