Foster carer killed by the 12-year-old placed with her

An emergency placement, approved for six days on a verbal conversation, put a boy with a knife caution and gang involvement in a home the council's own team had already identified as an unsuitable match.

What happened

On 5 April 2023, Marcia Grant, 60, was killed outside her home on Hemper Lane in Greenhill, Sheffield. She had been a foster carer for seven years. Six days earlier she had taken a 12-year-old boy on an emergency placement because no alternative could be found. She and her husband Delroy were already caring for another child and were limited to one placement.

That morning the boy tried to take the family’s car. Grant stood behind it to stop him leaving. He reversed into her, then over her again, and she died at the scene of chest injuries. He had never driven before. He fled.

The outcome

In November 2023 at Leeds Crown Court the boy pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving, after a murder charge was dropped, and was sentenced to two years in custody.

On 2 June 2025 an inquest heard evidence about how the placement was made. Assistant coroner Marilyn Whittle recorded a narrative conclusion that Grant’s death was contributed to by failings of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council: inaccurate documentation, failure to communicate risks, failure to carry out appropriate risk assessments, and failure to safeguard those in its care. She issued a prevention of future deaths report on 3 September 2025.

What went wrong

The council’s in-house team had already identified the Grants as an unsuitable match. On 30 March 2023 the placements team texted every in-house foster carer asking for an emergency placement.

Grant’s social worker was not told about the boy’s knife caution or his gang involvement. At the inquest he said that if he had known, he would have “categorically said that was not a match”. The placement was approved for six days by a head of service on a verbal conversation, with no written record.

The coroner concluded that if proper process had been followed, the boy would not have been placed with the Grants. That is as direct as an inquest finding gets: the service did not fail to see the risk. It failed to pass on what it already knew.

What it teaches

A foster carer’s home is a workplace, and the carer is a lone worker with a child in the house. The control is information in writing before consent: what is known, what is alleged, what has not been verified, and who signed it off.

Emergency is where this breaks. Pressure travels down a chain faster than risk information travels up it, and a text to every carer is not a matching process. A fostering service needs a rule that no placement starts until the risk information is in the carer’s hands, and a route for a carer to stop a placement that has already begun.

Questions for the room

Before you accept an unfamiliar placement, what written information do you need, and who signs it?
How do you tell an emergency from pressure coming down the chain?
What is your one-line script for halting work until a risk is recorded?
If a placement is approved verbally, what do you do next?

Evidence and limits

Confidence: confirmed. The record rests on nine sources, including three BBC News reports, two Guardian reports, the prevention of future deaths report on the judiciary website and Rotherham Council’s published copy of it. The boy is not named, and this page describes him only as the 12-year-old in her care.

Our lone working training covers the risk information a worker needs before starting in someone else’s home.

Sources

Reviewed 20 October 2026.