In his personal attack on me, Nigel Furness (Letters, June 21) is correct to say I was the chairman of Haringey Council's social services committee until I lost my seat in May 1998.

He is also correct that since Victoria Climbie moved to Haringey in 1999, she was subject to the most appalling abuse that resulted in her death in 2000 while in the care of the council's social services department.

It was in response to the failure of various agencies to protect Victoria, including the NHS, NSPCC and the police, that the Government established the Victoria Climbie Inquiry chaired by Lord Laming, the former chief inspector of the Social Services Inspectorate.

Although Victoria came into the care of the council a year after I had ceased to be a councillor, I believed I shared in the collective responsibility of councillors to ensure that failures in the system were identified in order to prevent such a tragedy from being repeated.

I therefore voluntarily came forward and gave evidence to the inquiry, unlike the majority of witnesses, who were compelled to do so. Mr Furness should note that the inquiry did not criticise either myself or my role as chairman of the committee and I was publicly congratulated by Lord Laming for assisting the inquiry.

My motivation for giving evidence was to assist the inquiry because I passionately believe that preventing any further child-abuse tragedies is vastly more important than protecting or furthering the political careers of individual councillors, including my own.

Mr Furness implies that following the loss of my seat in 1998 I immediately moved to Brighton and Hove. This is not true. I moved to Brighton and Hove in 2000 because my wife, who was born and grew up in the city, wished to move back to be closer to her family and our friends. We also are hoping to start a family of our own and could think of no better location to raise our children than this city.

Finally, Mr Furness suggests local electors in East Brighton may "have other ideas" about my candidacy. Well, since we live in a democracy, why should they not? The people of the new East Brighton ward will be able to choose from a number of candidates who they wish to represent them in May 2003, including myself. I only hope voters will be allowed to judge me by my achievements rather than the inaccurate innuendo peddled by Mr Furness and others.

-Craig Turton, Dean Gardens, Portslade