Babies are living with abusive parents under 24-hour CCTV surveillance, The Telegraph can reveal, as the Children’s Commissioner calls for a review into the ‘Big Brother-style’ accommodation.

Local authorities are spending millions-of-pounds each year housing parents suspected of being unfit to care for their children by housing them in residential family assessment centres.

Councils and the courts can allocate a family to the centres – which are monitored with 24-hour CCTV – when there are serious concerns regarding parenting skills. They help provide evidence of competence and can play an important role in making difficult long term decisions regarding vulnerable children.

However “disturbing” cases – which have remained unreported until now – where children have been physically injured and sexually abused while living in the units have prompted the Children’s Commissioner to call for a review into the controversial scheme. 

Anne Longfield OBE told The Telegraph that a review of the centres was needed after this newspaper brought a “shocking” case to her attention in which an eight-month-old baby boy was sexually abused by his mother during her elongated stay at the centre.

She told this newspaper: “The details of this shocking case do beg questions. Where these Centres provide early parental support, I have heard good things, but the nature of these “assessments” both as a process, and how they practically work, combined with the length of stay and the costs involved suggest a valid case for reviewing how they continue in future.”