Hertfordshire County Council has agreed to pay £1,500 to a parent who complained that her disabled child had been assaulted in a taxi on the way to school.

The child had been travelling to school with two other children with disabilities when the assault by one of the other children is said to have occurred.

The victim's mother complained to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman that the council had failed to properly safeguard her child.

In particular, she said it was the failure of the personal assistant to sit in the back seat of the taxi - that had been provided as part of the council’s home to school transport service - that had put her child at risk in September 2019.

The child’s mother told the Ombudsman on the day of the incident, the personal assistant had reported to her that her child and another child had been "proper going for it". On the same day, the school notified her that her child was injured.

She said she had been told the school’s site manager had witnessed an ‘altercation’ between the two children in the taxi that morning – and that the school believed the injuries had occurred during this alteration.

Council officials had initially suggested it did not believe it could be established "with absolute certainty" the child's injuries, which included a broken front tooth, had occurred on the taxi journey. This is because the altercation that led to the tooth being broken had not been witnessed by the personal assistant.

But following an investigation, the Ombudsman ruled it was more likely than not that the injuries did occur on the way to school.

The council confirmed in the Ombudsman report that the taxi company had failed in its contractual obligation for a personal assistant to sit in the back and any incidents or accidents during the journey to be reported. In light of this a contract warning is to be issued to the taxi company.

However, the Ombudsman’s report concludes the county council did put the child at risk of harm on home to school transport. As a result the council has agreed to pay the child’s mother £1,500.

Meanwhile the council has also agreed to establish a means for transport providers to report incidents or accidents as part of the home to school transport provision.

The complaint and the investigation are outlined in a report recently published by the Ombudsman.