A CHILD care worker who failed to promptly notify police or her management that a youth possessed a gun has avoided sanctions.

Catrin Davies - who had formerly worked at a care facility in Bennion Road, Wrexham - appeared for the second day of a Social Care Wales fitness to practise panel yesterday.

The panel found the previous day that the sole allegation against her - that she failed to contact the police and her management team in a timely fashion when she became aware a young person in her care was carrying a gun - had been proven.

She had been tasked to transport a young person, referred to as ‘A’ throughout the hearing, from the home in Bennion Road to Newcastle to visit family in April last year.

Part way through that journey ‘A’ showed her the side of a gun in his bag and it was not until she had returned to the home in Wrexham several hours later that she gave a colleague the information about the gun.

She told the hearing she had been in a state of shock following the incident.

The panel heard representation from Delme Griffiths, presenting on behalf of Social Care Wales and Ms Davies’ barrister Rebecca Jones before deciding whether her fitness to practise was impaired.

Mr Griffiths told the hearing that the risks of allowing a young person to go ‘unchecked’ with a gun were ‘grave’.

He added: “It ought to have been clear what she should have done.”

Miss Jones said: “She had never been to the home before, she was never given risk assessments or a care plan for ‘A’.

“She did the best she could in the circumstances.”

Panel chairman David Kyle announced it had been decided that Ms Davies’ fitness to practise was not currently impaired.

He said the panel, which met in Flintshire, was satisfied that she had since reflected on the incident and that she had been emotional and traumatised at the time.

Mr Kyle said in the panel’s view it had been an “isolated error of judgement”.