Here’s the full judgement in the Sharon Shoesmith appeal.

Basically, she succeeded in getting her dismissal by Haringey Borough (London) proclaimed unlawful by the Appeal Court for a number of solid procedural reasons which together amounted (said the Court) to unfair treatment.

I liked these passages, going to the issue of how far she was allowed to get her own side of the story across:

The fact that the Secretary of State wrongly assumed that Ms Shoesmith had had the opportunity to put her case, including her case on personal responsibility, to the OFSTED team does not avail him. The question is whether the procedure, taken as a whole, was objectively fair, not whether the Secretary of State honestly believed that it was fairer than in fact it was.

… I find it a deeply unattractive proposition that the mere juxtaposition of a state of affairs and a person who is "accountable" should mean that there is nothing that that person might say which could conceivably explain, excuse or mitigate her predicament. "Accountability" is not synonymous with "Heads must roll".

I do not consider it likely that Parliament when creating the position of DCS, intended those who may be attracted to such an important and difficult position to be volunteering for such unfairness in their personal position.

Accountability requires that the accountable person is obliged to explain the state of affairs to which it attaches. The corollary is that there must be a proper opportunity to do so. If the explanation is unacceptable, then consequences will follow.

For these reasons, I have come to the conclusion that the Judge was wrong to hold that the procedure leading to the directions of the Secretary of State was not intrinsically unfair. In my view, it was.

… The Secretary of State wrongly assumed that Ms Shoesmith had had more opportunity "to put her case" than in fact she had. He then relied on more personalised or further allegations imputed in the meeting on the morning of 1 December which were never put to Ms Shoesmith. I do not consider the fact of her "accountability" is such as to disentitle her to elementary fairness.

The Court made clear that it was offering no view on whether Ms Shoesmith indeed had been competent or otherwise, albeit by inventing an ugly new verb – to scapegoat:

This is not to say that I consider Ms Shoesmith to be blameless or that I have a view as to the extent of her or anyone else’s blameworthiness. That is not the business of this Court.

However, it is our task to adjudicate upon the application and fairness of procedures adopted by public authorities when legitimate causes for concern arise, as they plainly did in this case. Whatever her shortcomings may have been (and, I repeat, I cannot say), she was entitled to be treated lawfully and fairly and not simply and summarily scapegoated…

So off the case goes, perhaps to a further appeal and certainly to lots more juicy legal fees.

Plus, perhaps, a large sum of money by way of compensation to a former state employee who presided over ruinous incompetence.

Back on earth, fleet street fox writes Ms Shoesmith a brisk letter:

But you should still have been sacked. You did not beat a child yourself but by presiding over a department with a blatant disregard for common sense, the public good and duty of care you undoubtedly contributed to their pain.

That’s not what we paid you for. We paid you to do your best to stop it.

You let Baby P down, and you let us down. Fighting a drawn-out court battle over technicalities of employment law is entirely within your rights and financial means, but that doesn’t mean you should.

You can expect at least £1million in back pay, compensation and unpaid pension, which not a single person in this country apart from you believes that you deserve.

Donate it all to the NSPCC; it’s the only way you’ll ever be able to help children like Baby P, who had he survived could have claimed a maximum £33,000 in compensation.

Earlier today on BBC Radio Five Live I heard a ‘child-care professional’ and an academic in social studies droning on about just how ‘unhelpful’ the whole Baby P episode and its attendant media hullaballo had been, distracting all those ‘professionals’ from doing their job and learning as necessary from their mistakes. The sheer formalism and bland bureacratic self-confidence in their powers to study, analyse and ‘put things right’ if only they were given the space (and of course more resources!) to do so were staggering.

Thus the modern British state, our unique contribution to the famed ‘European social model’.

Incredibly expensive, incredibly clever poring over process, procedures and ‘rights’ by and for the ‘professionals who preside over it, rather than stopping the state-subsidised emergence of an under-class of ignorant violent people whose wretched incorrigible behaviour wrecks so many lives, not least their own.