Social worker issued with death threat, while others accused of rape, abuse, and paedophilia

One participant told researchers she was described as a paedophile online because of her work as a child protection practitioner.

A participant in a study on harassment of social workers and child protection staff was targeted with a death threat, while others were accused of having a sexual interest in children.

The 'Crossing the Line' study has been conducted by Amy Bradley, Kenneth Burns, Fiachra Ó Suilleabháin and Olwen Halvey from the School of Applied Social Studies in UCC.

It examined the experiences of harassment and social media abuse of 19 workers in the spheres of social work, and child protection and welfare.

In one case, the abuse and harassment spanned a seven-year period, while in four cases, the targeting only stopped when the instigator got criminally convicted on foot of complaints made by the study participants.

The study noted participants “mostly described that the problematic behaviours and posts largely stemmed from their role as decision-makers at certain points in their work with a child or family”.

One of the respondents in the study, who was the subject of a death threat, recalled: "She'd made another threat to a family support worker during access that she was going to kill me and she didn't mind what time she had to do for it.” 

One of the participants said of the abuse targeted at her: “They had my photograph up and they were going around going, ‘this woman will take children’, ‘keep your child away from this woman’, you know. 

"And I kind of thought that's personal then it's me, it's my photograph. And then they put up photographs of my children … They're actually researching me and trying to find out things about me. And that's when I thought that's personal then, that's harassment.” 

She also told researchers she was described as a paedophile online because of her work as a child protection practitioner.

One male worker said: “This lady said she was abused, that she was a victim of a paedophile ring, that I had peddled her into prostitution.”

Another said: “I started getting emails, you know, saying that I was also involved in rape, abuse, of this person that I had been in the room and burnt her with cigarettes and, along with my friend that I had done all this. I've never even seen this woman in my life, knew nothing about her.” 

Another participant said she had been told by the person targeting her they knew her car and knew where she lived.

The authors of the report said it was a “significant cause of secondary distress” for those taking part in the study that their employers had “left them to manage the issue, partly or mostly, on their own”.