Failings by a local council contributed to the death of a woman who was killed when a 12-year-old boy she was fostering ran her over with her own car, an inquest has found.
Marcia Grant, 60, suffered catastrophic injuries as she tried to stop the boy taking her car outside her home in the Greenhill area of Sheffield in April 2023.
The boy, referred to as Child X, was jailed for two years in November 2023. He pleaded guilty to causing her death by dangerous driving, after a murder charge was dropped.
On Tuesday, the South Yorkshire coroner Marilyn Whittle recorded a narrative conclusion after an inquest into Grant’s death.
She said the circumstances that led to the fatal incident “were contributed to by the failings of the Rotherham metropolitan borough council to have appropriate systems and processes in place when placing foster children, including but not limited to the lack of accurate and complete documentation, failure to communicate risks and concerns appropriately, failure to conduct appropriate risk assessments and failing to safeguard those in their care”.
The coroner said she would be writing a prevention of future deaths report, addressing issues including the council’s lack of documentation and failure to complete forms as well as a shortage of placements, although she said this was a national issue and not limited to Rotherham.
The inquest heard Grant had been fostering for seven years and she and her husband, Delroy, were highly regarded by the council’s fostering team. They were caring for another child, referred to as Child Y, when the council put out a call for an emergency placement for Child X. The inquest heard the couple volunteered to take him despite them being categorised as only able to take in one child at a time because of Child Y’s complexities.
The inquest heard that Child X had a youth caution for possessing a knife and had at times talked about wanting to be part of gang culture, but this information was not included on the “deficient” initial placement referral form, and that Grant’s decision to take him “was made without her full knowledge of Child X’s risks”.
After the inquest, Grant’s son Shaun Grant said his mother deserved better and would not have taken Child X if she had known his full history. He said the family “wholly welcome the coroner’s findings that our mum was failed on numerous fronts and that these failures directly contributed to her death”.
“We have been on an agonising journey to uncover the truth behind the events and systemic failings that led to the death of our beloved mum, Marcia Grant,” he said, reading a statement alongside his sister Gemma Grant. “What has become evident over the last few weeks leaves us with no doubt that our mum was failed, our family was failed, and so too the foster child that was in our long-term care.”
He added: “Whilst this leaves us with a sense of vindication, it also serves to reinforce to us how badly she was failed,. If not for these failures, our mum would still be with us here today.”