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An independent inquiry was launched today after it emerged that social workers had dropped Shannon Matthews from the child protection register because they decided that she was no longer at risk of harm.

Kirklees Council announced that an independent serious case review would be held into the local agencies' dealings with her family one day after Shannon’s mother was convicted of having her kidnapped and imprisoned.

Robert Light, Kirklees council leader, said the review was commissioned by the Kirklees Safeguarding Children Board.

“Matters surrounding the Karen Matthews trial are among issues that have put child care and safeguarding in the public eye this week,” he said.

“I think it is important that there is an independent review of the history and records of all agencies’ dealings with the family.

“People will be rightly concerned to be reassured that those professionals working in the field of child care and safeguarding acted properly and professionally in their dealings with the family.”

The nine-year-old was still living with Karen Matthews in a council house in Dewsbury Moor, West Yorkshire despite a social services investigation into the family that had begun six years earlier.

In late 2003, they ruled that no further involvement was necessary and Shannon was removed from the at-risk register even though social workers knew of reports that the Matthews children were being left alone at night, were not attending school and that there were problems with violence, alcohol and drug abuse in the home.

For at least 20 months before she disappeared in February, Shannon was being secretly doped with at least five different drugs, including sedatives, painkillers and antidepressants.

Shahid Malik, minister for international development and MP for Dewsbury, had called for an independent inquiry earlier today.

He denied that he was looking for a scapegoat within social services but insisted that a thorough review was necessary.

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