British social worker's failure to report colleague earns a year’s suspension from practice

Daniel Bester, a former children’s social worker at Surrey County Council, was banned from practising for a year by the General Social Care Council (GSCC), following a hearing in London.

A conduct committee heard that Bester, a South African national, had known that friend and colleague Thomas Ritzler was having a relationship with the girl, who was known to social services, in the summer of 2008 but had done nothing.

Ritzler was jailed for two years and placed on the Sex Offenders Register in September 2008.