Bury council’s chief executive, head of children’s services and borough solicitor have been suspended after an independent review found they ‘deliberately’ delayed carrying out child protection procedures when a councillor was accused of making indecent images of children.

The MEN can reveal chief executive Mike Owen, director of children’s services Mark Carriline and monitoring officer Jayne Hammond are all off work while a further investigation takes place.

Earlier this month the review found Mr Owen and Mr Carriline had ‘inexplicably’ and ‘deliberately’ delayed implementing safeguarding procedures when allegations about Labour councillor Simon Carter first came to light. The then councillor for Tottington, who was on the adoption register at the time, had been accused of making indecent images of children in spring 2015 and was convicted the following September.

Ms Hammond was suspended due to concerns over legal advice she had given regarding the matter.

Inquiries found that Mr Owen and Mr Carriline had waited up to five weeks to carry out a string of child protection measures that should have been implemented within 24 or 48 hours of the allegations surfacing.

That included taking eight days to inform the school where he was a governor. As a result the officers were suspended under emergency powers on February 16.

On Tuesday morning an HR hearing decided to extend their suspensions while a full internal investigation into their conduct takes place.

When allegations first emerged about Carter in April 2015 it is understood police and social services attended his home address, where he handed over a laptop containing pornographic images of children, including category A images, the most extreme kind. However the report found after he had been bailed - and banned from having any unsupervised contact with children - officers did not follow procedures immediately.

Although Carter was immediately removed from the council’s list of people approved to adopt children, a range of other measures aimed at protecting children took days or weeks to be carried out, according to the report.

In June 2015 Carter admitted 16 counts of making indecent images of children at Bolton crown court three months later.

(Image: Handout)

There is no suggestion any children were harmed as a result of the safeguarding delays. However it is understood opposition councillors heard of the issue that summer and asked questions, but were not provided with answers.

When those concerns were again raised with the council in October, more than a year after Carter was convicted, Bury council ordered the external review to see whether safeguarding procedures had been followed.

It is understood it found the senior officers had lost sight of the fact their first duty was meant to be to any children who could be harmed by Carter. The review failed to get an explanation from the officers about the delays.

When it reported back all three officers were immediately suspended ahead of Tuesday’’s hearing, which concluded a full internal HR investigation was now needed.

A statement from Bury Council said that the Human Resources and Appeals Panel of Bury Council had confirmed the suspension of three senior officers pending an independent investigation into how the Council handled a historic individual safeguarding case.

Council Leader Rishi Shori said: “The Council received allegations that there were failures to act appropriately in following safeguarding procedures in respect of an historic individual case. Given the importance of the issue we commissioned an external review, from childcare expert Malcolm Newsam CBE, into how the Council dealt with the issue. The Panel’s decision today follows receipt of that external review. I must stress that the suspension of the three officers is a neutral act and will allow them to focus on responding to the Investigation”.

Pat Jones-Greenhalgh, the executive director for communities and well-being and deputy chief executive, will act as Interim Chief Executive until this Investigation is concluded.

The council statement added: “In order that the investigation can proceed smoothly, the Council will make no further comment at this stage.”

We have tried to contact all three individuals and they haven’t commented at this time.