Children board to review agencies' involvement with 'witch' case girl.

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Author: Taylor, Amy

CHILD PROTECTION

An independent review will be carried out into agencies' handling of a case involving a girl tortured by her carers who believed she was a witch, after they were found guilty of child cruelty charges at the Old Bailey last week.

Penny Thompson, Hackney Council's chief executive, said that the City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Board would review the involvement of agencies in the case.

Following the verdicts, Scotland Yard launched Project Violet to look into communities in London where children are believed to have been mistreated in the name of religion.

Debbie Ariyo, executive director of Africans Unite Against Child Abuse, said action was urgently required.

Two women, one of whom is the eight-year-old's aunt, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and another relative Sita Kisanga, 35 (pictured), rubbed chilli peppers in the child's eyes and stabbed her in the chest after believing she had become possessed (news, page 7, 19 May).

The pair forced her into a laundry bag and threatened to drown her in a canal before another relative Sebastian Pinto warned them that they would go to prison. The women were cleared of conspiracy to murder but Pinto was convicted of aiding and abetting child cruelty.

The aunt had brought the girl to Britain from Angola in August 2002, pretending to be her mother, and claimed asylum. The girl then went to live with Kisanga in Hackney where the abuse began.

In November 2003, Hackney Council street wardens found the girl on the steps outside her flat cold and hungry with swollen eyes. She was interviewed by police and taken to a doctor and finally social services after her swollen eye and head bruises were examined. She said that it was only Kisanga who beat her and she was returned to her aunt's care in Haringey on Christmas Eve as she was not suspected of abusing her.

But the girl was taken to hospital in January last year after being referred by Haringey social services, where a doctor found injuries that suggested she had been deliberately assaulted. The girl then told the police the whole story.

The three defendants were remanded in custody until July when they will be sentenced.

PHOTO (COLOR): Kisanga: Found guilty of child cruelty along with aunt

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By Amy Taylor