The former children’s services chief who was sacked over the death of Baby Peter contemplated suicide and now faces the prospect of never working again, a court was told yesterday.

Almost one year on, Sharon Shoesmith is still suffering the effects of post-traumatic stress, cannot find a job and faces financial ruin after the actions of Ed Balls, the Education Secretary, who breached “the rules of natural justice” when he removed her from her post last December, the court was told.

Details of the extent of the political involvement in Haringey Council’s decision to dismiss her without a payoff were revealed yesterday when Ms Shoesmith began judicial review proceedings against the local authority, Ofsted and Mr Balls.

Legal representatives for Ms Shoesmith argued that Mr Balls acted in panic as he faced pressure from the media and a looming political row. Haringey had previously valued her work, rewarding her with a generous pay rise last August, a year after Baby Peter’s death. But in the end they dismissed her without even pay in lieu of notice.

The court was also told how Ms Shoesmith was harassed for months by the media and the public. She was made a virtual prisoner in her London flat, had numerous death threats and witnessed her younger daughter hounded out of her home when the hate campaign switched to her.

The court was told how pressure on Haringey from ministers and senior Whitehall officials to dismiss Ms Shoesmith, 56, had begun in earnest in mid-November last year after a heated exchange about Baby Peter during Prime Minister’s Questions on November 12.

The 17-month-old boy died despite being on Haringey’s child protection register and being seen 60 times by professionals.

Within an hour of the bruising Commons exchange, David Bell, the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Children, Schools and Families, and Beverley Hughes, the Children’s Minister, had called senior figures at Haringey “seeking her dismissal”, the court was told.

Later that day Mr Balls ordered Ofsted into the local authority to review its work. Officials told inspectors that Mr Balls wanted it to be “clear in its judgments of where responsibility lay”. They were also told not to share any interim findings with staff at Haringey — a departure from protocol.

Calls in the media for Ms Shoesmith to go were mounting. The Sun, owned by News International, which also owns The Times, gathered one million signatures.

Yet support for Ms Shoesmith within Haringey remained strong, the court was told. Her managers congratulated her on her handling of a press conference and broadcast interviews, calling her Haringey’s “heroine”.

She now concedes that the press conference was “disastrous”, although she disputed that she refused to apologise for the death of Baby Peter, arguing that it was misreported.

In late November it emerged that Ofsted’s review would be pointing the finger at Liz Santry, the councillor responsible for children’s services, and George Meehan, the leader of the council. They said that they would resign and they urged Ms Shoesmith to do the same. The court was told that Mr Meehan said: “I will never sack you, Sharon, not after everything you have done in Haringey.”

The judge, Mr Justice Foskett, was told that everything changed when Mr Balls held a televised press conference on December 1, in which he released the Ofsted review and announced that he had decided to remove Ms Shoesmith from office.

In answers to questions from journalists Mr Balls went on to say that he judged Ms Shoesmith “not to be fit to hold office” and that he would be astonished if she received any payoff. A week later she was dismissed by Haringey with no compensation.

The hearing is expected to last for three days. Representatives for the Government will argue that Mr Balls had to intervene and remove Ms Shoesmith to restore confidence in the child protection system. He will deny that he acted under media pressure.

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