Social worker struck off after child sex offences
A SOCIAL worker has been struck off after being convicted of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl.
Kevin Mence (43), formerly of Walter Howes Crescent, Middleton, was employed as a social worker by Cambridgeshire County Council when the allegations came to light.
This week he was removed from the Social Care Register by an independent committee of the General Social Care Council (GSCC).
Mence was jailed in November last year after Norwich Crown Court convicted him of twice sexually assaulting the girl, who was not his client.
He was also convicted of making indecent images of a child and possessing over 700 indecent images of children, some of which he distributed.
He was jailed for 16 months, placed on the Sex Offenders Register for ten years and issued with a Disqualification Order preventing him from working with children.
The GSCC committee found Mence guilty of serious misconduct and said his offending behaviour represented a serious departure from the relevant standards in the Code of Practice for Social Care Workers that all social workers sign up to when they register with the GSCC.
It said that in order to protect vulnerable people and uphold public confidence in social care services the only appropriate sanction was immediate removal from the register.
Rosie Varley, chair of the GSCC, said: "All social workers have a responsibility to act appropriately and with integrity, abiding by the law and the GSCC code of practice.
"Thankfully the majority of the 80,000 registered social workers find no difficulty in complying with this. In order to maintain the safety of vulnerable people we take all matters of law breaking by social workers extremely seriously, and will not hesitate to apply the appropriate sanctions."
Mence waived his right to attend the GSCC hearing.
He was removed from the register with immediate effect.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for King's Lynn
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 26 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North
