Until yesterday Sharon Shoesmith had a staff of more than a thousand, a budget of £100 million and an annual salary of £100,000.

In the aftermath of the Baby P case she fought to keep all three and refused to resign. Today all she can hope for is the possible right of an appeal to an employment tribunal.

Ms Shoesmith, 55, from Co Antrim in Northern Ireland, spent most of her professional life in education rather than social services. She rose from being a teacher to a school inspector and worked in the school improvement division, monitoring schools with serious weaknesses and requiring special measures.

When she was appointed by Capita – the private company that oversees the borough’s schools – to be the director of children's services in Haringey in 2005, she promised to lower the number of children who were taken into care by stepping in earlier with help if needed.

Acquaintances speak of her as authoritative, arrogant and “dismissive of anyone who doesn’t subscribe to her view”. It was perhaps this will of iron that was her undoing.

She also posed questions when she took up the role that were not answered adequately in the case of Baby P. “When do you intervene? When do you take children into care? When do you support them inside their own family?” she said in an interview after her appointment.

After the verdicts in the Baby P case she spoke, through one of her two daughters, of her disbelief at the reaction to the death of the toddler. “It has really shocked me how much of the media has missed the point that this is a horrendous tragedy and everybody obviously is horribly shocked by it, but there is so much blame, there is so much anger and hatred out there.”

Police are now investigating threats sent to her home that a member of her family would be killed. The threats were reportedly accompanied by hate mail and abusive e-mails.

She remained widely respected among many of her peers. In an open letter of support last month, heads from 61 primary and secondary schools in the borough called her an “outstanding public servant” who had in her previous role revitalised Haringey’s once embarrassing and demoralised education service.

Nevres Kemal, a former social worker who gave warning about Haringey council’s social services failings six months before Baby P died, believes that Ms Shoesmith was misled by her managers in the case. She reports having told the director of children’s services: “I’m not going to shut up. You don’t know what is going on in social services, what is being concealed from you.”

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