Councils could face legal claims from child abuse victims who were not taken into care, after a London authority settled out of court for £100,000. Hackney LBC agreed the settlement with a 39-year-old woman and her two younger siblings after accepting it had failed to remove them from their home as children, despite horrific abuse. The council paid out, despite there being no binding precedent obliging them to do so. Lawyers acting for Jennifer Routledge, who received £57,500, argued councils had a duty under the Human Rights Act to protect individuals from inhuman treatment. They also argued precedent was set by an Appeal Court judgment which backed the claim of a child wrongly taken into care. Child law expert Henry Witcomb explained the implications: ‘These cases are settling. They include not only historic cases but those where the victims, who were belatedly taken into care, are still children. If there is any reluctance on the part of the funding authorities to support these cases that's misguided because the Court of Appeal has confirmed there is a duty of care.'