The woman who blew the whistle on Kingston Council’s children’s social services in the aftermath of Charito Cruz’s murder trial has criticised the department by calling it “lackadaisical and irresponsible”.

Olivia Butler, former interim children’s services manager, welcomed this month’s domestic homicide review into the death of Ms Cruz, who was hammered to death by her boyfriend in front of their infant child in 2011.

Speaking of Davina James-Hanman, the author of the review, she called her “a person of integrity, years of experience and considerable expertise”, but added: “Kingston was complacent about safeguarding children and had been for a long time prior to my taking up post in October 2010.

“Problems were buried in order to preserve an unfounded reputation for safe services. I have not seen such a degree of complacency in any other council I have worked for.”

Ms Butler and her interim team tried to ban the use of “roll back” – the post-facto changing of records in the council’s case management system – but were ignored, she said.

The roll back practice was criticised in Ms James-Hanman’s review and is now only permitted with a senior manager’s permission.

Ms Butler said: “I and my interim management team tried for a number of months to challenge and improve safeguarding procedures and practice.

“But we were frequently ignored by the team managers and we were undermined by the then director of children’s services, Duncan Clarke.

“I resigned because I was not willing to endorse an approach to safeguarding children that was so lackadaisical and irresponsible.”

But the report, made public on Friday, November 14, could not establish whether Kingston Council social workers altered computer records to cover up a lack of action in the murder case.

The report stated: “It has not been possible from the evidence presented, to firmly conclude which version of events is truthful.

“Rather than prolong the [domestic homicide review] still further, the panel agreed to focus on what lessons could be learned.”

A Kingston Council spokesman said: “Child protection services in Kingston have gone through major changes since that time.

“The entire senior management team has changed too.

“The Domestic Homicide Review’s sole purpose was to get to the bottom of the issues that arose in 2011 and suggest learning and changes to processes, all of these have been taken on board, along with our work after the Ofsted report in 2012.

“The administration has made a commitment to listen to any concerns raised by staff at whatever level and have an open door policy for this.”